Predicting the Opinion of Political History

This proved, somewhat unexpectedly, to be a very interesting documentary.

In a sense, I know very little about the Wilson/Heath years. I mean, I know the basic outline of what happened, if only because it provides some of the context for contemporary politics. But for me, the Wilson/Heath years (and the Callaghan administration) is part of the dour, drear post-war consensus era – that dull time when politics ground to a halt because the main parties pretty much agreed on everything. The programme did little to change my opinion of this era, but it did reframe it in a way that I hadn’t considered before through making it a duel between two of Britain’s least compelling Prime Ministers. It’s an interesting way of looking at politics between the mid-sixties and the mid-seventies.

And it did leave me wondering how the current political era will ultimately be viewed when similar documentaries are made in the future. I mean, in a sense it is easy to write the history of the Nu Labour years as it has two defining characteristics (ignoring the obvious ones like spin, mendacity and crushing incompetence). You can sum up the Nu Labour years by referencing the illegal and pointless war in Iraq at the same time as talking about the Blair-Brown rivalry. Unlike the Wilson/Heath years you don’t really need to mention whoever was in opposition. But what about the current era? How will the first year of the coalition be remembered?

I suspect that it will be remembered as the time when politics – or at least politicians and political commentators – went a little mad and forgot that the main party in government was the Tories rather than the Liberal Democrats. It will be about how the opposition party decided to fight Britain’s third party rather than the first party, and how the pointless chunterings of a second-rate politician like Vince Cable became front page news. And I rather suspect that historians will be incredulous as to the extent to which Nick Clegg became a Teflon coating for David Cameron. Above all, though, I think that this era could be framed around the question of why the Labour party allowed the Tories to coast to a real general election victory under the vacuous and utterly pointless Ed Miliband…

Rating the Post-War PMs

Here is an FT list, via Dale, of how "academics" would rate the post-war PMs:

Well, I'm in academia at the moment, and here's how I'd rate them (and why):

12: Brown: An odious, incapable man who should never have been allowed to become Prime Minister. He wrecked the country's economy, damaged our international standing and left our country in broken pieces for his successor government to try to put back together. I've said it before but I'll say it again - the only way for Cameron to be worse than Brown is if he actually declares war on the British people.

11: Eden: Massively over-hyped before he got into power, he wasn't up to the job and his raging paranoia over would-be aggressive dictators nearly got us into a shooting war with the US and made it very clear that Britain was no longer as great on the world stage as it had been. It also inspired a couple of unusually tedious Dennis Potter dramas.

1o: Callaghan: He may have been a genial chap from all accounts, but as PM he was pretty much useless. He bowed down to the unions and let them run this country pretty much into the ground, before committing a major strategic blunder and delaying an election that he could have won but that he would later lose.

9: Douglas-Home: Difficult to know what to say about Douglas-Home other than he lost an election. He's a non-entity - simultaneously neither a good Prime Minister nor a bad one.

8: Blair: A formidable election winner, Blair's legacy will, however, be constantly undermined by the Iraq War, the fact that his supposed economic success was built on shifting sands and his failure to prevent the clearly unsuitable Brown becoming his replacement.

7: Heath: He had the potential to be a genuinely reforming Prime Minister, but he took us into Europe, failed to win his battle with the unions and ultimately revealed himself to be a repugnant man both in No.10 and afterwards on the Tory back-benches.

6: Wilson: Well, he won more than he lost and he managed, despite the pressure from the US, to keep us out of Vietnam. But he did a lot to break the economy and hand the country over to the Unions, and he also managed to stay on at No.10 for far longer than he should have done.

5: Major: Yep, there was Black Wednesday. But prior to that there was one of the most spectacular electoral upsets in history, and after Black Wednesday Major's government did much to rebuild the economy (inbetween conducting a debilitating intra-party civil war). Crucially, the country he handed over was in better shape than when he got it. Just a shame, really, that he handed it over to Nu Labour...

4: Churchill: Ok, as a post-war PM he was largely inactive. He maintained the status quo and seemed to be slowly counting down the days until he was no longer able to do the job and had to retire. Nonetheless, he is the only one in this list who genuinely managed to become a British icon.

3: Macmillan: A caretaker PM in the best sense of the word - he did little to transform the country, but effectively managed it and rebuilt it and his party after the disaster that was Anthony Eden. Like Major, he left a country in a better state than when he found it.

2: Attlee: An odd choice for No.2 given I'm a Libertarian, Attlee is this high because he believed in a political ideology and actually set out to implement it, rather than just talking about it. Furthermore, his reforms may have created a bloated state, but they also helped to end communism as a potential alternative in this country. I'd doubt I've have voted for him, but Attlee scores highly in part because the vast majority of those who have followed him have been far less capable than him.

1: Thatcher: A socially conservative PM who grew increasingly loopy while in power and ultimately ended up shooting herself in the head politically with the poll tax, Thatcher at least understood the need to reduce the size and the scope of the state, albeit only in some areas. And to date, she is the only Prime Minister who has (a) understood this and (b) tried to do something about it.

And Cameron? He can't really be rated until he has ceased to be PM. At the moment, he would rate quite highly if only because he has yet to spectacularly drop the ball. I don't doubt for a moment that at some point he will, so only time will tell how badly he fares in future polls.

