My sincere admiration goes to Gillian Duffy, the lifelong Labour supporter from Rochdale, whose trip to the shops last April to buy a loaf of bread turned into the defining moment of the 2010 general election campaign.
Given her very public humiliation at the hands of the leader of her party, who churlishly denounced her as a “bigoted woman”, she might have felt tempted, were she a lesser person, to tell Labour where to stick it.
Mrs Duffy, however, is made of sterner stuff, and yesterday was guest of honour at the opening of the offices of Simon Danczuk, Rochdale’s new Member of Parliament.
Gillian Duffy is a trooper who is clearly devoted to her party and prepared to put the past behind her to advance its cause.
One might be inclined to contrast her conduct with that of Gordon Brown, of whom little has been seen since May.
An extraordinary day, to which the adjective “historic” can be justly applied.
Too late now to blog fully, but three memories of it are already engraved on my mind:
- the grim look on the face of Peter Mandelson as he left Downing Street for the last time;
- the catch in Gordon Brown’s voice as he mentioned the names of his young sons;
- the smile of satisfaction on the face of the Chief Whip as he announced to the occupants of a packed Committee Room 14: “Colleagues… the Prime Minister!”
“Febrile” doesn’t do justice to the atmosphere in the House right now.
This place, always a hotbed of rumour, is abuzz with spectulation about Gordon’s future, both immediate and long-term, and how many cabinet seats the Lib Dems may get.
The Parliamentary party has been put on standby for a meeting later tonight. Until then, the rumours will continue.
A long first day back at Westminster, the most dramatic event of which was the announcement by Gordon Brown of his intended resignation as Labour leader. I wish I could find some suitable words of praise for him, or of regret at his departure, but I can’t. Let’s leave it at that.
This evening, there was a meeting of the Parliamentary Conservative party in committee room 14, the biggest in the House. It was so full that it could scarcely accommodate all the Members who turned up. We are now a very big party indeed.
After the meeting, some of us adjourned to the smoking room (where smoking isn’t allowed, by the way). That, too, was full of Tories. It was particularly satisfying to sit at an all-Welsh Conservative table.
This Parliament is going to be very different from the last. The negotiations continuing among the three principal parties will determine its shape, if not necessarily its duration.
The Sun’s front page this morning is a classic typical of that newspaper.
Next to a picture of Gordon Brown emerging from the famous black front door, it screams:
SQUATTER HOLED UP IN No 10
Man, 59, refuses to leave house in Downing Street.
The point is well made. I know that, constitutionally, Brown is still Prime Minister. I know, too, that he still harbours a legitimate, if rather desperate-looking, ambition to try to stay on and do a deal with the Lib Dems.
However, the fact remains that the Labour Party emphatically lost the general election. For Brown to stay on in Downing Street and continue to enjoy the trappings of Prime Ministerial office is simply to rub the electorate’s nose in it.
Best for him to move out and await the outcome of negotiations.
Travelled over to Delyn, the prospective seat of our excellent candidate Antoinette Sandbach, yesterday, where David Cameron was visiting Holywell’s Tesco store. I was astonished to be greeted by Tesco’s chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, who was, as might be expected, a most impressive, switched-on individual, but also a thoroughly nice guy.
David’s plane from Newquay had been delayed, so I spent a lot of time speaking to the Tesco staff who had stayed behind after the store’s closing time to meet him. I also enjoyed the incongruous sight of a major press operation in the fruit and veg department, with cameramen jostling for the best position.
David finally arrived, accompanied by Samantha, and went off for a fifteen minute conversation with Sir Terry. He then returned to fruit and veg and fielded half a dozen or so unprepared questions from staff members on issues as diverse as education maintenance allowance and the conditions experienced by our troops in Afghanistan.
It was an interesting experience, not least because it gave me the opportunity to observe the press pack at close quarters. Most of them looked as harassed as the politicians.
I understand that Gordon Brown visited a Tesco yesterday, too – the store in Hammersmith, where he was accompanied by Prunella Scales, who used to appear in the company’s TV ads.
This close to polling day, in politics, as in grocery, every little helps.
Caption suggestions welcomed.
From the back seat of a Jaguar, somewhere in Rochdale:
PM: That was a disaster. Should never have put me with that woman … whose idea was that?
Second voice: I don’t know, I didn’t see her.
PM: It’s Sue, I think. It’s just ridiculous. (Muffled sounds)
SV: What did she say?
PM: Ugh, everything – she’s just a sort of bigoted woman, said she used to be Labour. It’s just ridiculous.
Say a prayer for Sue tonight.
Attended the Colwyn Bay hustings last night, which was extremely well attended and very lively.
