Harriet’s the ideal man for Labour
TODAY nominations close for the leadership of the Labour P arty. If you’re at a loose end, why not chuck your hat in the ring? Go on, the party’s in a desperate state. Andy Burnham is leading the field, but there’s little enthusiasm for him. He has flip -flopped on some issues and — as former Health Secretary — is held responsible by some for the ‘too many deaths’ Mid Staffs NHS Trust scandal.
Nor are the hills alive with the sound of music for the bookies’ second and third favourites, ‘Blairite’ Liz K endall and ‘Brownite’ Yvette Cooper . Their gender’s the best thing going for both.
There’s talk of trying to persuade David Miliband to give up his £300,000 New York job as a charity boss and return to the UK to contest the leadership, but what if he lost again, as he did in 2010 to brother Ed?
Surely they’d have to find some way of making sure he won the leadership ballot. If he accepted such a poisoned chalice, imagine the uproar if news of such a fix came out. He’d be unem - ployable by anyone afterwards.
Even if a candidate is chosen now , there’s talk of them having to endure a ‘stress test ’ in 2018 ahead of the 2020 General Election. Isn ’t that simply begging rival factions to undermine the provisional leader?
Will they by 2018 — or 3018, come to that — have come to a settled agree- ment about why they lost the 2010 and 2015 elections? I wouldn ’t have thought so. It involves some saying ‘we wuz wrong’.
Will there by 2018 be less emphasis on whether candidates are ‘Blairite’ or ‘Brownite’? Possibly. I notice that the former is avoided now by some Labour types. They prefer ‘New Labour’ to ‘Blairite’.
Hardly a day passes without T ony Blair appearing in the papers in a poor light, usually for having become obscenely rich by advising foreigners, some of dubious repute.
The problem is that he led the Labour Party to victory in three successive General Elections, and might have done so a fourth time if Gordon Brown had not prised him out of Downing Street on the absurd basis that it was his turn to be leader.
Short of giving all the money and property he has since accrued to the Salvation Army and taking Holy Orders, it ’s difficult to see how Blair, or ‘Blairite’, can be seen again in a positive light by the P eople’s Party (an ironic nickname these days, given that the ‘People’ so crushingly rejected it).
Some will say that times must be bad if I suggest that Harriet Harman is looking better than the existing candidates f or the Labour leadership.
SHE’S been around f or years, annoying critics who think she’s a prissy , politi - cally correct St P aul’s girl who — instead of becoming a Sloane Ranger — began hanging out with rough-hewn trades union types and speaking out for the workers.
Yet I think she has been fine as Labour’s acting leader. Her performances at Prime Minister’s Questions are dignified and not without humour. David Cameron finds it harder to humiliate her than he did Ed.
Yes, I know. She’s still Harriet Bloody Harman —AT errible Woman. But isn’t her stubborn refusal to become popular faintly stirring?
She’s been an MP since 1982 and was a shadow minister prior to Labour winning in 1997. Afterwards, she was Secretary of State for Social Security, f i rst- ever Minister f or Women, Solicitor-General, Minister of State for Constitutional Affairs, Deputy Leader — defeating five other candidates, including Alan Johnson — Leader of the Commons, Lord Privy Seal, Minister for W omen and Equality and Labour Party Chair.
She is the longest continuously serving female MP in the Commons.
She has not offered herself as a candidate for the leadership, or for the deputy leadership she resigned from after the General Election.
I am not sure why. Is she too old at 64? Perhaps she thinks so, but Hillary Clinton is 67, and she’s campaigning to become the most powerful leader in the world.
So perhaps we shouldn ’t rule out the prospect of one day seeing that daft pink battle bus of Harriet’s being unloaded outside Number 10.