What David should do next

What would you do if you were David Miliband? He’s already getting a whole load of advice, some friendly, some not-so-friendly - it’s a moot point which he finds least helpful.

His options appear limited. He can either contest the leadership of the Labour Party against Gordon Brown, so long the heir-presumptuous; or he can choose to keep his powder dry. When in doubt, flip through the history books.

First point to note: Mr Miliband would be the least experienced British Prime Minister since 1945.

There have been 11 post-war Prime Ministers, five of them appointed to the post while serving as members of the cabinet:

• Anthony Eden (translated from Foreign Secretary);
• Harold Macmillan (from the Chancellorship, had been Foreign Secretary);
• Alec Douglas Home (another Foreign Secretary);
• Jim Callaghan (yet another Foreign Secretary, though had also been Chancellor and Home Secretary); and
• John Major (who followed Macmillan’s career path).

The other six were elected to the post having served time as leader of HM’s Opposition, itself a pretty thorough preparation for the job to come:

• Clement Attlee (who had been Deputy Prime Minister);
• Winston Churchill (a former Prime Minister, who had also held more cabinet posts even than John Reid);
• Harold Wilson;
• Edward Heath;
• Margaret Thatcher; and
• Tony Blair.

All 11 of them had served at least a decade in Parliament.

By contrast, Mr Miliband has been an MP for fewer than six years, serving in the cabinet for nigh-on two of them. Promotion to the First Lord of the Treasury in one bound would be quite an hubristic leap.

Of course, it can be argued that such experience doesn’t matter a jot. “Look at David Cameron,” comes the cry. Well, we shall come to see how time treats the Tories’ young pretender; for now it suffices to say that I suspect even he is grateful his moment has not yet arrived, that he has a while longer to work out what he would wish to achieve in government.

From this you might think my conclusion is obvious: Mr Miliband would be daft to stand. If only it were that simple! For there is always another consideration - what will happen if he doesn’t stand?

The sensible analysis reads: let Gordon win the leadership and lose the election, allowing David to take over the reins as the Labour Party’s saviour.

That might seem rational now; but so, too, did the Blair-Brown ‘Granita Pact’ in 1994; as did David Davis standing aside for Michael Howard to assume the Tory leadership in 2003. I wonder if either now regrets their choice? And what of Michael Portillo’s failure of nerve when declining to challenge John Major in 1995? The standard-bearer of the Tory right was instead eclipsed by the vulcanesque John Redwood.

Favourites have a habit of thinking their time is yet to come. But events have a habit of unravelling what once seemed seamless.

When Chris Huhne stood for the Lib Dem leadership last year, he was initially dismissed as ‘Chris Who?’ But ‘Who’ had the last laugh - the freshly-minted Eastleigh MP scored 32% in the first round of voting, besting the better-known and vastly more experienced Simon Hughes, and emerging as the newly-crowned ‘activists’ darling’. Nick Clegg might be considered by the media as Ming Campbell’s natural successor, but Mr Huhne will stand in much better stead next time than if he hadn’t risked standing this time.

Such are the considerations for Mr Miliband to ponder. My verdict? He’d be mad to stand. But he’d be madder not to. The real risk for him is that he might win. However, I don’t think he should worry too much about such an outside possibility.

Where have all the big beasts gone?

Adrian Hamilton makes a fair point in today’s Independent:

The New Labour government will soon be 10 years old. But what may well be most remarkable about this administration as it approaches its birthday is not so much its longevity but how little heavyweight talent it has at the end. Think of almost any cabinet since the Second World War and even the weakest of governments - the later Wilson administrations, John Major's and Jim Callaghan's - had some pretty formidable figures round the table. You might think some overrated, others positively loathsome, but it is hard to deny that Tony Crossland, Denis Healey, Roy Jenkins and Dick Crossman from the Wilson government or Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine and Chris Patten from Thatcher and Major's, were pretty formidable politicians, "big beasts" in the jungle that is Westminster.

Compare that with the present Cabinet and, if you exclude the PM and the Chancellor, it is hard to see a small duck never mind a large beast.

Of course, it’s a little too easy to look back in wonder and pick out exempla. Harold Wilson’s cabinets also included such yesterday’s men as Fred Peart, Michael Stewart and Richard Marsh (to name but three). Margaret Thatcher made space for dull worthies like David Waddington, John Moore and David Hunt.

But the point remains: the top three posts - Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Office - were occupied by, inter alia, Jenkins, Callaghan and Healey (under Wilson) and Lawson, Howe and Hurd (under Thatcher). All except Lawson ran for the leadership of their respective parties, and, if successful, would have become Prime Minister.

Small wonder, then, that when Frank Field cast around for an alternative to Gordon Brown as Labour leader (in yesterday’s well-reported Grauniad article) he ducked naming an alternative until his last, four-word sentence: “Step forward, David Miliband.” If Mr Miliband’s your answer, a well-worn put-down is required: ‘What the hell was your question?’

But then if you look at this page - the current Cabinet - you see Labour’s problem: who else is there? (Which is all the more remarkable considering this Government was originally elected with over 400 MPs.)

Why this dearth of talent? Is politics failing now to attract the right calibre of candidates? Does the growing scrutiny of MPs’ lives filter out bright sparks with some vim and vigour about them? Has the increasing centralisation of Westminster politics overloaded cabinet ministers with tedious operational minutiae? Are our expectations unrealistically high?

Miliband's over-blown gaffe

I’m not too sure what David Miliband’s done to deserve his reputation as next-Labour-leader-but-one. (It won’t ever happen.)

But I will stick up for him today in the face of the rather pathetic reporting which has followed his supposed ‘gaffe’ that Gordon Brown will make an unpopular Prime Minister.

Here is what he said on last night’s Question Time:

"I predict that when I come back on this programme in six months' or a year's time, people will be saying, 'Wouldn't it be great to have that Blair back, because we can't stand that Gordon Brown.'"

The point he was quite evidently making - obvious to anyone with a scintilla of objectivity - was that being at the top guarantees you attract flak. And that, as people begin to view the past with red rose-tinted spectacles, Tony Blair will be increasingly highly regarded. (John Major’s resurrection among popular opinion, despite having led the most disastrous government of modern times, is testament to the redemptive power of impotence.)

Nothing controversial about that. However, a quick scan down today’s headlines suggests otherwise:

• You won't like Brown, says Blairite minister;
• Miliband gaffe over Brown premiership; and
• Miliband lets slip on Brown's popularity.

Indeed, thegrauniad chose to take Mr Miliband’s remark utterly out of context in their travesty of an article, Public could turn against Brown, warns Miliband:

The enviroment secretary warned that public opinion could quickly turn against the chancellor, with voters claiming: "We can't stand that Gordon Brown." [Do enjoy their spelling of ‘enviroment’ (sic) by the way.]

Time was when a gaffe meant a gaffe. Now it’s deployed by lazy journalists as an excuse to paraphrase ad absurdum an otherwise straightforward remark. Is it any wonder if politicians become ever more banal and tight-lipped in response?