When Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush and Tony Blair unleashed “shock and awe” on Baghdad Geoff Hoon asked: “Has the war started?” Despite being Defence Secretary, he was out of the loop. As far as Blair was concerned, when it came to decision-making, Hoon was unnecessary. His unfailing support for the Iraq war meant he had only to follow orders. Now, once again, Hoon doesn’t seem to realise there is a war on – Labour against the Tories.
Ever since the election that wasn’t in the autumn of 2007, the political and media class has damned Gordon Browb’s premiership. Just months earlier, his coronation had been widely acclaimed. Sadly, with the label of “ditherer” now firmly attached to him, he has become vulnerable to attacks on his leadership. In itself, such criticism is not new. Anthony Eden was long regarded as heir apparent to Winston Churchill, yet doubts over his leadership skills soon surfaced.
Margaret Thatcher’s style of conviction government brooked few internal dissenters, but that did not prevent her Cabinet from ousting her. Her successor, John Major, also had difficulties with close colleagues – numerous enough for him to describe members of his own Cabinet as “bastards”.
The difference between these of his predecessors and the politically weakened Gordon Brown is that major policy issues trumped supposed personality shortcomings.
The 1956 Suez crisis and Eden’s attempt to topple President Abdul Nasser ended in failure and the Tory Prime Minister’s resignation on grounds of ill health.
Nigel Lawson, Thatcher’s Chancellor,
had a vision of Europe that was not so very different from hers. However, in his
memoirs, he described her handling of the issue as “counterproductive and damaging to the interests of the UK”.
Europe proved to be a relentless and destabilising issue for Major. Eventually, he opted for a strategy of “put up or shut up”. He resigned from the Tory leadership and dared his opponents to take him on – which John Redwood did. Major won, but no one shut up afterwards.
Effective leadership challenges have to be ideologically driven. The feeble attempts against Brown come from technocratic politicians who have no ideology, apart from the desire to continue with the embrace of neo-liberal capitalism. They have left Brown and Labour wounded – open to further attacks from political opponents by handing them more ammunition. Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt’s attempt at sabotage was seen off by furious backbenchers – even if some in the Cabinet took longer to respond than was wise as they sought to extract fresh promises from Brown.
William Keegan in last Sunday’s Observer got it right. The Chancellor and the Prime Minister are at loggerheads over strategy.
Alistair Darling and his Treasury advisors want any proceeds from recovery directed at a greater reduction of the national deficit. Brown and Ed Balls, his close ally, are more likely to favour tax increases to limit the need for spending cuts.
With even more evidence of the bankers’ greed and arrogance – billions of pounds in bonuses are again being handed out – the one-off super tax should be made permanent. If any banker then threatens to leave the country, they should be told to clear off – and good riddance.
Keegan’s view is that economic growth is the only way out of the budgetary hole. His is a voice of sanity amid the hysteria in the media and among some in Labour’s ranks. The Conservatives promise of a decade of austerity would put any recovery at risk, forcing us back into recession.
As Britain shivered in the grip of snow and ice, the hapless duo of Hewitt and Hoon made their move – at the same time as the plans of Cameron and George Osborne were coming under serious scrutiny and when Brown was besting the Tory leader at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Within 12 hours, Hoon was running up a white flag. Yet now we are told he will use the opportunity of the Chilcot inquiry to wreak more damage by accusing Brown as Chancellor of vetoing the purchase of helicopters and other lifesaving equipment for use in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It beggars belief that Tony Blair, who pursued his war aims regardless of what the United Nations or public opinion thought, would have allowed this to happen.
As Sir Richard Mottram, a former security advisor to Blair, put it in a lecture to the Smith Institute in July last year: “The reality is that many of the decisions are taken or left untaken by a Ministry of Defence machine in which the military – rightly – have a very strong, often decisive, voice. If, to take one example, we do not have enough helicopters, we should look in the first instance to the choices made over many years by the MoD, rather than to the present Prime Minister or the Treasury. We should also have in mind that the decisions are taken collectively by the Defence Board or the MoD’s ministerially-chaired committees, all of which include as full members the single service chiefs of staff.”
Gordon Brown has seen off the latest challenge. Geoff Hoon needs to be told the war has started. The general election battle needs to be won.
