Whatever it Takes: The Real Story of Gordon Brown and New Labour. Steve Richards
Brown put the phone down, he discussed his next move with Mandelson, Campbell, and old cabinet allies Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander. They knew it was over. One observer noted: ‘We all agreed it could not go on any longer. It was obvious Clegg wasn’t serious about doing a deal. He was using it so he could go back to Cameron and get more out of him. We didn’t have the numbers and the Labour Party just wouldn’t wear it.’
Brown had made one big mistake in the four days. He had failed to summon Labour MPs for an early meeting in order to keep them fully informed. As a result they felt excluded and ignorant and began to express public wariness to a deal. Seen widely as a Labour tribalist, Brown had given little thought to the tribe as he planned a realignment on the centre left more dramatic than any plan contemplated by Tony Blair. By Tuesday mid-afternoon Brown knew that there would be no deal: he would be out of power within hours.
After three years of erratic, frail authority he decided to seize full control of his departure, with the help of Mandelson and Campbell, the great choreographers and manipulators of the New Labour era. As was often the case with the misunderstood duo, they were motivated by humane considerations as they planned a final move. Politicians are human beings, as fearful of public humiliation as anyone else. They had helped ease the way for a small army of ministers. Now the game was over for Brown, for them and for Labour. They wanted to help Brown to leave with dignity. Brown spent much of the day writing letters to friends and colleagues, thanking them for their support, a generous gesture made with no ulterior motive.
Brown also wrote the final version of his farewell speech, including a reference to his own personal failings, although others had encouraged him to part with a hint of humble self-awareness. With Sarah, Mandelson arranged the perfect visual departure in which finally their two sons John and Fraser would join them in the public eye as they left Number Ten for the last time, a humanizing image that had eluded Brown when he sought to cling to power.
In one final phone call Clegg had begged Brown to stay on for a little longer while he resolved what to do. Brown refused at first and then appeared to waver a little. Mandelson grabbed a card and wrote in big bold letters: ‘No More Time!’ He ostentatiously placed the card in front of Brown. There was no more wavering. Brown had also spoken to Blair again on the phone, explaining that he had given up hope of a deal. One way or another they were all there at the end as they had been at the beginning, Blair, Brown, Campbell and Mandelson. For all the mighty rows and fallings-out, they almost needed to be there for those final moments. When Mandelson had resigned from the cabinet for the first time he turned to Brown to help him compose his resignation letter even though Brown and his allies had brought about his downfall. Although Blair had kept Brown out of Number Ten for as long as possible, Brown turned to him for advice in his final days and Blair was happy to offer it.
Brown completed his call to Clegg insisting he had already decided to see the Queen to resign. ‘I can’t go on any longer, Nick, I’m going to the Palace.’
A resigned Clegg replied: ‘If that’s your decision …’ Brown said: ‘It is.’ He called Sarah and his sons John and Fraser to his office, hugged his Downing Street team and walked out of Number Ten with his family for the last time.
Before leaving he uttered the only speech he had given for more than two decades that had no complicated calculations behind it, no move on a chessboard:
Only those that have held the office of prime minister can understand the full weight of its responsibilities and its great capacity for good.
I have been privileged to learn much about the very best in human nature and a fair amount too about its frailties, including my own.
Above all, it was a privilege to serve. And yes, I loved the job not for its prestige, its titles and its ceremony – which I do not love at all. No, I loved the job for its potential to make this country I love fairer, more tolerant, more green, more democratic, more prosperous and more just – truly a greater Britain.
In the face of many challenges in a few short years, challenges up to and including the global financial meltdown, I have always strived to serve, to do my best in the interest of Britain, its values and its people.
And let me add one thing also. I will always admire the courage I have seen in our armed forces.
And now that the political season is over, let me stress that having shaken their hands and looked into their eyes, our troops represent all that is best in our country and I will never forget all those who have died in honour and whose families today live in grief.
My resignation as leader of the Labour Party will take effect immediately. And in this hour I want to thank all my colleagues, ministers, Members of Parliament. And I want to thank above all my staff, who have been friends as well as brilliant servants of the country.
Above all, I want to thank Sarah for her unwavering support as well as her love, and for her own service to our country.
I thank my sons John and Fraser for the love and joy they bring to our lives.
And as I leave the second most important job I could ever hold, I cherish even more the first – as a husband and father.
Thank you and goodbye.
The last sentence was uncharacteristic in its stark clarity. Brown swept out of Downing Street for the last time, leaving behind a political situation of tantalizing possibilities and dangers for those that had acquired or sought to acquire power. It was an appropriate parting gift from a complex political figure who had breathed the politics of opportunities and dangers ever since he had climbed close to the top when he became shadow chancellor in 1992. There had been no break after that until the cold Tuesday evening in May when he said goodbye. From the summer of 1992 he had been doing whatever it took to secure power and act with expedient principle. He had been doing so even in his final few days. Suddenly the tiny space in which he strode had shrivelled to nothing. No options remained any more.
The high stakes and unpredictable outcome of the five days after the 2010 election campaign were so familiar for Brown that the sequence was almost a repeat, like the latest episode of long-running US television series where the plot and characters remain the same. Only the context had changed. Brief opportunities were seized and misjudgements made. Expedient hunger for power mingled with a vision of a new progressive consensus. In the final episode Brown failed to deliver, but he took his bow in a dignified manner and left behind a party that held enough seats to mount a serious challenge in the future.
He was more successful in the earlier phase of the long-running drama. The first episode in the series began during the summer of 1992, when Brown was made shadow chancellor. All the classic character failings were in place, along with the underestimated strengths of guile and conviction, a rare combination. Most politicians who possess intense conviction tend to display innocence when it comes to the street-fighting arts. Those who glory in their deviousness often lack conviction, coming to regard the scheming as an end in itself.
Politics moves so quickly that the day before yesterday is easily forgotten. I was constantly surprised how even some Labour MPs had only scant recollection of Brown’s role as shadow chancellor, but it was his performance in this far-off period that made me realize that some of the allegations made against him when he became Prime Minister – in effect that he was useless and short-sighted – made little sense. His role in the early years was immense, more important in policy terms than Blair’s.
Between 1992 and 1994 Brown began to rewrite left-of-centre economic policy making while navigating his way around the complex politics of Britain’s humiliating withdrawal from the Exchange Rate Mechanism. In both cases he moved Labour to a position of heightened popularity but made himself deeply unpopular. Every day the political temperature was high for him, yet he was more than a decade away from the unbearable heat of becoming Prime Minister.
The decline in popularity over these two years was a steep fall. In the summer of 1992 Brown was on one