Does Brown have too many deputies?
June 28th, 2009
Can he cope with Harriet, Mandy and Ed at the same time?
Just as every Prime Minister needs a Willie, as Margaret Thatcher famously noted, so the present incumbent believes he needs Balls. She was right; he may not be.
While Balls isn’t Brown’s deputy, he is almost certainly his closest political confidante within the cabinet, his position unassailable and his views taken very seriously by Brown. Alongside him, Peter Mandelson having returned to government and risen to the lofty ranks of First Secretary of State is Deputy Prime Minister in all but name.
However, even though Brown clearly recognises that he needs Mandy, I find it difficult to believe that he is sufficiently trusted inside Number Ten to fulfil that role as effectively as a PM really needs it done. He was out of the game a long time in Brussels and before that, his closeness to Blair means he’ll never have the proven loyalty that someone like Balls can point to.
Then there’s Harriet Harman, elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. She’s not even been given the honorific title of Deputy PM but her position within Labour, bolstered by having fought and won a genuine election, gives her a latitude that no other minister can enjoy and enables her to deputise for him officially, at things like PMQ’s.
Three deputies is to my mind too many. It creates conflict, delay and factionalism, especially if at least two of them still have the ambition to become leader themselves and so are positioning for a future election.
In a review of a biography of William Whitelaw, John Campbell gave this explanation of why Margaret Thatcher was so appreciative of Whitelaw:
“..every PM needs an authoritative deputy to chair committees, resolve disputes and ward off trouble. Also, that a PM needs one senior colleague with no ambition of his own to guard his (or her) back against the plots of jealous rivals”.
Mandelson comes close to fulfilling both objectives - but not close enough. He doesn’t have the mandate of a Harman or the trust of a Balls. He performed sterling work for Brown in keeping things calm after the European elections but only because those two were working to the same end. In short, he lacks the necessary authority.
John Prescott, for all his many failings as a minister, was an effective deputy leader for most of his time because he was largely unchallenged in that role, able to keep the peace between Blair and Brown and proved his worth to Blair in his instinctive understanding of the traditional Labour movement. It’s notable how once Prescott’s authority waned, the relationship between Blair and Brown broke down to new depths. Likewise, Thatcher’s train came off the rails after she lost the balancing influence of Whitelaw whereas Major survived through to 1997 in no small part because Heseltine genuinely played the role of a loyal deputy - and no-one else did.
With no effective deputy, a leader can become erratic, authoritarian and mistake-prone; with too many, they get pulled in different directions and the government or party loses cohesion, especially when trying to regain the initiative.
It seems to me that the government has a structural weakness here which is likely to impede any recovery. Brown might not be alone though: the Conservatives have not fully sorted out their own deputy leadership issue, with both Hague and Osborne playing aspects of the role. However, ahead and in opposition, the matter is less pressing.
David Herdson
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A great piece David. Your Sunday morning contributions are going from strength strength.
Mandrake in the Telegraph sees this problem as well as Brown goes on his holidays.
During his three-week break last year there was some friction after Harriet Harman, the Leader of the Commons and deputy Labour leader, was forced to take her turn standing in for Brown with Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor. Amusingly, this year, the combustible figure of Peter Mandelson, the First Secretary of State, can be added to the mix.
And that’s without adding Balls to the mix as well.
The difference with the Conservatives is that Osborne surely knows he will never become Conservative leader.
And the Cameron/Osborne team has been forged through years of joint effort, if not decades. There has never been a power struggle between them as far as I know.
Osborne is destined to be Chancellor and nothing else. There is no Osborne faction to compare to the Brownites; he is a Cameroon through and through.
He is a bit of a policy wonk. He loves citing academic economics. Many in the establishment like him. Many in his own party, and the public, distrust him slightly. You couldn’t imagine “Osborne Direct” events taking place up and down the country winning many hearts and minds.
I can’t see anything but absolute blind loyalty from Osborne frankly.
I can’t see Hague, with lots of prestige and power as Foreign Sec, having huge bust-ups with Osborne over his departmental spending either. The Foreign Office budget is relatively small, and Hague is probably even more keen to cut costs and annoy bureaucrats than the centrists in the party.
