Survival at all costs

Gordon Brown’s roadmap

It must have felt like driving with the aid of a “Sat Nav”

“At the roundabout, take the third exit”

Gordon Brown’s massive climbdown and U-turn yesterday, cobbled together just a few minutes before he faced the House of Commons, was designed to ensure his own political survival in office, to avert a certain defeat when the Finance Bill is voted upon next week, and to alleviate the effects upon the Labour Party of a possible defeat in the London Mayoral election and a certain drubbing at the hands of the electors in the local government polls on 1st. May.

The writing was on the wall last week when in America he had to go cap in hand to George Bush in the Whitehouse to ask for an outside line so he could call a junior minister and persuade her not to resign. He returned to the certain knowledge that at least 46 of his backbenchers were ready to support Frank Field’s amendment, and that could only lead to a humiliating certain defeat for his Finance Bill and would lead to a confidence vote before the important elections next Thursday.

Knowing that Cameron’s Conservatives were planning to vote with the Labour rebels it became a trial of strength, a test of his Prime Ministerial authority, the two sides faced each other in a stare out and he blinked first. Yet the concessions ceded to the rebels were not designed to alleviate the financial hardships faced by the 5.3m people who are now paying up to twice as much annual tax as a result of Gordo’s last Budget, they were designed for one purpose only, and that was to have the troublesome amendment withdrawn and the headlines rewritten. With one eye on his own personal political survival and the other… (well I’d best not go there), Brown demonstrated the politician’s ability to put personal interest in front of the national interest.

The cost of yesterday’s about turn will run into hundreds of millions of pounds and not the £7bn required to lift the 5.3m out of the poverty created by the Prime Minister. The answer that he dared not face to this perfidious problem was to raise personal allowances and take these people out of the tax bracket completely, but that would have meant saving some money from his extravagant spending spree!

The next navigational problem with Brown in the driving seat will be the counter terrorism measure to extend detention without charge to 42 days, the rebels have now got a smell for the PM’s blood and will not be bothered that it may cost their Leader another red faced climbdown. They now know that he needs to be convinced to ditch the Sat Nav and take a good look at the political road map to find another route to extricate himself from another impending wrong turn.

Cameron succeeded yesterday in reminding the Labour Party that they have the wrong man at the steering wheel, he is a loser not a leader!

It’s only a matter of time before this unelected man runs out of road.

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