GORDON BROWN’s decision to hold the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war has pushed Labour ministers to new levels of despair. Why, they wail, did the great numpty barmpot choose the run-up to a general election, of all times, to remind liberal voters how much they hated the wretched war?
True, he had vaguely promised an inquiry when he became prime minister. But he was under no great pressure to hold one, and could easily have wiggled away by saying that Britain had already had four inquiries into the war and didn’t need a fifth.
As with so many other Brown disasters, the answer to the mystery lies in his perennial desire to put his own short-term survival before the Labour party’s long-term interests.
On 4 June last year, the PM faced the gravest challenge to his reign yet when the Blairite work and pensions secretary James Purnell resigned after a disastrous Labour showing in the European and local elections. Brown knew that if the revolt spread he would be toast. If, on the other hand, he could say it consisted only of a clique of bitter Blairites, he could cling on.
The Lost Headline
So Brown and his thuggish sidekicks hatched a cunning plan. By dragging up Iraq, they could remind left-wing Labour MPs why they hated Tony Blair and everyone associated with him – Purnell and foreign secretary David Miliband in particular. A thankful Labour party would then hail Brown as its rightful leader.
They duly briefed Patrick Hennessy, Brown’s best friend on the Sunday Telegraph. On 6 June he reported that Brown would be willing to hold a fifth inquiry into the war as part of his “fightback plan aimed at reasserting his political authority and appeasing his critics on Labour’s backbenches”.
Alas, the Telegraph’s editors didn’t think much of Hennessy’s piece, cut it to ribbons and buried it. It took weeks for the rest of the media to realise the significance of the promise.
So Brown infuriated the voters by allowing Sir John Chilcot to parade the war records of Jack Straw, Tony Blair, Lord Goldsmith and indeed Brown himself before them all for the sake of one good headline on an article hardly anyone had read. When ousted Labour MPs sign on the dole later this summer, no doubt they will all be suitably grateful. |
