GORDON BROWN’S AIR OF RESIGNATION

27-11-2007

Another week, another resignation close to government – this time Peter Watt, the General Secretary of the Labour Party. Gordon Brown must be wondering how many other high profile figures have to quit before he’s forced to announce his own departure.

Given the Prime Minister’s tenacity in holding on through the Blair years for his own chance to steer the boat, we know that he won’t quickly be prised out of office. He’s waited long and hard for this chance and it will never be surrendered easily.

But the fug of sleaze and incompetence now encircling Number 10 suggests that he may not have the choice. Like any party leader he’ll hold the allegiance of his MPs only as long as they think he can lead them to victory. On current form, that prospect must be highly questionable.

Peter Watt’s departure last night is only the latest in an increasingly long line of own goals scored by Brown’s administration.

Seven days ago, it was the chairman of Revenue and Customs Paul Gray who fell on his sword after 25million child benefit records went missing, a blunder which – whether they recognise it or not - surely kills off one of the government’s key policies of identity cards.

Meanwhile, rumbling away in the background like a landslide waiting to happen is the Northern Rock fiasco, still unresolved despite Richard Branson’s interest, and currently soaking up £25Billion of taxpayers’ cash.

How much of that will be repaid - and when – is anybody’s guess.

These crises undermine the government in different ways: Northern Rock challenges their hard-won reputation for prudence, the AWOL child benefit discs force voters to question its competence; the latest row is arguably the most serious of all since it makes New Labour look shifty and dishonest.

I mean…here comes millionaire donor David Abrahams with up to £600,000 to channel into the party, but who decides to filter it through three associates so that it can’t be traced to him.

Labour’s General Secretary happily colludes with him in this dubious exercise, blissfully unaware of the Electoral Commission’s requirements for transparency.

Nobody else in the party knew anything about these shenanigans mind, while Abrahams (or as he’s known in his business life David Martin) is - entirely coincidentally - on the verge of securing planning approval for a controversial business park in (Labour-run) Newcastle.

Given this scenario, it simply won’t wash for Labourites to dredge up the old catalogue of Tory misdemeanours from the Major years – Aitken, Hamilton et al. That was a political lifetime ago

Anyway, their party was elected partly to clean out the stables, and what with the “cash for honours” row and now this episode, they look as mired in the dung as their predecessors.

Gordon Brown’s colleagues talk of their boss’s no doubt sincere commitment to ending child poverty and alleviating Third World debt; there are still major elements of the New Labour agenda he needs to attend to as well, by building on the real improvements we’ve seen in health and education.

Yet all of this will come to nought if the government’s competence is questioned and it’s honesty doubted.

It’s not yet time for Brown to pen his own resignation note, but on current form it may closer than he thinks.

Do you trust the government?

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