Brown. The beginning of the end.....

[Ronners]

.....or the end of the beginning?

From The Sunday TimesSeptember 14, 2008

Will this woman bring down Gordon Brown?

Siobhain McDonagh has given the PM’s rivals an excuse to take him onJonathan Oliver and Marie Woolf
Click here to read full poll results

As sackings go, it was pretty unorthodox, but then Siobhain McDonagh’s call for Gordon Brown to face a leadership contest was no ordinary act of political rebellion.

It was shortly before 7pm on Friday when McDonagh, hitherto a serial loyalist who had never revolted in 11 years as an MP, learnt that she had been dismissed from her job as a government whip.

There was none of the usual choreographed exchange of letters. “The lady from Channel 4 told me I was sacked when I was due to do an interview with them,” McDonagh said yesterday.

Her crime had been to pen a letter to Labour’s general secretary, Ray Collins, asking for nomination papers to be sent to the party’s MPs, triggering the first stage in a leadership challenge to the prime minister.

“It is a brutal game,” she said. “But when I sent the letter I knew what the possibilities might be.”

Yesterday she faced an emergency meeting of her local party in Mitcham and Morden, south London. She was hailed not as a traitor but as a political martyr. Some in the party are even comparing the devoutly Roman Catholic MP to Joan of Arc, who was burnt at the stake for her beliefs. McDonagh was characteristically modest. “I am not hearing voices,” she joked.

This weekend the names of the dozen or so other plotters against Brown began to emerge. And the sackings continued. Joan Ryan, the MP for Enfield North, was relieved of her roles as a Labour vice-chairman and Brown’s envoy to Cyprus after she called for the prime minister to face a formal vote. “We need to have a leadership election to trigger a deep and far-reaching debate and those people in our party who have something to offer and are capable of leadership need to put themselves forward,” she said.

The letter writers are mainly former ministers who were loyal to Tony Blair. Some have already voiced criticism of Brown, but others, like McDonagh, are what MI5 might call “clean skins” – MPs with no record of attacking the leadership.

Writing in The Sunday Times today, Barry Gardiner, Brown’s special envoy on forestry and a former minister, said he had called for a leadership contest because “the public has stopped listening to Gordon Brown” and he is “not a popular prime minister”.

Fiona Mactaggart, a former home office minister, said she had applied for nomination papers because the Labour party no longer had “a clear sense of leadership and direction”. She said Labour lacked “a clear blueprint of values and ambitions” and that it had become an object of pity among voters who were “confused about what we stand for”.

Greg Pope, a former whip and MP for Hyndburn, admitted that he too had written a letter demanding a vote. “We can’t go on like this pretending there isn’t a problem,” he said. “The leadership is the only thing that is being discussed by MPs. What we need to do is bring it into the open.”

The rumbles of discontent are sure to continue this week at Tuesday’s meeting of Labour’s ruling national executive committee where, with Brown present, the party’s grandees will discuss the crisis.

THE row hinges around arcane clauses in the Labour rule book. Under its constitution, a candidate needs to be nominated by at least 71 MPs before a leadership contest can begin. The rebels do not have that level of support yet, but they hope to revive the old practice where nomination papers were annually sent out to MPs and the leader was formally approved at conference.

At least then they will be able to keep the issue of Brown’s competence centre stage at this year’s conference, which begins on Saturday in Manchester.

Is this really the beginning of the coup that will force the prime minister to quit office? Or are we in fact witnessing, as No 10 argues, a final desperate attempt to cause trouble by a small rump of malcontents?

This weekend’s political storm rose out of a clear blue sky. Following the attack on Brown earlier this month by Charles Clarke, the former home secretary, which failed to gather any public support, the received Westminster wisdom had been that the much predicted September revolution had been postponed. Brownites reflected with relief that nobody had the “bottle” to come out and challenge the prime minister.

What few people knew was that 10 days ago McDonagh and other plotters had set a political timebomb. The softly spoken MP, who says she is more interested in parish pump crusades than plotting in the bars of Westminster, had not been on the list of malcontent “usual suspects”.

Indeed, that is true of many of the rebels. Their disquiet and determination to do something had apparently developed over the summer through phone calls, private visits and on the summer parliamentary junkets. It was, they say, an informal alliance, with various “cells” developing.

For many, it was a point of principle that caused them finally to act. McDonagh explained yesterday how it was her battle to save a local hospital that prompted her letter.

“I have been fighting to keep St Helier hospital open,” she said. “We finally won it. But then I looked at the time line and thought, ‘If the Tories win it may not happen. They will move things to where the well-off people live in Surrey.’ ” McDonagh revealed she consulted her baroness sister Margaret who was Tony Blair’s party general secretary between 1998 and 2001, about party procedures. “I asked her about the rules, whether the way I read them was right, and she said yes.”

With the format of rebellion set, the letter-writing took off. The sheer number of MPs acting in concert means that No 10 will be looking for the “big beast” behind the plot.

