Jon Walker: Summer might give Brown a much-needed breather

Jul 18 2008 By Jon Walker

The House of Commons begins its summer holidays on Tuesday, but the political year – which more or less follows the school year – really ended with the final Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday.

David Cameron was spectacularly rude to Gordon Brown, describing him as “useless” and insisting Britain deserves a Prime Minister “who can provide leadership and tell us the truth.”

In recent weeks, Mr Brown has been performing far more effectively in the Commons and managed to hold his own.

But this week, it was the Conservatives who won the day. Cameron used language people can understand, even if it won’t win awards for subtlety, while Mr Brown retorted the Tories lacked “substance” – his favourite comeback, but one that probably means very little to many outside Westminster.

As Labour MPs head to their constituencies, they must be wondering what the future holds.

There are two opportunities for Labour to turn things around.

First, there is the Glasgow East by-election next week. Mr Brown’s party is defending a 13,500 majority against a challenge from the SNP, but predictions of a humiliating defeat left it searching desperately for a candidate as the obvious choices made their excuses.

But 13,500 is a hefty majority and it’s worth remembering the SNP is in Government in Scotland. The by-election, of course, is for the UK Parliament while the SNP runs the devolved Scottish administration, but it still makes them an unlikely repository for protest votes. Some opinion polls have suggested Labour may hold the seat. If it does, this will be a boost for Brown.

On Friday, the day after the election, Labour will hold its national policy forum at Warwick University.

The event has been billed as Warwick II, after the first “Warwick” meeting (actually in Coventry) before the 2005 General Election when the party patched up its relationship with the trade unions.

It has been suggested the unions are planning to flex their muscles and demand all sorts of nasty things, including a return to secondary picketing.

Not so, according to Labour, who point out constituency parties also send representatives, and health, education and transport are just as likely to be on the agenda.

One of the problems Gordon Brown has faced, bizarrely, is a policy vacuum. After ten years waiting to become Prime Minister, most people expected him to enter Downing Street brimming with ideas.

It hasn’t turned out like that. He certainly had some of Tony Blair’s policies lined up for U-turns, including super-casinos and reclassifying cannabis. But he had remarkably few new ideas.

On schools, for example, we have proposals to close the least successful and replace them with academies – something the Government has talked about for years, even though it generated controversy this time around (perhaps because Ministers sound as if they mean it for a change).

The much-vaunted knife crime strategy this week was actually a plan to tackle youth crime and anti-social behaviour in general, rapidly re-packaged in response to frightening headlines. The key measure, highlighted by Mr Brown, is to make parents take responsibility by threatening them with eviction.

Again, this is not new. A quick look through the Birmingham Post’s records turned up a story from 2005 about threats to evict anti-social families.

The national policy forum is an opportunity to generate ideas, although there are two obstacles.

First, the state of the economy means Labour needs to limit itself to proposals which don’t cost money.

Second, the Labour left is flexing its muscles. It’s not just the unions Mr Brown needs to worry about.

The Labour Representation Committee, a left-wing group, plans to propose a range of policies such as re-nationalising railways. It could be a long summer.