Why politicians would love to play the regeneration game
REGENERATION must be one of the concepts in the Doctor Who universe that politicians most wish existed in real life.
The science-fiction franchise will stage yet another reboot when Jodie Whittaker becomes the latest incarnation of the Doctor, taking over from Peter Capaldi.
Producers will hope that Ms Whittaker will delight millions of existing loyal viewers while also broadening the audience and opening up new narrative possibilities.
Strategists in different political parties would love to be able to work such a wonder.
Political leaders rarely quit at the height of their popularity and instead wait until their party has suffered defeat at the ballot box before stepping down and triggering a leadership election.
The alternative is for party insiders to mount a coup and force him or her out of office – but this can plunge a political tribe into years of anguish. Look how long it took the Conservatives to get past the psychological trauma of toppling Margaret Thatcher.
Imagine if parties could avoid such ordeals and press a regeneration button when a leader was starting to look a little long in the tooth or was beginning to grate with the public.
Gordon Brown’s yearning to lead the country was not in doubt but by the time he got to No 10 voters had elected three Labour Governments in a row.
This veteran MP who had been at the heart of Government since 1997 had to persuade an electorate alarmed by Iraq, shocked by the expenses saga, and weary of endless reports of BlairBrown rivalry that it was not time for a change.
If he had been able to flick a switch and be reborn as Britain’s answer to Emmanuel Macron, the 2010 election might have been a very different story.
Similarly, Ed Miliband had no deficit of passion and no shortage of intellectual firepower, but he must have daydreamed about being able to regenerate himself as Daniel Craig.
John Major probably went on similar journeys of the imagination when confronted with the dazzling charisma of 1997-era Tony Blair. He might have wished he could step out of the Tardis as a British version of JFK.
Conservatives abhor being in Opposition and they shuffled through William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard before lighting upon David Cameron – who better resembled a casting director’s idea of what a thrusting young leader should look like.
Renewal in opposition is a difficult task for a party. Different factions can champion wildly diverging ideas of how to win power, leaders have very little patronage with which to keep loudmouths in line, and all discipline can quickly collapse.
Today’s Tories will desperately hope they can avoid being forced into an early election which could well end in humiliation. They will likely seek to replace Theresa May long before the 2022 election with someone who can bed into Downing St and charm the nation.
Labour in Wales is a rare example of a party successfully renewing itself while in power. The party has held the First Ministership since the creation of the office and Rhodri Morgan stepped down in 2009 against a backdrop of glowing approval ratings. Carwyn Jones won a robust leadership contest and continues to lead a Labour group which – by UK standards – displays a remarkable standard of discipline. The party has been spared the agonies of Opposition but has refreshed its benches with ambitious and ideasriven AMs. Voters have not responded to calls to end Labour rule in Wales but instead handed the party three more seats in last month’s Westminster election.
The contrast with Scotland is stark, where Labour has fewer seats than the Conservatives and the SNP has won over swathes of centre left voters.
Welsh Labour’s success at the regeneration game will be viewed with envy but also keen interest by other parties. Labour’s sister parties in Australia and New Zealand have lost hold of the prime ministerships of their countries and when they look at the UK for inspiration for how to go forward they will see two distinct options.
In Jeremy Corbyn, they see someone who happily talks about socialism and has dramatically increased his party’s representation in parliament despite jumping away from the narrow centre ground of politics where elections are supposedly won.
Welsh Labour is one of the most successful examples of a left-leaning party refusing to cede patriotism to the political right or to nationalist rivals. It has proudly articulated a love of nation and made the case that its manifesto is the best representation of Welsh values today.
This could provide a blueprint for the renewal of the centre-left far beyond Wales.
In the United States, the Democrats need to show that they don’t only love their country as much as Donald Trump, but that their concern for struggling communities far from the capital infinitely exceeds his.
Under Rhodri Morgan and Carwyn Jones, Labour has delighted in parking its tanks on other parties’ turf. It has portrayed itself as a champion of the Welsh language and a defender of businesses at risk of losing out from Brexit; its pledge to stand up for “Wales” is an inclusive vision that allows it to appeal to voters who would otherwise be divided by wealth, priorities and geography.
The next Welsh Labour leader will have to find new ways to regularly renew the party and reach out to voters or power will slip away. The party may well find ways to thrive in the coming decades but – unlike in Doctor Who – going back in time is not an option.