A Browner Shade of Blue
Gordon Brown’s first speech to Labour Party Conference as Prime Minister was most certainly long. The oration, which lasted a whopping hour, was met with a four-minute standing ovation from Party delegates, pleased to the point of distraction, no doubt, that for the first time in ages there wasn’t the usual Blair versus Brown carping.
And indeed, it was a very different kind of speech to those reeled out by Brown’s predecessor in Number 10. Gone were the witty asides and theatrics of the Blair era. But then that, surely, was the point?
As the commentariat have noted, Brown has proved himself a master of positioning during his brief tenure in Number 10. Representing both change and continuity (what former Cabinet Minister John Reid called “the holy grail of successful political parties” ) , and monopolising the political middle ground by swiping notables of all party backgrounds, Brown has been perhaps most successful in distinguishing his premiership from that of Tony Blair by milking the benefits of his reputation as a serious policy wonk whilst surprising everyone with strategic displays of humility.
The net loser from this successful positioning so far has been none other than David Cameron, whose party (fissiparous at the best of times) has responded with its usual paroxysms of despair and self-doubt. Brown did not deign to even mention Cameron or the Conservatives during his speech, so keen was he to stake out his ground as the Father of British politics.
So, what progressive vision did the Prime Minister outline for the “second decade of Labour power”? The speech was somewhat uneven in both its nebulousness on the one hand and its close attention to detail on the other. Whilst the principles of aspiration, Britishness and personalisation were repeated, mantra-like, throughout, there was little cogent explanation of how these promises would be delivered. Meanwhile, we learnt that police officers would be given hand-held computers to free them from their desks, and that hospital cleaners who failed to deliver would be sacked.
However, what was most important about the speech was not so much what was said, but the mood music it created. Particularly for the Conservatives, the devil was not in the detail, but in the tone that Mr Brown’s address to Conference set. For almost to a man, what the press picked up on yesterday morning was not, for example, that the principles of choice and contestability seem to have been dropped from the Government’s lexicon (much to the relief of the Party and the unions), but that once again, the Prime Minister has successfully stolen the Tories’ clothes.
Because what New Labour arguably have managed to do since 1994, and what the Conservatives are still unable to do with a degree of credibility (not entirely their fault – you’re always going to be disadvantaged by coming to something second) is formulate a convincing narrative about their intellectual ownership of the political middle ground. Which is why Brown can say on the one hand that he supports a politics of aspiration with more investment in public services, and on the other, that this kind of dynamic society can only be achieved through a ‘rights and responsibilities’ style pact with the people of Britain.
So, whilst Gordon Brown might not have offered us much detail about his vision for Britain, his “great clunking fist” has most definitely given the Tories a bloody nose once again, with, ironically, an uncharacteristic deftness of touch. Which is really what the ideal party conference speech should do.