It is a testing time for Gordon Brown, a leader who appears to be on ever-unstable ground, as this article is being penned the local elections on May 1 are looming.
For the Labour party these are elections that come amid a crisis of dissatisfaction within the party rank and file and more worrying throughout the general public.
The elections have also come at a time when Brown’s leadership has been questioned, most recently over the 10p tax cut, with its negative effect on the disadvantaged, which received scathing comments by Lord Levy.
Labour’s ability to govern the whole of the UK looks in jeopardy, going on local election predictions. By the time you read this you will know the results, but as it stands the latest polls suggest that Labour is heading for defeat. The pollsters predict the loss of 200 council seats and the London mayoralty.
As for Lord Levy’s comments and all political attacks, timing is the key. The attack comes from the book he has written, which unsurprisingly is being serialised in the Daily Mail, for all its juicy anti-Labour gossip.
The Daily Mail has adorned her pages with the suggestions by Lord Levy that there is a lack of strong leadership within the Labour party and that Tony Blair openly told Lord Levy that he believed that Gordon Brown could not beat David Cameron in a general election.
A spokesman for Tony Blair emphatically denies these suggestions, which do sound particularly outlandish for the departed Labour leader. It appears to be Lord Levy trying to stick a spanner in the works; or indeed the Daily Mail stirring up a storm.
What is for certain is that Labour backbenchers are becoming restless – so too is the general public.
It is a troubling time for Labour supporters, with the public shift towards the Conservative, as the Tories storm to the centre ground on politics and policy seems increasingly cemented.
The results will have backed or contradicted the aspersions made by Lord Levy and if Labour loses London, it will be an incredibly steep climb for Gordon Brown to win the next general election. Firstly, bottling an early election to consolidate his power, and secondly, having the prospect of losing two of Britain’s capitals: Edinburgh and London.
Matters are made worse especially with Boris Johnson outlining his intent to do everything in his power to oppose Labour policies if he wins the London Mayoral race.
The Labour party and Gordon Brown especially have been portrayed as incompetent with the 10p tax cut U-turn, for which Jack Straw has had to apologise. He said, while answering questions on a radio phone-in show: “Sometimes even with the best brains available for government there are inadvertent consequences of changes.
“We put our hands up to that we should have known more about the impact of the abolition of the 10p rate.” A back bench rebellion over the tax cut was labelled as being an attack by Blairite supporters to destabilize the Prime Minister, but why would Labour MPs what to destabilize the Prime Minister at such a crucial time?
It’s a bizarre situation in which attacking Gordon Brown’s competence seems to have become a regular occurrence, as his policies continue to lack the inspiration the general public crave, which leads the press to brand him as ‘out of touch’ with the nation.
There were even wild suggestions on the rumor mill that political damage from the 10p tax cut row could have persuaded some Labour voters to vote for the BNP.
The 10p debate has caused a load of trouble for Gordon Brown, which undoubtedly will be in the short term memory of the public as they go to the polls, effecting the local election results and will also have a detrimental effect on the future direction of the Labour party.
As Labour members continue to raise their dissatisfaction, having resided in power for 11 years, the question still lingers – are they a spent force in the eyes of the press and, more troubling, the public consciousness?
