Leading the Country

The word is that Harriet Harman is positioning herself to take over running the nation in the event of Gordon Brown’s departure as Prime Minister. The expert panel at Politics Home has reached this conclusion by an almost three-to-one ratio of Yes to No, so it is a rumour that is worthy of our attention.

The Labour Party is in a very difficult position, and it is difficult to see a way forward that they can ‘sell’ to their membership and to a sizable number of the British public.

The party itself is still in dire financial straits, and the Unions obviously want (expect?) their agenda to be implemented as government policy in exchange for bailing the party out yet again. This has been covered all over the media recently, though it has now gone quiet so we must assume that talks are being held even more secretly than usual for such events.

Meanwhile, the deep unpopularity of Gordon Brown has put the party into possibly the trickiest position it has ever experienced — certainly in the past several decades. A change of Leader after just a year would be extremely humiliating, and there would be widespread calls for a General Election to give the replacement PM a clear mandate. This call would come just as much from Labour Party members and Labour supporters as from elsewhere. However that as-yet hypothetical election seems doomed to result in a Conservative Government, even if it fails to win an overall majority of seats in the Commons.

However, it is clear to observers and commentators right across the political spectrum that the longer a General Election is left, the worse it will be for Labour. Not only would the prospect of an overall Conservative majority increase with time, as the country plunges deeper into the mire, but also the period of time that Labour would have to expect to be out of power would rocket upward from its present two-to-three terms to a generation or more.

It isn’t as if a change of leader would improve Labour’s standing, as they have no real talent suited to the position of Prime Minister, even on a caretaker basis. Polls have shown that the public would be even less supportive under any of the feasible alternative leaders than they already are under Gordon Brown’s premiership.

Harriet Harman would probably be the worst choice of all, especially electorally. Few male voters would support someone so vehemently anti-men (as the latest Fathers 4 Justice action shows) so that’s almost half the nation’s possible votes that would be threatened by having Harman running Britain. Some of her policies, including very recent announcements that will still be in people’s minds for some time to come, are so extreme as to assure Labour of yet another significant drop in support should they put her in charge. It would be political suicide.

So, where do Labour go? The least bad option would be for Gordon Brown to announce that failing health means he has to step down as PM, and to call a General Election this autumn. I wonder whether they have the wisdom to bite the bullet and take this path. Even knowing that the alternatives will prove far worse for them in the longer run, can they think beyond the here and now and make such a decision?

It doesn’t seem to be in their natures to do so, and I suspect that the Conservative Party chiefs are well aware of how Labour are most likely to go and are planning their own strategy with that taken into account. They will also have contingency plans ready in case Labour do twig, and go for the resignation and election (or even just the election, with Brown still in office) .

Whatever they decide to do, let’s just hope they don’t completely wreck the country in the process. It has been speculated in some places (I have seen it in three completely independent places) that — in order to damage the future Conservative Government’s credibility — they will pursue a so-called “scorched Earth” policy, deliberately turning our country into the worst possible mess they can make of it. This would be unsurprising, as Labour are well known for putting their own political aims and ambitions above everything and everyone else.

There are certainly going to be some very interesting times ahead…