If/when you disagree, please feel free to put your thoughts in the comments section. If said comments aren't jarringly dull, I may even respond...

Brown to the Backbenches

He's out of Downing Street, but he's not leaving Parliament just yet. Oh no, Grim Gordon's going to sit on the backbenches:

"In case anybody was in any doubt because of the announcements that were made this week, I am wanting to do everything I can to work for people here, for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, as your Member of Parliament, and I will do that to the best of my ability for these next few months and years."

Hmmm. Maybe he does just want to be the best damned representative he can for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, but I rather suspect that Brown is deluding himself once again. I think that part of him reckons that at some point in the future, the Labour party is going to call for him. And because he's sat on the backbenches, he will be able to heed their call. Maybe even become leader again. And perhaps - whisper it - Prime Minister again. You know, a bit like Harold Wilson did.

Of course, Brown is no Harold Wilson, and Wilson himself was a Prime Ministerial also-ran if ever there was one. See, Wilson won all bar one of the General Elections he fought, whereas Brown has a 100% failure record when it comes to winning at the polls. Wilson also stayed as Labour leader when he lost in 1970, whereas Brown quit as Labour leader before he got round to resigning as PM. No, there's not going to be a call for Brown to come back off the backbenches. If anything, by staying in Parliament when his career is not only dead, but dead, cremated, and already being forgotten about, Brown will resemble the man Wilson was so good at defeating at the polls - Ted Heath: a foul misanthrope sat on the backbenches, bitter about his ejection from the political limelight and doing his level best to undermine his successors in the role.

Brown should heed the advice of another failed* Prime Minister - John Major:

"When the curtain falls, it is time to get off the stage."

Quite. Accepting it is over and moving on is a dignified thing to do. But it is probably the very definition of pointless to expect Brown to act with dignity now, when he has spent most of his political career being anything other than dignified.

*Major was a failure as Prime Minister, losing to Labour in 1997 in a landslide and managing to wreck the economy in 1992. Of course, Major was still a lot better than Brown, as he won a convincing victory in 1992 and managed to turn the economy round by 1997.

Glenrothes: Fleeting Victory

My word. My word. Gordon's only gone and won a bloody by-election.

This must be an exciting new feeling for him. Glenrothes could have been the gallows for his premiership. Instead, this election represents a shot in the arm for him; a syringe full of morphine that eases the pain of his slow decline towards total defeat.

Of course, you could argue that it really isn't a massive achievement to win a seat that is in the Labour heartland and is a safe seat. Frankly, there should have been no doubt that the Labour party would be able to retain this seat, and their vote is down a third on 2005. But for Gordon Brown, anything other than abject failure is to be treated as an out and out triumph. And I don't want to rain too much on Gordon's parade - let him have his happy day. After all, this by-election is a single, fragile shard of light that has illuminated, however briefly, a life clouded by resentful gloom.

What does stick in my throat though is some of the coverage for this win. Probably my own fault for reading The Guardian on a day when Labour have actually managed to do something right, but still:

Labour pulled off a stunning byelection victory in the early hours of this morning, defying predictions to retain the once safe Labour seat of Glenrothes in the first indication that Gordon Brown's heightened international standing and handling of the financial crisis has translated into improved electoral fortunes.

Three points:

1. A stunning by-election victory. That would be where Labour retained a safe seat with a diminished majority. I know that Labour set expectations low for this by-election, but seriously, this is far from a stunning victory. Next thing you know we'll be reading about how McCain won a stunning victory in the US Presidential election. In fucking Wyoming.

2. Gordon Brown's heightened international standing. You what? You fucking what?! Heightened internation standing? How the piss Christ has Brown's international standing been heightened? Because he hasn't soiled himself at an international conference? Because he hasn't had a complete mental breakdown and started sobbing in public squares? Because he hasn't punched a baby in the face during one of his temper tantrums? And Gordon Brown's international standing will have a very limited impact on the Glenrothes by-election. Unless Sarkozy and Merkel have secretly and illegally registered to vote for Brown's arse kissing by-election candidate. But no, I'd imagine this "heightened international standing" has something to do with Brown's response to the credit crunch.

3. Handling of the financial crisis. So Brown's victory is about him nationalising banks. With tax payer funds. Seriously, what Christing fuck? I've no idea whether the voters of Glenrothes have voted for Labour because of Brown's hard-on for spending public funds implementing the 1983 Labour Manifesto, but this praise of Gordon for propping failing banks with billions of pound of our money needs to be stopped from being touted as a success. Seriously, if this is a success, then what in good God's name is a failure? Piling every ten and twenty pound note in the country into Parliament square and then setting fire to them?

Brown is a failure. He is the worst British Prime Minister since Anthony Eden, and given the competition for that post include Callaghan, Wilson, Douglas-Home and Heath, that is no mean feat. Brown's party may have won this by-election, but this result does not change the simple truth that Brown is an incompetent, ignorant, misanthropic, jaundiced, bitter, raging cunt of the very highest order. And it also does not change the fact that Gordon Brown is not fit for the high office he managed to steal from the previous PM.