IT DOESN'T really matter now whether Gordon Brown steps down; there is no way back for Labour. Seems to me that those calls for him to quit from Charles Clarke are a waste of time. Clarke was a notably hopeless Home Secretary who carries no discernib
le appeal and he bears a grudge. Panic merchants like Clarke merely deepen Labour's misery.
Brown would probably be better to cling on. That way he could at least buy time, his last desperate hope if the necessary miracle is to happen – and of that there is no sign. His difficulty seems insurmountable. He is the latest victim of the unstoppable and merciless force in politics that demands constant change. Politicians, being expendable, require frequent replacement. It might not be fair, but it is essential when governments become worn out and lose the people's patience.
Brown's failure means he seems likely to be marked down as one of the few prime ministers never to win an election, a cruel tragedy for such a driven and ambitious politician. Here we are on the brink of an entirely transformed Britain with a new and radical governing elite in Scotland and the old guard preparing their comeback in England. In neither country will Labour or Brown be a player.
Change happens, of course, but in this case the speed is startling. Think of Britain a few years from now. A new monarch will reign over Scotland and England, possibly both independent countries again. At the very least we will share a revised constitutional relationship which was quite unthinkable a few years ago. The new Britain will be almost unrecognisable and the irony is that Labour created this change and is now drowning in it.
Brown is becoming just a bit player in this onrush of change. Fate decided he would become prime minister when events began spiralling out of control. True, they were events partly, and only partly, of his own making. Fate also decided he must go down as a footnote in a story where the art of the possible still governs the great game of politics. Brown, alas, has been exposed as artless. I will never understand why he did not fight back more vigorously. Blair would have. Thatcher did and failed, but at least she tried. For the best part of a year we have been waiting for the great Brown initiative aimed at restoring Labour's grip and overcoming economic travail. But, so far, nothing.
I don't see much point in him resigning now. If he did, or if there was a leadership challenge and he lost, then some other sucker would face irresistible calls for an early general election. Labour would be crushed.
Even if there was a saviour in the wings the prospect would still be hopeless. This is one of those moments in political life where we all know the script. A government has lost its way, voter disillusionment is everywhere, people are angry and alarmed, the sea change surges and the outcome is inevitable. Similar factors swept away the Tories after 13 years in 1964, and again in 1997 after 18 years. It is happening to Labour now after 11 years.
As Enoch Powell once said: "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs."
For Brown there has not been much of a happy juncture in his short and ill-starred premiership. What there was of it came soon after his lifetime of waiting when he eventually managed to prise Tony Blair from Number 10. But the cut-off arrived with brutal speed when he dithered over an election. This has always seemed to me a touch unfair.
Other prime ministers behaved more brazenly than Brown when they teased voters about elections. Harold Wilson made it an art form, dropping in on the Palace (or Balmoral if it was August) on some spurious excuse for a chat with the Queen. The news hounds fell for it every time as they speculated feverishly on elections, but wily old Harold never suffered the opprobrium dumped on Brown.
Jim Callaghan opened the way for an election only to chicken out at the last minute, impishly announcing his decision in his famous singsong at a Labour conference with his "my wife won't let me" routine. They loved it – and then he took Labour to calamitous defeat. History seems to be repeating itself.
But when Brown's election bluff was called there was hell to pay. No prime minister in modern times has suffered a more hostile press than Brown. It was almost as if the metropolitan media had been waiting for an excuse to attack. The economic downturn added to this near hysterical hostility and – somewhat ridiculously – to the surge in Tory support. Strange, is it not, that a political party can storm ahead in the opinion polls without lifting a finger? Brown has virtually handed David Cameron, a man with no known policy, the key to Number 10.
With Blair gone Brown could have been truly daring. He could have scrapped Trident, or taken everyone poor out of taxation, or pulled troops promptly from Iraq, or taken a share of the oil barons' obscene profits. But his youthful radicalism was lost along the road to Downing Street. And it's too late now. How appalling it must be for Brown to ponder his legacy: losing Scotland, his personal power-base, to the SNP, and handing England back to the Tories who will, in a new constitutional structure, be more difficult than ever to evict.
It was said of Thatcher that she destroyed the Scottish Tories and created New Labour. It might be said of Blair and Brown that if they did not destroy their own party they certainly wrecked its prospects, probably for a very long time.
