Thursday, September 07, 2006

Blair's legacy: It's possible





I've had an idea. One you'll like. One Tony Blair's little people, the ones who reckon he should appear on Blue Peter to give him a legacy, will also like. One which will cement him in political history - for the right reason.

In this autumn's Queen's Speech, he should include a bill which would make it law that a general election be held if the leader of the ruling group is ousted/resigns/dies and so on.

There. I've said it.

Were such a Bill to become law, it would bring to an end the constant talk of conorations of a party's next leader. It would stop the constant bickering between rival factions in a party. And it means that we wouldn't have so-called political journalists on 24 hour news channels around the clock predicting what will happen rather than reporting it.

Think about it. As soon as Blair let the cat out of the bag that he still planned to resign, and his mates said it would be within 12 months, the future was set in concrete. For the next 12 months the pages of newspapers, and the hours of news channels, will be filled with rumour, conjecture and the sound of every Labour MP with a gripe against Blair trying to get their 15 minutes of fame.

I'm probably quite sad. I enjoy reading about politics. I enjoy scandal. But what I don't enjoy is a bunch of elected representatives diverting all their energies to ensuring whatever happens when Blair leaves bests suits their own personal wishes.

This latest whoo-haa all seems to stem from the Labour MP Chris Bryant. Last week, deep in the Welsh valleys, he began putting together a letter which called for Blair to set out a timetable for his departure. Why would an MP do that? An ultra-Blairite MP at that?

Could it be that he felt aggrieved that he had been constantly overlooked by the PM for promotion after pictures of him appearing in just his y-fronts appeared on a gay website? There you go, Tony Blair's future appears to hang or fall by the whim of a vengeful exhibitionist. Brilliant, eh?

Blair's mates - David Miliband and repulsive Hiliary Armstrong, who could be described as school mistress-like if she wasn't so dense - then appear and say they think he'll go in a year. Will it be a succession to Gordon Brown? They won't say, but then Jack Straw - ex-foreign secretary, probably dumped because he was getting too many headlines off Blair - pops up and says Brown should follow on. Then Alan Johnson appears on TV and refuses to rule out going for the leadership himself. And amid all this, David Blunkett pops up to say he doesn't want to get involved until his diaries have been published. That's in November by the way, his diaries that is.

On the backbenches the letters are flying around, some in favour and some against Blair going, and no doubt everyone will be thinking who they should line up alongside. It's all good stuff, if you're in the Westminister village. But what about the rest of us? The ones who voted for people to run the country.

No surprises here, but it takes a voice from outside the Westminister bubble to speak some sense. Up in Sedgefield, which Tony Blair has been an MP since the 1980s, you'll never hear a bad word spoken out Blair. The one time I was sent there as a reporter, shortly after the Hutton Inquiry was published, it was like being in some political Stepford Wives - no-one had a bad word to say about Blair. It was like a spin doctor's wet deam. And a reporter's nightmare.

Still, it was here that the voice of common sense prevailed this week. Step forward John Burton, Tony Blair's agent.

He said, in the Northern Echo, that: "It is pathetic and disappointing. You have a mixture of left-wing extremists who have always been against Tony, a few failed Cabinet ministers and a small number of loyalists who have now turned.

"But they should remember that they are there because of Tony - 170, 170 and 70 majorities are landslide victories, and Tony won a lot of them their seats.

"It is a disgusting way to treat people. If it was local councillors behaving like this, they would be kicked out of the party, but when they get down to Westminster, they think they can say whatever they like, irrespective of how it hits the party.

"I am disappointed because they are tearing the party apart and actually making less chance for themselves to get re-elected and less chance of another Labour leader, be he Gordon Brown, John Reid or whoever, winning the next election."

And there's the point. Those in Westminster jockeying for position (and airtime) don't care what people think of them at the moment because they know an election is a way off.

If a change of leadership meant a new election, they'd have to put up a united front. They'd vote, discreetly for their new leader and off the country would go to the polls.

I don't think there is a bigger act of arrogance by MPs currently embroiled in their self-created whirlwind of political nonsense than to assume they should be the only ones to choose the new leader. And the same applies to the Labour Party membership.

Parties are elected to run the country, not control it. In 2005, millions voted for a Labour Party led by Blair. As the man who, possibly more than any other prime minister, has pushed forward the cult of personality and image, he should be the man that ensures we never again have to endure this guessing game by allowing the people of the UK the right to decide who leads the country when a PM steps down.

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