Returned home to see the Labour party’s latest election broadcast. This informed us that the Conservatives will remove the right of cancer sufferers to see their specialist.
Labour’s election campaign, both nationally and locally, has been an utter disgrace. But, with this broadcast, they have surpassed even themselves in the art of gutter politics.
Presumably Gordon Brown didn’t authorise this, either.
Seemingly, the entire blogosphere is bemused as to why Labour thought it a good idea to set up a photo-op for Gordon Brown with an Elvis impersonator yesterday. The tweeted comment of the normally ultra-loyal Kevin Maguire sums up the despair breaking out within Labour-supporting ranks:
Lab’s lucky to be 3rd after viewing film of Brown-Elvis horror show. Comical Ali’s lost it. As bad as backfiring Gene Hunt ad.
Maguire’s exasperation is given extra poignancy when one realises that the ersatz Elvis is singing The Wonder of You, the first stanza of which goes:
When no-one else can understand me
When everything I do is wrong
You give me love and consolation
You give me hope to carry on.
Not, I suspect, the sort of upbeat message the Labour spin machine was hoping to convey.
Ruthin hustings last night; very well attended, despite the competing political attraction in Bristol and the sporting one in Madrid.
The first question from the audience was about my Labour opponent’s election address and its allegation that the Conservatives will scrap free bus passes for pensioners: why, asked the questioner, was the candidate publishing something that was not true?
The candidate appeared very uncomfortable and mumbled something which amounted to considerably less than a denial that the document was a lie. I said, for the umpteenth time during this campaign, that the leaflet was indeed untrue and that we will not only keep free bus passes, but also the winter fuel allowance and free TV licences for the over 75s. I did not, I said, blame the Labour candidate particularly, but I did blame her party’s spin machine for peddling lies because it had nothing positive to say.
Meanwhile, in Bristol, something similar was happening. In the Leaders’ debate, David Cameron took Gordon Brown to task over the lies, which have been published by Labour candidates up and down the country. Cameron told Brown the he should not be resorting to frightening people in an election campaign and that he should be ashamed of himself. Disgracefully, Brown’s only reply was that he had not personally authorised the leaflets.
The exchange illustrates what a spineless, odious man Gordon Brown is. He should have admitted immediately that the leaflets are lies and apologised unreservedly for them. Instead, as ever, he sought to dodge personal responsibility and was happy to hang his candidates, including my hapless opponent in Clwyd West, out to dry.
The sooner our country ceases to be governed by this appalling individual, the better.
The desperation now gripping the Labour party is clearly highlighted in an interview with the Prime Minister in today’s Independent:
Gordon Brown appealed yesterday for a “progressive alliance” of natural Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters to join forces to keep the Conservative Party out of power… He revealed a rethink in Labour’s strategy in which the party will try to sell its sweeping constitutional reforms to highlight common ground with the Liberal Democrats and convince voters that it can still offer change after 13 years in power.
This new enthusiasm on the PM’s part for bipartisan politics will cause raised eyebrows among those who, like me, have sat through Prime Minister’s Questions for the last two and a bit years and observed Brown reserve his most scathingly contemptuous criticism for the Lib Dems, a party he clearly despises, to the extent that he pointedly refuses to use their correct title, instead always referring to them as “the Liberal party”.
So why, one wonders, this sudden cosying-up? It’s strangely reminiscent of Mrs Merton’s penetrating question to Debbie McGee:
“So, Debbie, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”
Labour’s general election manifesto will be launched later today. It is heavily trailed in all the dailies and the Mirror even prints a picture of its front cover, which shows a family gazing at the sun rising over a green and pleasant land.
As might be expected, Labour’s pre-launch hype seeks to gloss over the not unimportant point that the party has been in power for the last thirteen years:
“The days of take it or leave it public services are over,” Brown says. “The days of just minimum standards are over. The days of the impersonal are finished. It has to be personal, accountable and tailored to your needs, and with a mechanism to trigger change if the service does not meet your needs.”
A reasonable reader might be inclined to ask why, if the Prime Minister is so determined to do away with “take it or leave it” services, he has presided over them for so long. That, however, is not the issue. The real issue, you see, is one of substance.
Yes, “substance” is a word that may be found spattered across today’s papers. The manifesto is a “manifesto of substance” because the choice for electors is one between “Cameron style” and “Brown substance”.
I could make a joke about “Brown substance”, but, since I am not the former Labour candidate for Moray, I shall refrain.
By the way, I’m not entirely sure that the “sunrise” motif is one that Labour should be employing. It merely serves to remind people that it is always darkest before the dawn. And the darkness is one of Labour’s making.