I think David Davis and Boris Johnson are far more dangerous for Cameron than his shadow Cabinet colleagues. Both are high profile; both are naturally rebellious; both have powerful allies which could coalesce into dedicated factions constantly agitating and irritating on their behalf.
Also, Mandelson is the smoothest political operator, backroom dealmaker and spin merchant in the country.
I’m not sure how good he is at actually running his department though.
Imposing back-dated taxes on struggling industries during a recession? Sounds pretty stupid to me (as well as immoral, but that is expected, as this is Labour).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/5664793/Mandelson-drawn-into-port-jobs-row.html
I think the problem is that Gordon Brown doesn’t have any deputies - he is a loose cannon, gallumphing through history like a bull in a china shop, without taking any notice of what is being told to him by wiser, more cautious people. The tightrope of the opinion polls is becoming ever wobblier, and the one-eyed hippopotamus of destiny is frenziedly stampeding in the wrong direction.
1, Seconded. A very interesting and perceptive piece David. Thanks - I learned a lot from it.
I’d never really thought about Brown’s “3 deputies problem” before I read it. You explained the situation very clearly - three deputies with a strong case for being the real deputy and the potential for them to pull Labour apart.
I never rated Prescott, but now that you mention it, he does seem to have been the glue that held the show together.
And it also puts Willie Whitelaw in a whole new light as well! He goes up a few notches from “affable plodder” to “essential support”.
3 - I agree with that comment. Hague and Osborne will never be leadership candidates so they can both effectively act as loyal deputies. Also Cameron doesn’t have the same problem as Brown, in that he is a bit more open and trusting of others. Whereas Brown has a couple of favourite people he likes to talk to.
Brown needs so many deputies because he spends so much time on devising the next dividing line that he needs other people to actually do the work required of a parliamentary party.
I wonder whether Brown’s holiday destination this summer will tell us something about his departure plans, eg:
10 days in the rain in Scotland - I’m just 2 hours aaway from the shop if required, with an ample supply of Nokias, getting on with the job etc, or
2-3 weeks in Cape Cod, Mass. - What the hell, I’m out of this job in the next 3/6 months, so I’m going to start enjoying myself with friends who at least understand me.
Millsy @ 7. It is not just about loyalty.
Whitelaw and Heseltine had been round the block, in a way that Osborne has not. They had experience and what used to be called bottom. The danger is that young George will turn out to be Cameron’s Seb Coe, or more likely his Keith Joseph.
Brown and Balls are the wrong way round. Brown is the mentor, not Balls the confidante.
Cameron should think seriously about drafting in one of the Thatcher/Major veterans, like Rifkind perhaps. Hague will be too busy at the Foreign Office and in any case his government experience is limited.
How can Darling cancel the CSR? Are departments, Councils etc just supposed to guess hor much money they are getting? A recipe for total disaster in an atmosphere of Cuts.
So no polls last night after all - what was that talk about Con 42 Labour 25% LibDems 18% supposedly all about?
11. I had noticed that there was a posting on Guido with a similar breakdown of figures and posted them. I had wondered if it was a wind up but they have appeared to be accurate in the past. Mea Culpa….
Hain in the soup again?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6591286.ece
9 - there is certainly no real substitute for the rough and tumble of government but Brown’s recent strategy has perhaps kept the top team on their toes and helped them in some very important ways.
Hopefully Cameron doesn’t feel he is above asking certain veterans for advice when it is required, even if there are no formal appointments.
11. Thats the result for May 2010….
Just tripped over this blog post - I’m appalled.
“Social Security spending is going to overtake the country’s Income Tax receipts this year. Worse still, soon servicing Brown’s debt is going to cost us more than we spend on education.
It’s this ignorance of the ‘opportunity cost’ of money taken from the private sector and individuals by the Government that continues to baffle and amaze me. I’ve said before myself, the Government now spends more in a year than the entire wage earners of Britain earn combined. If you think about it, that sort of figure - over 700 billion - is the equivilant of 28 million private sector jobs. That’s 700,000,000,000 divided into the average wage of £25k. 28 million jobs. More new jobs than there’s people in the country to do them.
Yet it actually buys us a mere 5 million public sector jobs. And the biggest reason given for protecting Government spending? It’ll cost jobs. Ha. Good one. What… wait? You’re serious? This is really happening?
