by David Mills
INITIAL impressions of the relaunch that dare not speak its name are that while Gordon Brown deserves at least a B for effort, the measures announced this week may not merit more than a C plus in terms of immediate impact. Yet such is the depth of the Labour Party’s opinion poll ratings, it’s hard to see what he could have done to change matters in the very short term – short of resorting to sorcery.
The Prime Minister has always insisted that the economy is the key to political recovery, but given the global dimension to the current situation, the task of persuading voters that Labour’s instincts and responses are more likely to benefit ordinary people than those of the Conservatives is primarily a political one.
To state the obvious, Brown’s speech to the Labour Party conference will be absolutely essential. To say that he will have to give the speech of his life is a massive understatement. Brown will have to deliver a speech which surpasses that of Neil Kinnock in 1985 and of every Labour leader before and since.
Despite assertions from enemies and fairweather friends that he is incapable of this, it should be remembered that he has thrilled and roused Labour audiences many times before, in orations given at occasions as diverse as the House of Commons despatch box – as long ago as the late 1980s, standing in for John Smith as Shadow Chancellor – at the party conference and at Robin Cook’s memorial service.
The problem is that the Prime Minister will have to reassure the public and the party that he is in control of the Government and the economy, while facing evidence that suggests that he is in control of neither.
Yet he has one thing in his favour – at least in terms of seeking to shore up his immediate position. While there is a certain amount of schadenfreude on the part of those who have never liked Brown, the seriousness of the global financial situation seems to have limited the glee with which some of this might have been greeted.
Labour’s troubles appear to be so great – economically and politically – that they seem too big to be overcome simply by a change of leader and certainly by any of the candidates who might try to succeed him. Faced with no obvious and popular successor, most Labour MPs will be willing Brown to succeed in the short-term task of staunching the party‘s wounds and taking the fight to the Conservatives.
The immediate danger – to the Prime Minister and his party – comes if the task proves to be beyond him. But even if he manages to navigate through the party conference season, it would only take another bout of indiscipline among his most senior colleagues, or a political mis-step (a botched reshuffle, perhaps) and he would be in even more dire straits than he is now, with no party conference speech left to save him. It promises to be the most exciting and agonising Labour gathering in years.
