STILL STANDING

As the smoke begins to clear after days on end of noise and confusion, stifling heat but precious little light, Gordon Brown has come through his backbenchers’ meeting and remains in Downing Street, horribly bloodied but remarkably unbowed. If the media are to be believed, this has been June’s only important story and yet there doesn’t need to be a general election until next May. A sense of proportion appears conspicuous by its absence from this saga.

If a week is a long time in politics – probably the only entirely true thing that Harold Wilson ever said – then eleven months is an eternity. The political climate and the electoral context will be different by next May, perhaps markedly different. None of us can know what the intervening months will bring. Few of us had any inkling a month ago that the overriding media story about politics through the second half of May would concern MPs’ expenses. Events, dear boy, events will occur and balances will shift. Although psephologists love to project the results of one completed election onto another still to be held, the exercise is wholly idle. The next election will be held in an unpredictable future.

The commentariat decided long ago that the Tories would win a general election in 2009 or 2010 and this conclusion brooks no discussion. Shorter memories than mine ignore that Labour was supposed to win the general election of 1992; even on the night, the BBC “called” it for them. Sir Robert Worcester of MORI, no less, “called” the 2004 US election for John Kerry after the polls closed and we went to bed happy that Bush was out. The Tories won the European elections handsomely in 2004 but lost the general election in 2005. Politics does not stand still, even overnight.

The media’s obsession with individual politicians – Westminster’s equivalent of celebrities – rather than policies seriously distorts the way that the electorate understands what is at stake in elections. I would like to have heard or read some debate on European issues ahead of the Euro-elections and some more on local issues ahead of the council elections but the media have neither time nor space for such matters, being swallowed up by speculation and the mad joy of crisis coverage.

Reporters will object that they are only reflecting the perfervid atmosphere in Westminster but this is disingenuous. Parliamentarians conduct a great deal of debate and evolve a great deal of policy that is never covered at all or only covered en passant in the media. Correspondents are much more interested in plotters and loudmouths in the Westminster village than mature, steady and reliable members who are, as the prime minister likes to put it, “getting on with the job”. And politicians are by nature liable to be attention-seekers. Those whose off-the-record gossip or on-the-record outspokenness makes them favourites of the media will inevitably enjoy the limelight. But they are not necessarily any more representative than the random vox pops that now pass for public comment on television news bulletins.

What’s more, politicians are inevitably influenced by the media. When headlines and broadcast packages are whipping up a frenzy, it is hardly surprising if MPs let it get to them. The frantic pace of the rumour mill is bound to turn heads but you take it seriously at your peril. The so-called “sources” that are credited with so much Westminster gossip are impossible for the reader or viewer to judge precisely because their opinions are unattributed. Given that there is no identifiable source, what is to stop the reporter making it up?

That the media are obsessed with who is up and who down rather than anything more substantial is simply demonstrated. Here are June’s successive main headlines from The Guardian and The Observer in the editions that reach us in the west country: “Brown insists he won’t step down as election rout looms” (June 1st); “Beleaguered Darling faces reshuffle axe” (2nd); “Labour’s day of resignation” (3rd); “Brown hangs on, for now” (4th); “The smooth assassin” (refers to James Purnell, 5th); “Bloodied Brown vows: ‘I will not walk away’” (6th); “Labour fears EU poll disaster will spark fresh crisis for PM” (7th); “Judgment day for Brown” (8th).

It’s noticeable how little in these headlines is genuine news and how much idle – and sometimes plain wrong, like the Darling line – speculation. It is hardly to be wondered at if a prime minister turns away from such febrile stuff and ignores it altogether – at which point, of course, the gossipmongers will say he is in denial.

I do not deny that Brown is a highly political animal with a taste for plots and black propaganda and low cunning. Of all the resignation statements to come out of this saga, the one that is perhaps most damaging for thoughtful observers is that of Jane Kennedy today, saying that she was repelled by the negative briefing and attempts to destabilize that emanate from Downing Street. The Damian McBride affair confirms that there is substance to this charge.

The prime minister would do well to rise above this game. One of his strengths has been that he is not Blair in the sense that he is not a snake oil salesman devoted to spin and gesture politics, something that also handily distinguished him from Cameron. But lately he has allowed himself to be persuaded to make some gestures that sit on him so awkwardly. It’s not merely the rictus smile on You Tube. It’s also the wholly unpersuasive pretence of being concerned about Jade Goody and Susan Boyle. Brown should leave this kind of thing to the more simpering breed of populist.

Meanwhile, the daily issue is: can he survive? Absurd question. Of course he can. He doesn’t, as far as we are aware, suffer from a terminal illness. He is relatively young and evidently has enormous reservoirs of resilience. So then: will he survive? Time will tell. Why bother with predictions no more well-founded than punts on the Grand National?

But look at the next general election from another perspective. If Labour does lose, no one will be able to account it a shock. Indeed, it will need to be a defeat of much greater resonance than those we have seen for the pundits to make much of it. From a moderately bloody defeat, Labour will recover and renew itself.

But if Labour wins it will be one of the greatest reversals of fortune in modern politics. The European elections have inured us to the unprecedented so we ought to understand that something extreme could happen again. Who is to say that David Cameron’s luck will not turn soon? He has set off on a course that could do his party great damage in his decision to ally himself with a rogues’ gallery of right wing and neo-fascist groupings in the European parliament. What will he do if the two new BNP MEPs apply to join?

For the Conservatives to lose the next election would be much more disastrous for them than it would be for Labour. It would mark a fourth defeat running and taint Cameron as the fifth failed leader in succession. And it would be against the most propitious set of circumstances an opposition party has faced at least since 1997. The challenger will not have the government quite so on the ropes as this for a long time to come. No wonder they are baying continuously for an election now. They may already sense that things could get better for Labour. To use the inflated language of contemporary political coverage, if the Tories lost they would be “finished”: the party would implode and there would need to be a realignment on the right. With the BNP and UKIP dug in at the European parliament, here would be a truly dangerous situation. Perhaps for all our sakes we should hope that Labour does indeed lose the next election.

Meanwhile a summer break lies ahead. The hysteria will wane. The government may get good news on the economic front. Mandelson might be persuaded from his reckless determination to sell off parts of the Royal Mail. The new cabinet could prove to be less ham-fisted than the last one. James Purnell, Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint will soon disappear from the public memory whereas moats and gardening expenses may linger longer. And things will happen. As far as Gordon Brown is concerned, there is still everything to play for, especially if he can steer the public’s attention towards policy where, it should note, there is still a resounding vacuum in the Tory’s programme for government. As the BBC's Nick Robinson is apt to observe, though more with an eye on prolonging the supposed “leadership crisis”, it’s not over yet.