Some good reading material in today’s Economist. Bagehot charts the recent attacks and apologies that have coursed through Labour, concentrating on the case of Frank Field. Here’s the concluding paragraph:
“But for Labour to revive, and maybe for Mr Brown to survive, it will take more than a semblance of unity and the odd crowd-pleaser. It will (among other things) require the prime minister to change: his style, his demeanour, the way he treats his ministers—the very things Mr Field apologised for criticising. In fact, beneath the hostility, and perhaps partly explaining it, the two men are oddly similar. Both are hard-working, religious ascetics who care about the poor. Both are (or were) more respected than liked. Both have been thought of as stubborn and prickly. Mr Field managed to swallow his pride; Mr Brown needs to renounce his altogether. Sometimes, saying sorry is not enough.”
Whilst it’s more bad news for the Prime Minister elsewhere in the magazine. This article tots up the fiscal clouds on the horizon, and ends thus:
“As the economy suffers from falling growth and rising inflation, it will be hard for Mr Brown to mount a sustained fightback. As Eden discovered, voters are especially unforgiving when a prime minister fails his special subject.”
Combined, the two points indicate just how difficult it is for Brown to relaunch himself. On the one hand, he’s got to change his essential nature – stop disingenuously saying that we have “low inflation”, for example. And, on the other, he’s got to hope that things don’t get too bad with the economy. However unlikely, the first of these is achievable for our Prime Minister. What will worry him is that the second is increasingly out of his hands.
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