If this is winning, I’d hate to know what losing feels like.”
http://charlottegore.com/2009/06/27/psychological-numbers.html
Charlotte is usually right on the button if you’ve not come across her before.
16 - That is no more coherent than Labour claims that any Tory “cuts” can automatically be equated to X “nurses & doctors”, or Y “schools and hospitals”.
If most Govt spending is NOT going on public sector workers, then it is, er, going to the private sector.
‘With no effective deputy, a leader can become erratic, authoritarian and mistake-prone; with too many, they get pulled in different directions and the government or party loses cohesion, especially when trying to regain the initiative.’
An accurate description of the present leader.
FPT - a very revealing comment from the unnamed Labour minister. Utterly loathsome, but IMHO, the only realistic option left to them. It may make the difference between going down to 200 seats, and going down to 150.
Fraser Nelson was quite correct to liken the government to a retreating army - wrecking towns, destroying bridges, burning fields. The postponment of the CSR, the Equality Bill, the statutory requirement on public bodies to reduce child poverty, and, of course, the election of Speaker Bercow, are all ways of leaving problems for the next government.
They given up, but like a dying wasp, they can still sting.
8. PfP - “2-3 weeks in Cape Cod… to start enjoying myself with friends who at least understand me”
So won’t the real Gogsie Broon please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up?
Will the real Shady Scot please stand up?
I repeat, will the real Shady Scot please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem here…
Is there any chance of the BBC getting rid of Ben Wright as a political correspondent?
9. Well over half the next Parliamentary Conservative Party will have been newly elected.
Note Cameron living up to his promise to respect Scotland, not even near downing street and he is threatening the Scottish Government.
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has provoked a turf war with Alex Salmond by warning him not get in the way of plans to deploy a new generation of nuclear submarines in Scottish waters.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6591162.ece
‘Cameron tells Salmond: back off over Trident’
In 2007 the government won a Commons vote to press ahead with a £20 billion plan to renew Trident as soon as possible. Labour needed the support of the Conservatives to win the vote, with 16 former ministers and four former cabinet ministers rebelling against the plan.
At the time of the Trident debate Salmond said the government was “trying to impose on an unwilling country nuclear weapons of mass destruction for the next 50 years - it’s just not on”.
Salmond’s objection remains as firm two years on and he counters Cameron’s warning not to interfere with a reserved issue with a warning of his own: “If that missile system is unwanted by the body politic of Scotland, unwanted by Scottish members of parliament in Westminster, and not wanted by the Scottish parliament, then surely Cameron, if prime minister would expect the Scottish parliament to make its views known in every area and way that was open to it to do.”
Salmond tells the BBC it is “the job” of the Scottish parliament to use what domestic powers it has, adding: “It is what we are there to do. The idea that you can base a new generation of nuclear missiles in Scotland and not talk or listen to the people of Scotland about it is ridiculous.”
The First Minister’s promise not to “roll over” may prove to Cameron that political diplomacy will get him nowhere on Trident, despite his obvious show of “respect” to the Scottish parliament, and acknowledgment that Holyrood can take different views on issues like health and education.
In the documentary, to be screened tonight, Cameron also admits formally that his party when in power was wrong to oppose devolution and should have paid more attention to the calls for devolved authority during the Thatcher years.
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2516932.0.cameron_tells_salmond_back_off_over_trident.php
stuart,
salmons is elected as a leader who can make legal decisions. cameron as yet is not, although will wield power when that happens at the GE. and the scottish parliament voted against trident, including the labour party. this was not an snp vote, it was a vote of the entire parliament.
as such cameron is saying that what he wants is allowed to overrule parliamentary decisions made in scotland. no wonder salmond told him to stick to sorting his own mess out first.
the last time the tories took on the snp by being negative to scotland openly was in 1997 and they failed to get anyone elected. by being smarmy under the rader they think they may get up to 21% and get 5 or 6 east coast and border seats, wghch being 10% of the seats will give then some sort of mandate to tell the 90% of pollies who are not tories what to do when they get elecgted in england.
until he gets elected as English?British leader, cameron would be better apologising to the people of scotland for thatcher’s policies, poll tax, closing bathgate, linwood, ravenscraig, the mines and everything else which rooted the scottish economy, whilst paying the bills by putting the subsytantial north sea oil revenue in a big black hole of consolidated revenue to balance the books.
