Now that the dust has settled and there’s general agreement that Tony Blair’s not long for No 10, some more reflective pieces are emerging on the likely nature of his departure, and its afternath.
Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian draws parallels, and finds differences, with the departure of Hardold Wilson in 1976:
It seems plausible to assume that three looming crises – the slide of sterling on the foreign exchange markets, a growing left-right split in his party, and a dwindling parliamentary majority – added to the third-term weariness that some had already detected in the pipe-sucking 60-year-old. Conspiracy theorists have suggested darker reasons for Wilson’s sudden departure: a medical diagnosis, blackmail, hounding by the secret services. But his biographer, Ben Pimlott, concludes that Wilson really had intended all along to do just two more years following his re-election in February 1974. Here was something very unusual in history: a power-holder who goes voluntarily, at the time of his own choosing.
That’s one of the differences then; the Australian parallel of of Hawke-Keating is rather more apt in many respects.
Anatole Kaletsky in The Times makes a different historical comparison, to Thatcher, but looks forward to the inevitable succession and makes a coherent argument that it will be better for Gordon Brown if it isn’t consensual.
The longer Mr Blair spins out his death throes, the more his successor will be seen as a liberator and saviour. If Mr Blair becomes so peevish and arrogant that his removal is greeted with national jubilation, Mr Brown, just like John Major, can expect a happy honeymoon. He can also expect a further advantage because of the electoral strategy chosen by David Cameron. Mr Cameron is under the strange illusion that Mr Brown is feared and loathed by Middle England, …
By pulling out of Iraq and breaking publicly with the Bush Administration (which by then will itself be in terminal decline), Mr Brown could win himself so much credit with the Labour Party and the affluent middle classes that he could do almost anything else he might choose with the health service, taxes, pensions or schools.”
The thought occurs to me that politicians tend to have one political tactic that they repeat; Brown’s dramatic freeing of the Bank of England from political control might be a precedent of sorts.
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