Why the Hoon & Hewitt letter ISN'T Rise of the Nutters revisited.
Let's get some of the nonsense out of the way to begin with, because it's after three o'clock in the afternoon and I want a cup of tea my Inboxes are already fit to bust.
Firstly, as viewers of today's Daily Politics programme on BBC2 will attest, it only takes the duration of Prime Minister's Question Time to wipe the smug looks from the faces of Andrew Neil and Nick Robinson who, just half an hour previously, had been actively dismissing the idea that there was any kind of plot afoot to unseat the PM. That, and a leaked letter from former Cabinet ministers Geoff ("Buff") Hoon and Patricia ("Peter Capaldi in drag") Hewitt addressed to Labour MPs, calling for a secret ballot of the Parliamentary Labour Party on the matter of the party's leadership in the run-up to the General Election. The letter itself (full text here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8443882.stm) is a work of strategic art, crafted more in the style of Sun Tzu than Machiavelli. Why? Because it exploits an unpopular (and hitherto unelected) leader's weakness for self-affirmation. Nowhere in the text of the letter is the suggestion ever made that the Labour Party would do better without Gordon Brown running it. In fact, what the letter calls for is an end to all the uncertainty, rumour, and speculation surrounding Gordon's leadership style.
Hmm. Can you see what they did there? It's quite clever. On the face of it, you'd think that Brown's remaining supporters would be falling over themselves to sign up for the thing, with no solid reason not to think it's a terribly good idea all round. A couple of my correspondents have even posited the notion that Gordon himself is behind it, performing an untidily anonymous proxy version of John Major's "Back me or STFU" gambit in the 1990s.
That seems unlikely; even if his turn at today's PMQs was unusually boisterous after a very shaky start, he certainly wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving Hoon and Hewitt to mastermind any backstage recovery plan on his behalf. Hoon is the awkward uncle you can't trust to leave alone at a wedding reception for fear of him hurting himself demonstrating his awesome dance moves, and Hewitt has pissed off everyone she's ever worked with. She's leaving the PLP after this Parliament anyway, and already juggling think-tank appointments. So, no, the dramatis personae doesn't match up with any kind of dream team hit list coming out of Number 10. It's smarter than that.
Geoff Hoon, having bungled his way through a number of Ministerial jobs, found a niche as the Party's Chief Whip - a sort of John Reid, Cabinet Enforcer Lite figure. Stunningly, perhaps, he made a good fist of it. He also kept track of who thought what as the transition from Blair to Brown took place. Useful information, that. One never knows when it might come in handy and, as various backbenchers considered (aloud, within his hearing, and over the Christmas and New Year party season) their threatened marginal seats at the forthcoming election, the plan began to take shape.
At the time of writing, no currently serving Cabinet minister has yet backed the secret ballot proposal, either as a challenge, or as an exercise in supporting Gordon Brown.
Expect that to change...
Update: I don't doubt his sources for a moment, but here's Nick's somewhat iffy list of potential Cabinet Ministers who might've jumped aboard the plot...if they hadn't decided not to:
Harriet Harman, David Miliband, Bob Ainsworth, Jack Straw, Jim Murphy, and Douglas Alexander.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/01/why_attempt_to.html
Firstly, as viewers of today's Daily Politics programme on BBC2 will attest, it only takes the duration of Prime Minister's Question Time to wipe the smug looks from the faces of Andrew Neil and Nick Robinson who, just half an hour previously, had been actively dismissing the idea that there was any kind of plot afoot to unseat the PM. That, and a leaked letter from former Cabinet ministers Geoff ("Buff") Hoon and Patricia ("Peter Capaldi in drag") Hewitt addressed to Labour MPs, calling for a secret ballot of the Parliamentary Labour Party on the matter of the party's leadership in the run-up to the General Election. The letter itself (full text here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8443882.stm) is a work of strategic art, crafted more in the style of Sun Tzu than Machiavelli. Why? Because it exploits an unpopular (and hitherto unelected) leader's weakness for self-affirmation. Nowhere in the text of the letter is the suggestion ever made that the Labour Party would do better without Gordon Brown running it. In fact, what the letter calls for is an end to all the uncertainty, rumour, and speculation surrounding Gordon's leadership style.
Hmm. Can you see what they did there? It's quite clever. On the face of it, you'd think that Brown's remaining supporters would be falling over themselves to sign up for the thing, with no solid reason not to think it's a terribly good idea all round. A couple of my correspondents have even posited the notion that Gordon himself is behind it, performing an untidily anonymous proxy version of John Major's "Back me or STFU" gambit in the 1990s.
That seems unlikely; even if his turn at today's PMQs was unusually boisterous after a very shaky start, he certainly wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving Hoon and Hewitt to mastermind any backstage recovery plan on his behalf. Hoon is the awkward uncle you can't trust to leave alone at a wedding reception for fear of him hurting himself demonstrating his awesome dance moves, and Hewitt has pissed off everyone she's ever worked with. She's leaving the PLP after this Parliament anyway, and already juggling think-tank appointments. So, no, the dramatis personae doesn't match up with any kind of dream team hit list coming out of Number 10. It's smarter than that.
Geoff Hoon, having bungled his way through a number of Ministerial jobs, found a niche as the Party's Chief Whip - a sort of John Reid, Cabinet Enforcer Lite figure. Stunningly, perhaps, he made a good fist of it. He also kept track of who thought what as the transition from Blair to Brown took place. Useful information, that. One never knows when it might come in handy and, as various backbenchers considered (aloud, within his hearing, and over the Christmas and New Year party season) their threatened marginal seats at the forthcoming election, the plan began to take shape.
At the time of writing, no currently serving Cabinet minister has yet backed the secret ballot proposal, either as a challenge, or as an exercise in supporting Gordon Brown.
Expect that to change...
Update: I don't doubt his sources for a moment, but here's Nick's somewhat iffy list of potential Cabinet Ministers who might've jumped aboard the plot...if they hadn't decided not to:
Harriet Harman, David Miliband, Bob Ainsworth, Jack Straw, Jim Murphy, and Douglas Alexander.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/01/why_attempt_to.html