25, isn’t Defence a UK matter?
There is a new Yougov poll out today. In the People newspaper no less:
Con 40%
Lab 24%
L D 17%
11
‘Tis in the People!
http://www.people.co.uk/news/tm_headline=cameron-landslide%26method=full%26objectid=21477635%26siteid=93463-name_page.html
Thats why you all missed it.
24
You’ll like this one Stuart!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1195949/I-m-talking-Scottish-scuffer–Tory-MP-walks-race-row-policeman.html
Oh Dear!!
Thanks millsy!
26. Do you mean in the fact that Scotland wants rid of the nuclear weapons and UK say who cares , we don’t want them in England so you can have them in Scotland like it or lump it. If the UK are so desperate to have them , put them where the people want them so England, Wales or NI can have them.
Millsy, a Venn Diagram of the readership of PB.com and the readership of The People would look like the Sun and the Moon (not during an eclipse). I’m not saying which one is which.
29. Thanks Coldstone.
Dearie, dearie, dearie me. Some Tory leopards never change their spots.
And there was nice Mr Cameron saying lovely things about us “scuffers”. Whoops-a-daisy!
Anthony Wells on the new YouGov/People poll:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2191
31 Scotland doesn’t have its own foreign or defence policy. The UK does. Salmond will just have to lump it.
Nor do I think that unilateralism is an issue that will necessarily advance his cause.
Gawd! ‘The Mail’ where do they find this stuff?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1195977/Mrs-Speaker-Terry-Minder–male-stripper-Britains-notorious-rapist.html
Oh! Mr Cameron when you get to No10, they’ll be working overtime.
Darling tries to hide Labour cuts from voters
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6591262.ece
This is massive - surely. Who will listen to Brown when Labour are now deliberately hiding their own spending plans? It’s utterly shameless stuff now.
Is it a first that wee all missed the poll last night? I looked at ICM’s website and You Gov’s several times, It must have gone up very late in the evening!
31, it’s a UK matter then, I take it?
Scotland’s in the UK. If you want to leave, vote SNP en mass at the next General Election, and again at the Scottish Parliament elections.
35. We will see , Cameron will need to be on his toes to outsmart Salmond , and Scotland will not lie down for much longer.
37. Once again only one word for this - desperation.
39. Hopefully that will be the case.
Good Morning “People Newspaper” buyers worldwide !!
Meanwhile …. clearly PBers are not of the “People”
On thread …. Too many deputies eh ?? … Morus, Double Carpet, David Herdson …. clearly Mike Smithson is in trouble !!
32 - the poor old People manages to be neither mass circulation nor high brow. It used to out sell the Sunday Times very comfortably and run the Sunday Mirror very close. These days it barely gets more sales than the Observer!
40 In what way is Scotland lying down? Surely Scottish nationalism doesn’t have to really on imagined grievances to gain traction?
No part of the UK should be entitled to opt out of the defence of the country.
new thread
37. Do they really think this is doing them any good. Shifty Gordon reared his ugly head once again.
43 Except - Mike Smithson rules with a rod of iron!
48, ahem. Too much information
48 Thats actually the point with Brown - he can’t deal with the job of PM, unlike Mike who has a clear view of what he wants Pb.com to be.
Its not that Brown has too many deputies, I doubt he considers anyone his deputy, it is that he isn’t able to choose between Balls & “Classic Brownism”, Mandelson and “The Project” and Harman, self proclaimed voice of the Party. He has no direction, no clarity of purpose so around him the various crown princes fight for theirs.
The country doesn’t deserve either of the gruesome twosome in the picture. Brown and his mini-me have done more to ruin the UK than any previous Labour Government.
Another excellent article David. Many thanks.
O/T
Interesring that less than 1 hour into another Government relaunch, the public are already starting to see some of the announcemants made this morning, as an admission of failure & Uturns. In addition the delay of the public spending review until after the election as an attempt to pull the wool over peoples eyes ! (see comments on the Times, Telegraph, London Standard and Sky websites)