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Alastair Campbell's goldmine

Asked why he had chosen to remove entries that dealt with the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Alastair Campbell said:

I’m not going to deny there were times when relations were pretty tense and some pretty harsh things were said; they were. What I’m not going to do is publish a book that leads David Cameron to think that he’s got a goldmine to use against the new Prime Minister.

This, of course, is an admission that the behaviour was so bad that if Alastair had published his true record they would have been a goldmine.

Can Gordon Brown change?

Can Gordon Brown change?

That is the question raised by Anatole Kaletsky's spirited column in this morning's Times. Those who repose faith in Brown based on his performance as Chancellor still accept that he will need to raise his game in order to be a good Prime Minister. But can he?

A clue to the answer is given in Michael Lewis's excellent book, (and I regard it as compulsory reading), Moneyball.

Baseball scouts continually purchase players with flaws that they believe will be eradicated by good managers. But in the vast majority of cases this doesn't work, the flaws remain. The Oakland Athletics baseball manager prefers an alternative strategy - he buys players later, so that he can take proper account of their shortcomings. He has a clear-eyed view that such shortcomings do not disappear with good training.

In selecting Brown in the hope that he will be a different man in Number 10, Labour is making a similar error to that of traditional baseball scouts.

What difference will Brown make?

A superb post on UK Polling Report assesses opinion data on Gordon Brown. I think he's got both of his main conclusions right.

The real champion of new Labour

The conference speeches of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair give the lie to the idea that Brown is old Labour and Blair, new Labour. In fact, Brown is classic new Labour while Blair has long since abandoned this position.

Consider two facts.

First, the most effective section of Tony Blair's speech was an argument that leaders have to make choices. Voters, he said, would forgive wrong choices but not the failure to make them. Later, he attacked Cameron for failing to choose between positions that the Prime Minister suggested were incompatible.

This argument is a direct rejection of new Labour's central idea. In the mid 1990s Mr Blair argued that politicians were always making choices when they did not need to. He said that policy options that looked incompatible were not. He promised to eradicate such false choices. This very idea, the one new Labour first brought into the debate, is the one he now treats with most scorn.

Now, take Brown. The characterisation of Brown as old Labour is absurd. What he is, is classic new Labour. He hasn't moved an inch since he trawled around the Clinton think-tanks in the mid 90s.

Now, as then, he is looking for policy schemes that avoid choosing. It is he, not Blair, who still holds the candle for the third way, he who is looking for idea that doesn't involve hard choices.

The windfall tax (tax more without being a high taxer) was a classic Brown idea. And so, more than a decade later, is his NHS plan - a third way between market reform and no reform.

It is Brown, not Blair, who is new Labour’s constant champion.

A Labour leader speaks

Watching Gordon Brown's moist-eyed reception of Tony Blair's praise a few minutes ago, I was reminded of a story about James Maxton, the early socialist leader (and subject of a biography by Gordon Brown).

After the death of Maxton's wife the Clydesider sat on a platform to hear Ramsay MacDonald. The Labour leader, with whom Maxton's relationship had become tense, addressed the meeting with great eloquence. MacDonald, whose speciality was sentimental rhetoric, praised Maxton's wife and Maxton himself. His words were generous and moving.

The tears streamed down Maxton's face and under his breath he kept saying this: "The bastard, the bastard".

The Cherie denials

Shortly after Gordon Brown's speech, up at Labour conference, I bumped into Charles Lewington, who had been Tory Director of Communications when I was John Major's Head of Research. We agreed that the Cherie incident reminded us powerfully of our experience in the Major years - ten minutes of good publicity after a speech, followed by a fiasco.

Downing Street's afternoon was then spent as so many of ours had been - furiously (and unsuccessfully) denying the fiasco had actually taken place.

Why weren't we believed when we did this? Because the fiasco-maker had been so rude about Major or his policies off the record, that no one believed their denials on the record. In fact, journalists were relieved to be able to report what they knew to be true but had previously been unable to put in the public domain.

What happened to Cherie yesterday? Same thing.

Last night, I was told of two separate and recent incidents in which she savaged Gordon Brown to journalists (both virtual strangers, not confidantes) and was protected by the fact that the reporters felt the conversations were not properly on the record.

As a result, most journalists both believed that the story was true and did not accept the denial, or didn't care whether it was true since it put in the public domain statements she has been making anyway.

Berri droll

Filing from Beirut on tour with Mr Blair has not robbed Nick Robinson of his sense of humour:

One who will not be greeting the Prime Minister is Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. His explanation that he was "out of town ....on private business" turns out to be a little less than the full story. He is, in fact, in Iran. I suppose it could be worse for Tony Blair. He could be meeting Gordon Brown - just to pass on a gift for the baby, of course.

Able to label?

Competition time.

Tom Watson, coup-maker extraordinaire, has started blogging again and says that he has been given many labels - rebel, suit, two-dinners and now Jackie Ashley has erroneously called him Scottish.

Reviewing this list, it strikes me that readers of Comment Central might be able to think of a better description of Mr Watson.