The voice of Labour's heartlands has shifted power irrevocably to Brown

[Anarcho-Socialist]

Tony Blair has had to bow to the Doorstep Revolution

David Clark
Monday April 18, 2005
The Guardian

In politics, as in so much of life, the big picture is often clearer to the outsider than the expert who makes a living from it. Proximity brings a loss of perspective. For example, the spread betting market was able to predict the outcome of the 2001 general election with greater accuracy than any pundit or pollster.

I got a sense of this as I was browsing in my local bookshop at the weekend. Among the usual novels and cookbooks was a work devoted to the election campaign, offering everything the inquiring voter could wish to know about modern British politics. What was starkly revealing, though, was that, while the display contained one biography of Tony Blair and one of Michael Howard, it offered no fewer than three different sections on Gordon Brown. Here, stripped of all spin, is what May 5 2005 really means: Blair may still be prime minister, but Brown is the candidate.

(snip)

Brown is again centre stage, his job guaranteed, while Blair takes every opportunity to remind us of his retirement plans. In a telling acknowledgement of the liability he has become, Blair's main election pledge appears to be "Vote for me one more time and I promise you will never have to do it again". This is an extraordinary transformation, but what could explain it? The answer is out in Labour's heartlands. In keeping with this age of popular uprisings against discredited and autocratic leaders, let's call it the Doorstep Revolution.

(snip)

Yet there is enough in Brown's outlook to suggest that he has at least the potential to make Labour a serious social democratic alternative. His commitment to social justice is principled and sustained. His faith in the efficacy of markets is circumscribed by a very non-Blairite belief in the merits of the public-service ethos. He seems to grasp that unfettered executive power is wrong in principle, however convenient it may be in practice. And his notion of Britishness, although a little corny at times, carries with it the implication that British foreign policy should be more than simply an extension of American power. Whether this potential is fulfilled remains to be seen. What matters is that Brown should not falter on a small parliamentary majority that reduces his leadership to the politics of crisis management and decline. If he does, it will be the Blairite version of history that triumphs, along with the assumption that Labour can only govern successfully from a position of timid centrism.

More at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1462188,00.html