Failed Coup
As bungled coups go, Hoon and Hewitt certainly earn a mention for incompetence. Bad judgement, misreading mood, disloyalty, the list is long. Oh dear. But what about the Cabinet? No marks here either. Some are loyal, some are spineless and some will back whoever is the winner. Everything hinged on the brooding Lord Mandleson. Without him the plotters were doomed. The oily Milliband and plotting Harman knew this. So did Gordon.
The nation, or those who vaguely care, outside the media and Westminster Village that is not many, was astonished. Astonished not just because overthrowing leaders in the midst of an election campaign is political suicide, but because it is slowly dawning that Gordon is doing rather well. The architect of the banking rescue and global action to fight the recession, champion of climate change, everywhere to be seen on the world stage pushing here and prodding there, undaunted by disaster, setback, backstab and other calamities, rumpled and gloomy and above all the underdog.
This blog will not commit its support to any political party and always feels free to have a go. The message today is this. The British love underdogs. They worship heroes who from certain defeat and all hope abandoned, surrounded by panicking lieutenants, snatch victory against the odds. Our Gordon knows this and is beginning to show some real colour. Yesterday Cameron was plastered across the walls of the Commons at PMQ.
This may be the point. People are now beginning to look at Cameron seriously. Such a nice young man at first, well intentioned and all that. But is that what we need? All those posters with that smiling face. Is this not echoes of Blair? Back to the spin merchants and the big spend campaign? And what about his team? Apart from Ken and William there is nothing there. Just a bunch of careerists who could have been bankers but decided they had more to gain out of politics. Third raters at very best but mostly just the kind of people we really do not want in charge.
And do not forget. The all ticket sell out of Blair at Chilcot. A massive reminder of the dangers of the young wiz kid premier who thinks he knows best and who sees it as his duty do to what he thinks is right even if the wise know he is wrong. Gordon set up this enquiry so that it would be spilling the beans he knows are in the tin, as the election campaign gets going. He knows that hate of Blair plays for him and against Cameron.
Gordon is a good deal smarter than many people think.