As Gordon Brown heads to Paris to tell Eurozone leaders how they can copy the British bailout to save their banks from collapse, his loyal supporters are congratulating themselves for averting another major institution from bankruptcy: the great Clunking Fist himself.
But is this premature and misguided? A pair of leaked emails suggest that whatever the outward appearance, internal ruptures at Number 10 are rather too deep to be so quickly healed.
My esteemed colleague John Rentoul asserts today that the excitement of last week's victory by Gordon Brown over David Cameron at PMQs ignores the fact that Labour's reputation for economic competence has been ruined because of the crash, and therefore the next election is already lost to the Conservatives.
The weird euphoria now gripping Brownite loyalists, stumbling around Westminster like pre-Crash City traders drunk on champagne, follows a period of so much blood spilled in the Labour Party it is inconceivable that this has all simply been washed away with a reshuffle and an economic bailout.
Sure enough, email messages sent by an official in Downing Street and obtained by the Independent on Sunday show how even the Prime Minister allowed himself to be personally dragged into the infighting inside No10, involving former spin doctor Damian McBride, now a backroom strategist, former strategy chief Stephen Carter, now a minister in the Lords, and Nick Stace, who is still a strategy and communications adviser at No10. The emails show how bitter things had become, and suggest this bitterness remains dangerously close to the surface.
Our extensive coverage of the economic crisis means only an abridged version appears in today's newspaper, so here they are in full (the author's name removed, of course).
23 July 2008
MOOD AT NUMBER 10
- Stephen Carter is very unhappy. As my guy put it, "barely any of Stephen Carter's ideas has been taken on". Carter would leave now if there was a face-saving way out - eg peerage and Cabinet Minister (DCMS?) job.
- The lowest ebb at Number 10 came a few weeks ago, when an Friday afternoon email from Nick Stace, setting out ideas for an economic plan, ended up in the Times the next day. Everyone knows it was Damian McBride that leaked the memo. When Nick Stace came to work on Saturday, there was an email from GB: "Did you leak this?" Stace has been locked out of the loop ever since. This has created a lot of bad blood, as Stace is really well liked, and it means that people are increasingly wary of circulating ideas in Downing Street these days.
22 September 2008
- Stephen Carter is finished - the machine is ignoring him already. Seen internally as a victory for Jeremy Heywood. The people Carter brought in - Nick Stace and Jennifer Moses (but not David Muir) - will almost certainly move on.
Ee. Ah don't know. Bloody lords all over tert place! Ah thought this were a labour party ah voted for. Looks to me like a lot of bloody tories, way they carry on. Any road, they are nationalising them bloody banks, and that's what labour's for. But, where's money coming from, eh? Not out my pay-packet - there's nowt left.
Posted by: john problem | Sunday, 12 October 2008 at 09:29 AM
Once again your dose of reality Jane brings that "wild euphoria" down to earth with a bump. That euphoria is indeed premature and misguided.
A week is a long time in politics and all that. It is more than three to Glenrothes. By that time the economic dust will have settled and more and more questions will have been asked. His reputation for economic competence will have been ruined.
Brown peaked too early. At the moment sure, it's the unsinkable Gordon Brown. But that won't last and the gang all know this.
http://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/unsinkable-gordon-brown.html
BTW: I think John 'ee ba gum' Problem should be given his own talk radio show. Eckey thump.
Posted by: the orange party | Sunday, 12 October 2008 at 06:05 PM
One only has to look here, at the United States, to know that these "bailout" packages for the economy aren't going to solve the economic problems anywhere. Period.
Posted by: Brett Hagberg | Monday, 13 October 2008 at 12:40 AM