Today’s Telegraph contains an excellent article entitled Gordon Brown: Star of his own horror show. I strongly recommend you read it.
In it, Riddell points out, accurately, that, serious as the assault on the PM is from across the political divide, his real problems lie within the Labour party itself.
The fall-out from the McBride affair is far from over. Yesterday, Ray Collins, Labour’s general secretary, effectively cut Derek Draper adrift from the party mainstream. In a letter to the party’s National Executive Committee, Collins wrote:
I receive advice and opinion from many Labour Party supporters in my work as general secretary but I decide what advice I take or seek and act in a manner appropriate with my values and those of the party, which certainly does not include smears or personal attacks. I want to reiterate that Derek Draper does not hold a position or role with the Labour Party and this will remain the case.
Draper, for his own part, has admitted that he is considering his position as editor of the LabourList website and will decide within a week whether or not to “soldier on”.
Against this background of disarray, there will be many, as Riddell observes, who will wish to take advantage of Brown’s weakened position to settle old scores:
The danger for Mr Brown is that the ministers and apparatchiks within his own party who claim to have been briefed against by Mr McBride could almost fill Wembley stadium.
The actual revolt, however, coalesces round a small but vocal core: the Blairites. By chance, the heavenly chorus of Blair loyalists has struck up just as their master is touring radio stations, promoting his Faith Foundation and “doing God”. Mr Brown, meanwhile, is being condemned as an overlord of darkness.
That stereotype has its roots not in Mr McBride’s behaviour, but in the long Blair/Brown war, which made the Capulets and Montagues seem neighbourly.
I can vouch for the reality of this internecine enmity. Yesterday, a Labour parliamentary colleague told me how bad it had become:
“I don’t know why everyone is so surprised. It’s the way those people have always operated. This is justice for Blairites as much as it is for Tories.”
He then went on to repeat accusations that he said had been made against two very senior Blairite MPs. They were shocking, but so egregious as to be almost laughable. Nevertheless, if I were one of the two individuals, I would be livid.
On Monday, the Parliamentary Labour party will convene in an atmosphere of anger and division. Riddell tells us that staff at No 10 are “struggling to assemble a damage limitation strategy.”
I bet they are; and whatever they come up with had better be good. Really good.
