Backstabbing is a tricky business and it can be hard work making a good job of a bad deed, says George Osgerby
There is an old joke that concerns a politician who finally succeeds in getting elected to the House of Commons after years of brown-nosing effort. On his first day in the chamber, he glowers across at those on the facing benches and declares: “I’ve waited years for this. And now I’m finally face to face with the enemy.” An older MP lounging beside him interjects: “Actually, the people over there are the opposition. The enemy is sitting behind you.”
The most recent and perhaps most preposterous plot against Gordon Brown was just the latest example of a long and inglorious tradition among politicians of trying to plant a knife squarely between the shoulder blades of someone they will insist to the end – whosever end it turns out to be – is an esteemed colleague.
One possible motivation behind such a dastardly act is the grubby pursuit of power and there is a widespread belief that the assassin who wields the blade never inherits the crown. While there are a number of despots through the ages who might dispute this and point to the dividends reaped by their bold brutality, someone who fears to strike – they may remain anonymous but they share the same initials as Doc Martens – may recall that Margaret Thatcher’s nemesis, Michael Heseltine, never reached the summit of his ambitions. As a callow student, he jotted these down on the back of an envelope and they culminated with the tenancy of Number 10 Downing Street. Heseltine, who is hated to this day by unreconstructed Thatcherites for being the prime mover behind their beloved heroine’s enforced departure, had to settle for being Deputy Prime Minister. Some may regard being number two to John Major as payback time. The point is that it is important not to leave fingerprints on the knife handle or – better – make sure someone else’s prints are on it.
The abortive “coup” that started and ended with Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon (although Charles Clarke’s malevolent participation in anything designed to do down Gordon Brown can usually be taken for granted) serves as an object lesson in how not to do it. That’s unless the purpose of the exercise was actually to cause their party’s opinion poll ratings to implode yet further and wound the beleaguered premier when he was having one his few good days while making themselves a laughing stock.
Never shout: “Charge” without making sure that someone is going to follow you. Hoon and Hewitt’s careers will long be associated with this pitiful display of half-cocked treachery. They can argue that it was always going to be difficult to list their achievements on the back of a postage stamp anyway, but who really wants their epitaph to be: “Aimed low and missed” and “Plonker”?
The weasely approach is never edifying. It is a mistake to try to deny what you’re obviously attempting to do. Rather than spout a load of flannel about drawing a line under the leadership with a secret ballot on the leadership (implying no one has the balls for an open one), it’s wiser to spell out and shout out your intentions. Something along the lines of: “The PM is even more unpopular than I am – that’s how bad it has got” ought to concentrate minds.
While Michael Portillo may have done many worthy things as a Conservative minister (although nothing springs immediately to mind), two incidents define his time in the Commons. There was his leaving of it at the 1997 general election when it seemed that a significant section of the population stayed up for the sole purpose of seeming him lose. And then there was his woeful non-challenge to John Major after the embattled latter resigned the leadership of the Conservative only to stand for it again and defy those he called “the bastards” to take him on. While John Redwood picked up the gauntlet, Portillo realised he had misplaced his backbone. He did, however, make the mistake of installing telephone lines in case Major’s performance was so inadequate that it necessitated a second round of voting in which he, Portillo, would sound. And then he compounded this error by making a bigger one. He got found out. At least he can point now to successful career as a thoughtful and entertaining broadcaster following his Damascene conversion to a nice guy.
This is a big lesson for all plotters everywhere: don’t let anyone discover the extent of your involvement in nefarious matters unless you really don’t care if they do. If you are indifferent to your own fate, that may be because a particular issue has caused the eyes to rotate and the mouth to foam – the European Union, perhaps, in John Redwood’s case. Or you may be consumed with a visceral and personal hatred. Some people may find that an odd description of cuddly Charles Clarke. Still, there you go.
But success may depend on keeping to the shadows. As well as functioning as Secretary of State for everything, Peter Mandelson can still serve as a model of manipulation. If all those who believe they were undone by Machiavellian Mandy wanted to hold a reunion dinner, they might require a venue the size of London’s O2 Centre. Gordon Brown could be master of ceremonies. However, how many of them could produce any concrete proof that the benign baron had ever done anything untoward? Further, sympathy for Brown’s travails has been lacking in some quarters because they accuse him of being a serial conspirator himself – an habitual unattributal briefer and grudge holder
Labour can learn how to master that sort of malevolence from its history. “The trouble with Herbert Morrison is that he’s his own worst enemy”, someone once observed to Ernest Bevin. “Not while I’m alive he ain’t”, said Bevin. And, just because Harold Wilson thought everyone was out to get him, it didn’t mean they weren’t. Some even pointed the finger at James Callaghan, the man Wilson favoured as his successor as Prime Minister, as plotter-in-chief. Wilson preferred to set up Denis Healey for a fall. Encouraged by Wilson, Healey denounced the Tribune Group of Labour MPs as “a bunch of fuckers” shortly before the former announced his resignation. Healey’s behaviour was not forgotten or forgiven in the ensuing leadership election. “They had questioned my paternity so I praised their virility”, he subsequently reflected ruefully.
Of course, the Tories are past masters at backstabbing. Look at the way Iain Duncan Smith was defenestrated as opposition leader. Yes, he was useless, but it was vicious. In 1962, that genial cove Harold Macmillan sacked seven senior members of his Government on the somewhat spurious grounds that there was a danger of a split in the Cabinet. He meant a conspiracy against him – a reasonably united one. Following Macmillan’s “Night of the Long Knives”, the Liberal Jeremy Thorpe quipped: “Greater love hath no man than he lay down his friends for his life.” After Macmillan left Downing Street – in those days Tory leaders were not elected but “emerged” – the old fox ensured that Rab Butler, the man best suited to replace him, did not do so. This was on the – to Macmillan entirely reasonable grounds – that he detested Butler.
We may be able to look forward to more of this sort of abhorrent behaviour as a consolation prize if David Cameron becomes Prime Minister. He already knows he shouldn’t turn his back on Boris Johnson or David Davis. But maybe he should keep a warier eye on William Hague and George Osborne.
In politics, keep your foes close and, as for your friends, get your retaliation in first.
