Advertisement
Telegraph.co.uk

Saturday 06 October 2012

Gordon Brown and the 2007 election: why it never happened

Five years ago today, Gordon Brown announced that, despite months of polling in his favour, he would not be going to the country. His chief spin doctor at the time explains how events unfolded

'Our conversation convinced me that Gordon Brown was already planning to hand over to 'the next generation’ for a post-Olympics election in 2012. Two hours later, the mood [was] totally transformed' - Election 2007: why it never happened
'Our conversation convinced me that Gordon Brown was already planning to hand over to 'the next generation’ for a post-Olympics election in 2012. Two hours later, the mood [was] totally transformed' Photo: GETTY

Following Gordon Brown’s speech at the start of the 2007 Labour conference, his first as Prime Minister, we watched the early evening news in his hotel suite in Bournemouth. The previous year in Manchester, I had seen the post-speech smile fall from his face as I told him about Cherie Blair’s “That’s a lie” outburst after he’d said it had been a privilege to work with Tony Blair – but a year later, he was beaming.

However, I explained that we were going to have a problem filling up the rest of the week with anything other than election frenzy. Gordon’s pollsters were saying this was a unique opportunity: his personal ratings and the Labour poll lead were beyond anything they’d expected. Every news outlet wanted to be the first to make it official, and huge amounts were being read into every word emerging from those in the know.

He narrowed his eyes: “Build up the young guys. Turn it into a beauty contest about who’ll take over from me. Don’t for God’s sake say I won’t serve a full term, but say: 'Brown doesn’t want to go on for ever. Brown will start putting the next generation into all the senior posts, and one of them will become leader.’ Then Cameron can’t use youth against me.

“We’ll say: 'They’ve got one young guy in charge, and that guy Osborne, but Labour’s got all the best young talent coming through.’”

I asked him who he wanted me to talk up as potential future leaders when I briefed this out to the media. His eyes narrowed again, and he reeled off surnames like a football manager naming his First XI: “Purnell. Miliband. Kelly. Burnham. Cooper. Balls. Miliband.” I replied: “You’ve already said Miliband.” GB: “Both of them.” Me: “Really? You want me to say Ed Miliband?” He looked surprised: “You need to watch Ed Miliband, he’s the one to watch.”

That relaxed, confident conversation convinced me first that we were definitely going for the early election; and second, that GB was already planning to hand over to 'the next generation’ for a post-Olympics election in 2012.

Two hours later, I was back in GB’s suite with the mood totally transformed. He was being accused of plagiarising speeches by John Kerry and others, an occupational hazard when you had the great US consultant Bob Shrum writing for both men. GB was fuming over the suggestion that he’d ripped off his “moral compass” language from Kerry, mainly because he had first used it in his father’s funeral eulogy.

There was no calming him, and he wasted 24 hours defending his integrity rather than thinking about handling the election announcement.

Following the Labour conference, the Tories began briefing that even to cut Labour’s majority would be a victory for the Cameron project, and that the real issue would be whether GB could hold on to those South East marginals that had stayed with Labour in 2005. If not, Blair’s “New Labour Coalition” was dead, and the Tories would win next time round.

It was when voices from the Left started saying the same that things became tricky. It was argued that if even one Labour MP lost their seat, it would expose the early election as an act of vanity and folly on GB’s part and he would have to resign.

It seems madness now, but that became the consensus in the inner circle right up until October 5, when the final decision was made. And this is where the polls were indeed crucial. Every poll that we ever looked at in those weeks – private or public – said that Labour would win a clear majority. But the same polls, especially after the Tory conference, said he was going to shed at least a dozen South East (and Midlands) marginals.

All that seemed a long way off on the weekend of the Tory conference in Blackpool (September 29-30), when the inner circle gathered at Chequers for yet another strategy discussion. For most of us, it was our first time there, and Gordon started the day with a tour of the glorious old building. In a way only he could have got away with, Ed Miliband mimicked a Jewish patriarch being shown round his successful grandson’s house: “Nice place you’ve got here, Gordon, nice bit of real estate.”

Gordon opened things up by saying: “Right, I want to go round and flush out all the reasons why we shouldn’t go for it.” There was silence, eventually broken by Ed Balls: “Well, just to play devil’s advocate…” One after another, those round the table offered desultory arguments against an early election.