The trio of Blairite former cabinet ministers – Clarke, Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn – who have been closely linked to the agitation against Brown are understood to have been in the dark over McDonagh’s letter. However, it is likely they will seek to capitalise on the chaos.

MPs claim that Charlie Falconer, Blair’s former lord chancellor, had used his legal expertise to cast his eye over the leadership rules and spoken to the rebels.

McDonagh dismisses claims that she was merely a puppet of a more powerful Svengali. “I passionately believe a Labour government is needed and I want it to be the best,” she said. “We are not here to earn a salary and have a nice retirement pension.”

However, what is striking about the rebels is how many are close allies of John Reid, the former home secretary who repeatedly clashed with Brown. Joan Ryan was a junior minister under him at the Home Office. Waheed Alli, a Labour peer who has reportedly been involved in the plotting, used to be an adviser to Reid.

McDonagh said Reid was not aware of the letter she wrote, but she received a telephone call from him after the news broke on Friday night. “He was interested in how I was,” she said. “He knows how this works. He would just think, ‘If she’s done it she’s done it and there’s nothing I can say.’ ”

The feeling among Labour MPs is that this plot is an attempt by the party’s officer class to prod its generals into action. “This is throwing the ball into the cabinet’s court,” said one. “If they’re so unhappy, they should do something about it.”

Yesterday one minister said: “Joan and Siobhain have got the temperature of the party. Clearly there are a lot of people who are extremely unhappy and very anxious. I don’t think that there are many people who are relaxed about the state of play as it stands at the moment. The question is just how many people are prepared to do something about it.”

Another minister said: “MPs and cabinet members are all talking to each other about this off the record and it’s right that it’s finally brought out into the limelight. This matter has to come to a head. The public need to know that all is not fine.”

EXACTLY how serious is this latest threat to Brown’s future? A No 10 source was dismissive. “If this is what the plot amounts to – nine people writing letters – then it all seems rather desperate,” he said.

“The Blairites have been talking up the idea of loads of ministers resigning. But the best they can come up with is an assistant government whip.”

Brownite loyalists should not celebrate victory yet. Throughout yesterday more and more MPs were added to the roll call of rebels, including 10 former ministers, and they were becoming more vocal.

Eric Joyce, parliamentary private secretary to the business secretary, John Hutton, said the prime minister had three weeks to prove himself. “It should become clear in the next two or three weeks if [Brown] can turn things around or if he is utterly incapable of it,” he said. “He needs to have a bit of pizzazz at conference. Most members think we are in a pretty deep hole.”

The prime minister should also remember that his predecessor was not forced to quit by a leadership election, but rather by Brownites who confronted him after meetings in an Indian restaurant. This is a far more open attack.

Brown had hoped to use Labour’s Manchester conference to lay out a grand vision of Britain for the next two years and beyond. Now it is simply going to be about the bare-knuckle battle for survival.

Additional reporting: Chris Gourlay

Labour 19 points behind

There is no solace for Gordon Brown in the latest YouGov poll for The Sunday Times, which shows his economic package has failed to prevent deepening gloom. The poll of more than 2,000 people gives the Conservatives 46%, up one on last month, and Labour 27%, up two. The Liberal Democrats are down two on 16%. The 19-point Tory lead compares with 20 last month and has barely shifted since May.

Only 20% think Brown is doing well as prime minister, compared with 73% who say he is doing badly. His negative rating of 53% compares with Cameron’s positive rating of 27%. Asked about the economy, 82% said it was “quite bad” or “very bad” and 76% said it would either not grow or go into recession over the next 12 months.

YouGov asked about Tory hints of public spending cuts to make room for lower taxes. The policy appears popular, with 28% saying they would be more likely to vote Conservative, and only 7% saying it would put them off. There is scepticism, however, about the Tories’ ability to cut taxes. While 19% said a Tory government would mean lower taxes for “people like me”, 23% thought their taxes would go up.

Who's who in the coup

BARRY GARDINER Special envoy for Brown and former minister. Neither Blairite or Brownite, so a surprising rebel

JOAN RYAN Party vice-chairwoman until yesterday, close to ministers Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint

FIONA MACTAGGART Former Home Office minister. Not a ‘usual suspect’ for rebellions

MARGARET MCDONAGH Labour general secretary under Blair, now a baroness. Her sister Siobhain sparked latest turmoil

WAHEED ALLI Blairite peer and TV entrepeneur. Close to McDonagh sisters

CHARLIE FALCONER Blair’s old flatmate and former lord chancellor. MPs claim he scrutinised leadership rules

CHARLES CLARKE Criticised Brown in magazine article earlier this month. Not a lone voice any more...

[Belle Starr]

thank goodness I don't buy the Times or any of its offshoots and don't have to read all that.

A year ago, (or was it two?), the whole labour Party was supposed to be baying for Blair's blood. Now the Tory press has an interest in portraying disappointment with Brown as a bigger mutiny that it is.