Gerald Warner: Brown may be down and out but Cameron is clueless too

Published on Saturday 2 May 2009 19:38

SINCE last week's traumatic events, Gordon Brown is not so much residing in 10 Downing Street as lying in state. The favourite cliché of British war films is the relevant epitaph: "For you, Meestair Brown, ze war is over."

Anyone who harbours doubts need only consult Gordon's diary. 'Monday AM: Pakistani president pulls out of joint press conference. PM: Forced to change MPs' attendance allowance proposals. Tuesday: Berated by Polish prime minister for "living on credit". Wednesday: Defeated in Commons over plans to victimise Gurkhas. Thursday: Pulled out of Commons vote on MPs' second homes to avoid defeat. Charles Clarke, former Home Secretary, says he is ashamed to be a Labour MP. Friday: David Blunkett, ditto, warns of a "catastrophic meltdown of trust"… Goodnight, Diary.'

The worm that must be gnawing at Brown is the knowledge that it need not have been like this – if he had possessed the guts of a louse.

Back in September 2007, just three months into his premiership, the wind was set fair for a honeymoon general election. The opinion polls at that time awarded Labour 42 points, Conservatives 34 and Liberal Democrats 14. Yet for nail-biting control freak Gordon, whose life's ambition had been to occupy Number 10, the slightest risk of forfeiting his tenure was unacceptable. He is paying the price of his cowardice now. Last week, the average of polling figures was: Conservatives 44, Labour 27 and Liberal Democrats 18. That spells a Tory majority of 132 seats and a blizzard of P45s descending on some of the most unemployable people in Britain: Labour MPs. Try feeling their pain – it is fun.

Commentators have taken to invoking the last days of John Major. That is misleading. History notoriously does not repeat itself, though it moves elliptically. John Major won a general election ("Oh, yes!"), a democratic process to which Brown has never subjected himself. While there is absolutely no constitutional requirement for him to have done so, in terms of moral and psychological authority, he is suffering now from that lack of democratic endorsement.

He is also suffering from a partisan obsession that impels him to prioritise the placing of bear-traps for his opponents over serious policy initiatives. The most damaging recent example was Brown's 50p tax imposition on high earners. Every fiscally literate politician and commentator knows that is self-defeating.

As Fraser Nelson points out in the current issue of the Spectator, the Laffer Curve discredited soak-the-rich taxation years ago, and under the Tories the richest 1% of households contributed 14% of all tax in 1988, rising to 21% by 1997.

He might have added, in corollary, that while the tax burden under Chancellor Brown rose from 39.3% of GDP in 1997 to 42.4% by 2006, the poorest one-fifth of households contributed 6.8% of all taxes in 1996-97, increased to 6.9% by 2004-05, while their share of state benefits declined from 28.1% to 27.1% over the same period.

Nelson deplores the fact that the Tories fell into Brown's trap by fearing to denounce this populist but revenue-negative impost in case they became identified with the interests of the rich. That is because the 'modernised' Tories are ideological eunuchs. It is too late for them now to set about educating the electorate in the fiscal realities of the Laffer Curve: they should have been doing that for the past five years, instead of rushing to conform to the latest caprice of focus groups.

Pro-Conservative commentators have been remarking lately, in some puzzlement, that while the polls show the irretrievable demise of Labour, the Tory vote remains extraordinarily 'soft'. That is in contrast with the very firmly New Labour sentiment of voters in 1996-97. It is small wonder. Cameron and his courtiers have no clue how to handle the economic crisis because, unlike Margaret Thatcher, they have no ideological compass.

The Tory team is so hopeless it is like a mirror image of the gaffe-generators in Number 10, without the excuse of 12 exhausting years in government. The recent car-crash performance of Alan Duncan on Have I Got News For You provoked the public reaction: "Dear God, is that what's coming next?" Who in the Conservative high command thought it sensible for shadow ministers to appear in such a forum just 13 months before a general election?

In a multi-party democracy, bad governments cannot destroy a nation, but bad oppositions can, because then there is no alternative. The political demise of Gordon Brown seems inevitable. There is now an urgent requirement for his opponents to raise their game if they are to become a credible government in waiting.