When Gordon called a halt to the discussion, and moved on to all the reasons we should go for it, there was a much more enthusiastic response. I made my one contribution to the discussion. “Well, from a media perspective, I think we’ve got to think about the reaction if we decide not to go for it now – they’ll absolutely slaughter us.”

One of the MPs looked down the table at me and said: “Hold on, the worst possible reason to go for it is what happens if we don’t.” There was a murmur of assent. I remember immediately thinking: “Isn’t that the best possible reason to go for it?” but I didn’t say it out loud, and the moment passed.

One of the worst things a politician can do is make an announcement on a trip overseas when the story will be written back home: a recipe either to be ignored or, to use a technical term, ----bagged. This was the case when GB flew to Iraq on October 2 – on the advice of civil servants who wanted to get a visit in before election purdah began.

When John Major was wheeled out to complain about the “cynical timing”, a story that should have been covered by the journalists with GB in Iraq became a story written out of the Tory conference in Blackpool, with predictable results.

After GB’s return from Iraq, the mood shifted discernibly. People who had previously been arch proponents of the early election had started to play devil’s advocate more frequently and enthusiastically. GB’s pollsters were also – to cover their backs – starting to paint worst case scenarios, all of which ended up with him resigning after a drastic reduction in Labour’s majority.

Throughout that wobbly week, the only strong dissenting voice belonged to Ed Balls. His mantra was that – whatever the polls said now – Labour would wipe the floor with the Tories during the election campaign. “These guys are amateurs,” he would say of Cameron and Osborne. “They’ve never fought a general election before – they don’t know what it takes.”

By Friday October 5, with Balls away in Yorkshire, the inner circle gathered in Downing Street, heard the latest, unchanged poll findings from marginal constituencies, and sat waiting for Gordon to announce the inevitable. You’d have forgiven him for lashing out in almost every direction, and he was clearly angry at those who had urged him along at every stage and were now counselling caution, but he was grimly quiet.

Finally he said: “Right, well, does anyone have anything they want to say?” Heads bowed. There was silence.

Eventually, Bob Shrum cleared his throat. Bob had been in the dog house since the party conference plagiarism episode, so I admired him for speaking up. “Well, if the worst comes to the worst, and you only get three more years, there’s a lot you can do in three years. Jack Kennedy only had three years.” Gordon didn’t look up, didn’t look back, and walked out of the room. And that was that.

The media handling of the announcement on the Saturday was nothing short of a catastrophe. That was all my fault, although – like a bad workman – I’m going to plead some sub-optimal equipment. First, there was Gordon. His mood was such that asking him to do a press conference or a whole round of interviews could have led to a public meltdown that would probably have forced his resignation and an election anyway.

Second, there was the timing. Every Sunday paper was doing a minimum of four pages of coverage on the impending election decision and the announcement on the Saturday was going to come as a complete surprise to them. The long-term damage that would have done to No 10’s relationship with the Sunday papers would have been potentially irrecoverable.

So this was how it was supposed to work. I arranged with Andrew Marr’s producer on the Friday that Andrew would come in the following afternoon and do the pre-record, so Gordon could explain his decision in his own words, and try to look relaxed about it. Nobody in the BBC would be told this was happening until after it had been done, but extracts would be released to all outlets for the Saturday early evening news.

In the meantime, on Saturday morning I’d tip off the political editors of all the Sundays that an announcement was coming, on the understanding that this go no further than their editor, news editor and lead columnist. That might sound impossibly naive, but those kind of caveated tip-offs are given all the time to newspapers.

Anyway, that was how it was supposed to work. As far as I’ve pieced it together since, one of the Sundays tipped off Andy Coulson, the Tories’ director of communications, who tipped off the broadcasters, and all hell broke loose. By the time Marr arrived to do the interview, every camera in the world was outside Downing Street. It created a sense of utter chaos and shambles around what was already a deeply damaging story, although I’ll maintain to this day that we were right to avoid permanently alienating the Sunday papers.

I’ve no doubt that my bungling of that day will be taught to young PR professionals for years to come as an example of how not to do things. But the more interesting question to ask them is: how would you have handled it?

A fuller version of this article can be read at dpmcbride.tumblr.com

telegraphuk
blog comments powered by Disqus
Advertisement
Advertisement

More from The Telegraph

Advertisement

DUNHILL TRAVEL DEALS SEARCH