The prime minister promises to step down and give his successor, Gordon Brown, plenty of time to prepare for an election. And yet the distrust between the two camps seems as deep as ever. The Blairites – more centrist than the Brownites – are frightened of losing the middle ground of British politics:
[The Blairite ultras] want to force Mr Brown into a declaration that he will be as new Labour as Mr Blair. Ideally, he would agree publicly on a transitional programme of policy that was full of new Labour reforms. But, in the last resort, if such an agreement cannot be achieved, some are pressing [Blair loyalist] Mr Reid to stand against him in a leadership contest: not as a quixotic attempt to win, which he wouldn’t, but as a way of ensuring that the Chancellor has to match any new Labour promises that his rival would make.
In such a contest, Mr Blair would be obliged to support Mr Brown. But his private advice to the Chancellor tallies with that of the ultras. He believes that the party’s only hope of beating David Cameron‚Äôs Tories is to be riotously new Labour, because that is where the voters are. When he goes, the only question is who will be the inheritor of new Labour. If Mr Brown does not take up the mantle, Mr Cameron surely will.
British politics just got really interesting for the first time in over a decade. Stay tuned.
(Photo: Embics/Landov for Time.)
The Dish 