Better Flash than Gordon

Gordon Brown's nightmare year continues. A new survey of 5000 voters (much larger than the average poll) asks respondents to rate Brown, David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg on a variety of parameters. Cameron walloped Brown on all counts other than "fakeness" (he was found to be faker than Brown by one percentage point, which is sort of like Hillary's Indiana victory, a Pyrhhic victory that was supposed to be an easy one). Brown finished behind even the relatively little-known Clegg on various indicators.

The embattled former Chancellor is further harmed by recent revelations, or innuendoes, from Cherie Blair and former Deputy PM John Prescott. Ms. Blair talks of Brown's desperation, during her husband's premiership, to replace him at No. 10, while Prescott claims that he'd asked Tony Blair to sack Brown as Chancellor years ago.

With the growing feeling that this is the Labour equivalent of John Major's 92-97 government, an administration that in retrospect was doomed from the start, allow me to add my own spin on this parallel. Not only has Brown suffered a local election mauling similar to the one Major suffered in 1995. Not only has he had the difficult task of succeeding a divisive but charismatic decade-serving PM, and appointed a new Cabinet that has quickly become a byword for incompetence and sleaze, just as Major did. What has truly doomed Brown is that his predecessor is an eager yet clandestine supporter of his downfall. Margaret Thatcher, surely the modern politician closest to being an icon to Tony Blair, anointed Major as her preferred successor yet, once he had assumed office, was desperate for him to fail. As former Daily Telegraph editor Max Hastings writes in his excellent memoir, Editor, Thatcher, who had a frosty relationship with Hastings during her time as PM, began to send the editor friendly Christmas cards when his newspaper was even more openly critical of Major than it had been of her. It is clear from his wife's actions that Tony Blair has similar aspirations for his unfortunate successor. Blair's and Thatcher's motives were simple- having both confirmed the Enoch Powell rule by coming to somewhat sticky political ends, they were keen for their successors to fail so disastrously to make them seem good by comparison. And indeed, Thatcher succeeded in this- the Conservative Party that ignominiously booted her out in November 1990 lived to regret it. At the time of Princess Diana's death, Tony Blair was the most popular British Prime Minister ever (Churchill's popularity surged after he left office, rather than during his terms), but Iraq and his growing reputation for mendacity meant that he retired a greatly diminished figure. He hopes that Gordon Brown's nightmarish two/three years as PM will restore his own historical reputation, and he may well be correct.

There is another interesting conclusion to be drawn from Cameron's superior poll performance, though. Just as Margaret Thatcher inspired Blair to move the Labour Party right of centre and to slavishly follow the course of the American Republican Party, Blair (and Bill Clinton) inspired David Cameron to build a public persona based on charm and appealing to everybody rather than real policies. Cameron learnt the politics of flash and spin by watching Blair, undoubtedly the master of these political arts. Gordon Brown styled himself as the antithesis of Blair and Cameron, as a solid, hard-headed thinker who gets things done. As he rather foolishly quipped at his first Party Conference in charge, he was "not flash, just Gordon". Less than a year later boring old Gordon is on the way out and Flash, in the form of David Cameron, is set to replace him. Fooling enough people enough of the time- the most enduring legacy of Blairism- remains the best way to succeed in British politics.

NB: Enoch Powell, who died in 1998, is now remembered for two things. One is his 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech, which prophesied supposed disasters that would be caused by non-white immigration, and by fuelling for decades the racist and anti-immigrant movements in the UK, immortalized Powell as the most odious far-right figure since Oswald Mosley. But Powell also coined one of the truest political aphorisms ever. "All political careers end in failure", he said. That is the "Enoch Powell" rule I referred to above.