A quick double-shuffle could be Brown's ace

Published on Sunday 3 August 2008 21:18

IF A week is a long time in politics, consider how short a year can be. Twelve months ago, Gordon Brown looked unassailable as Prime Minister and Labour leader. He stood high in the opinion polls. Plaudits and bouquets were showered on him by the very MPs who are now, if not openly critical, mutinously briefing against him.

What a fateful year it has proved. There was the famous "bottling out" of an early snap election. There was the collapse of Northern Rock and a relentless deterioration in our economic performance and prospects. The global credit crunch, high food prices and soaring oil have punched through Mr Brown's economic legacy. Consumer confidence, hit by the housing slump and eye-watering increases in utility bills, has plunged. There have been humiliating retreats and U-turns: over the scrapping of the 10p tax rate, changes to inheritance tax and postponement of fuel duty increases. The government is now on the run, battered by the worst financial crisis since the war and by humiliating by-election defeats.

Critics of the Prime Minister need to be clear what they wish to change, and why. Is it Mr Brown personally with whom they take issue, or the bleak circumstances that have befallen him and the country? Some claim he has lost his moral compass. It is certainly true that the government is failing to convey its purposes and objectives.

How would an alternative prime minister fare? Is the party convinced that the Blairite Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, would be a better prime minister? He is barely known outside of Westminster and he has had little experience of life outside Labour policy-making. His supporters may claim he has a popular touch. But his performance last week revealed signs of an arrogant young man in a hurry. What do we really know of him?

Not for the first time, a Labour government finds itself double-punched by the economy and by voter disillusion. While the options open to the Prime Minister are limited, there is an urgent need for leadership before the feuding in the party spins out of control. Mr Brown now needs to assert his leadership qualities if he is to command support in the Commons and in the country. The autumn – and the likelihood of further deterioration in our economic prospects – will compel the case for leadership. He needs, like Wilson and Callaghan before him, to leave us in no doubt who is in charge.

A priority should be a set of measures in the Pre-Budget Report that addresses the economic slowdown. While there is little scope for tax cuts, there is room for readjustment in government spending to help the poor and vulnerable. And there is scope for a Cabinet reshuffle. Mr Brown could sensibly move Mr Darling to the Foreign Office and make David Miliband his chancellor. Exposure to dealing with real problems might curb the latter's enthusiasm for making ones of his own.

Fringe kicks off to signs of success

FEW Edinburgh Festival Fringe programmes have opened against darker portents than those lined up this year. A miserable economic background, rising costs of travel, computer glitches at the box office, a city bedeviled by roadworks – and, on top of these, heavy downpours yesterday sending visitors scattering to the nearest shelter. But despite all this, Fringe managers report strong ticket sales through the opening weekend, with the number of sell-out shows sharply up. Anthony Alderson, director of the Pleasance, tells of 25 sell-out performances, against 12 in 2007.

While it is too early to predict how sales over the entire period will go, the signs are encouraging – particularly so given the widely reported concerns over booking problems at the Fringe box office. As these persisted last week it was increasingly difficult to gauge the ultimate impact on bookings and turnout "on the night". Event-goers were naturally apprehensive as to whether they would gain entry to their favourite shows.

However, experience so far suggests that disruption has been minimal and that box office managers have coped heroically. Edinburgh would be a poorer city – artistically and financially – were this world-renowned festival month not a ringing success. So we all have cause to hope that these early encouraging signs will hold firm this week and beyond.

The deadly allure of mountains

K2, the world's most challenging mountain, though not its highest, has claimed at least nine more victims after an ice fall close to the summit. This is a notoriously difficult and dangerous mountain to climb. Yet this danger and the challenge it poses is part of the allure that draws some of the most experienced and professional climbers in the world to risk their lives.

So, tragic though this latest incident is, it is by no means a unique event. In 1972 no fewer than 14 mountaineers, mostly Koreans, were killed by avalanches on Mount Manaslu, the world's eighth highest peak (26,775 feet). In 1990 an avalanche swept 40 climbers from five nations to their deaths. The victims – 27 Soviet climbers, six Czechs, four Israelis, two Swiss and one Spaniard – were camped some 19,500 feet up in the Pamir Mountains.

In 1995 a huge avalanche struck the overnight camp of a Japanese trekking group in the Mount Everest region of Nepal, killing 42 people, including 13 Japanese, and buried 11 guides and porters. And, in 1997, eight climbers died in a series of accidents in the Italian Alps.

This is an appalling toll. But it speaks to the haunting appeal of mountaineering – not in spite of the colossal dangers involved, but in part because of them. To triumph in such adversity is indeed achievement. To perish will add to, not subtract from, the deadly allure.