Memex 1.1

The Bagehot column in the Economist gets it about right:

It is true, or seems to be, that Mr Brown is maniacally ambitious but politically timid. He is intellectually curious but cripplingly indecisive. Witness the barrage of procrastinating policy reviews that he unleashes in every speech; unsurprisingly, more were set up this week, after the tragicomic loss of two doomsday discs by the revenue and customs service (HMRC). It is true, as the uncharitable gave warning, that Mr Brown copes badly with criticism—so badly, it turns out, that he sometimes shakes with pain and rage. He appoints supposedly independent ministers, then bullies them into line-toeing submission. He shies from blame when it is due and sucks up credit when it is not.

Unfortunately, the gristle and the guts—the ugly secrets of the Brown abattoir—have been gruesomely displayed for all to see. During the non-election fiasco in October, the country witnessed the low political calculation and fake ecumenicism, the shallow bombast and obfuscation, the indecision and ultimately the cowardice. In the first days of the Northern Rock crisis, it saw—or rather didn’t see—Mr Brown hide behind the sofa that he kept in Number 10 when Tony Blair left, just as he kept the uncollegial approach to government associated with it. Those who thought he could shuffle off his old skin when he realised his prime-ministerial dream, or at least that his psychological tics would not warp his tenure, seem to have been wrong. For Mr Brown, perhaps personality is destiny after all.

Readers with long memories will remember the moment when, as his administration was sliding into chaos, John Major revealed in an interview that he sometimes tucked his shirt into his underpants. This interesting sartorial detail was instantly fastened upon by the Guardian’s Steve Bell, who from then on always portrayed Major with his Y-fronts outside his suit. Well, guess what?

Nice column by Stryker McGuire…

Blair’s politics live on most vividly in Brown himself. It’s uncanny the way the new prime minister has both killed Blair and shamelessly assumed his mantle. He’s amassed impressive popular support as the anti-Blair with a serious, nonflashy style that sets him apart from Blair, whose presentational pizzazz came to be deplored as spin by an electorate that turned angry after the invasion of Iraq. And yet, like Blair before him, he’s continued to develop hard-line policies on such issues as immigration and crime. He’s proposed locking up for five years anybody in illegal possession of a gun, for example. Such measures help to tighten Labour’s hold on the political center ground that was so key to the party’s Blair-led landslide in 1997. “It’s very clear that [Brown is] determined to continue being a New Labour politician,” says Blair’s erstwhile ideologist-in-chief, the sociologist Anthony Giddens, former director of the London School of Economics. “You’ve got to grasp the center ground, and his strategy is to squeeze the Tories out toward the edges.”

If, like me, you were repelled by the unctuous vapouring of Gordon Brown’s Conference Speech, then you’ll enjoy Ross McKibbin’s acerbic commentary in the current LRB. Sample:

How problematic Brown’s policies were and are has been demonstrated by the Northern Rock affair. In the short term, of course, its difficulties were not the doing of the government. Northern Rock was the victim of a crisis in the international banking system caused by unwise mortgage lending in the United States. In the longer term, however, Brown, New Labour and much of the country’s political and financial elite have acquiesced, with more or less enthusiasm, in a financial regime which began in this country with the abolition of credit restrictions by the Thatcher government. Although there were arguments in favour of abolition it was always very risky – just as the present colossal levels of personal indebtedness (essential to Labour’s electoral success) are very risky. That it came to a run on a bank – something that has not happened in Britain for 150 years, not even in the international financial crisis of 1931 when the stability of the British banking system was the wonder of the world – shows how instinctively (and understandably) nervous people are of this regime. Furthermore, Brown’s system of regulation worked badly. It was he who divided regulatory responsibility between the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England – which was asking for trouble – and it was he who extended the autonomy of the Bank, with predictable results.

The truth is that — as McKibbin points out — much of what is most detestable about New Labour — its authoritarianism, contempt for civil liberties, adulation of ‘wealth creation’, micromanagerial obsessiveness over ‘targets’, PFI, etc. — are actually more Brown’s creations than Blair’s. The only difference is that Brown is now varnishing them with a new layer of patriotic tosh about “Britishness”, “British values”, etc. If the Tories weren’t so pathetic there might be some hope of unhorsing the pompous ass.

From Stryker McGuire’s blog…

He won’t. Which is to say British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will not call a snap election for the autumn after less than four months in office despite the current swirl of rumors and speculation. Hedge: nothing in politics is certain — but I really don’t think a precipitious election makes sense. More importantly, Brown’s inner circle, and Brown himself, don’t think it makes sense…

Good God! Janet Daley thinks Gordon Brown is rather good.

In a time of national threat we don’t want cuddly; we want serious and stern. Charm might be nice when politics is becalmed and day-to-day living is secure, but gravitas is a whole lot better when there are unknown numbers of people in your midst ready to commit random mass murder. When a nation is in danger, it judges its leader (or potential leader) by his character, rather than his personality. So if the contest between Mr Brown’s governing style and David Cameron’s opposition is really to be, as my colleague Boris Johnson wrote on this page last week, between humourless Labour Roundheads and jolly Tory Cavaliers, then God pity the Conservatives. The last thing that the electorate will welcome now is the opportunity to be governed by prancing fops.

Lovely use of time-lapse photography…

Guardian photographer Dan Chung’s time-lapse view of number 10 Downing Street compresses Tony’s departure and Gordon’s arrival into 30 seconds. Don’t blink…

Thanks to Pete for spotting it.

Nice piece by Michael Portillo.

I had concluded, when I left politics, that the Tories were ungovernable and had a death wish. But Cameron is clever and charismatic; I believed he could succeed where I had failed, especially since even the Conservatives might learn something after three landslide defeats.

Now I am not so sure. Cameron has wobbled. Unless he regains control of his party at once, the project will be lost. It would be much better for him to press on even at the risk of being deposed than to settle into the leadership agony of Hague and Howard.

I have always doubted that the Conservatives could win the next election. Now the question in my mind is different: can the Tories ever win again?

Matthew d’Ancona thinks that Gordon Brown may have some genuinely Big Ideas.

Stand by for a huge constitutional debate: that was one of many messages to be drawn from Gordon Brown’s launch this morning. Asked whether his plans included a written constitution, he would only say that he favoured a “better constitution”. But there was an explicit promise to curb the Crown prerogative, make Parliament more powerful, submit certain government appointments to parliamentary oversight, and (less overtly) entrench citizens’ rights and responsibilities in some way. Gordon left us is no doubt that he is thinking big.

Meanwhile, over on OpenDemocracy.net, Anthony Barnett sets out a list of what a new constitutional settlement would have to cover.

Hmmm… Gordon Brown has a web site. But it’s called GordonBrownForBritain.com. GordonBrown.com is a Blogger-hosted blog run by someone who doesn’t seem particularly enamoured of the Chancellor. Someone on Brown’s team missed a trick there, methinks. The domains GordonBrown.net, .org and .info are taken, but GordonBrown.us and GordonBrown.biz are still available.