Gordon Brown: Prime Minister. Tom Bower

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СКАЧАТЬ his younger brother, who was also employed as his personal assistant. He worked relentlessly, rarely appearing in the Commons bars or tea rooms to cultivate friendships. On Friday afternoons, long after most MPs had returned to their constituencies and homes, he sat alone in his cramped office, the floor covered in press releases, books and newspapers, speaking on the telephone. On Saturdays in Edinburgh he was occasionally seen with Marion Caldwell at parties, but he preferred that she remained out of sight. He liked drinking with his friends in pubs and especially working men’s clubs. There was a sincere fraternity in having a pint with workers who shared his love of the Labour Party and its heroes. He fumed against the reduction of grants to the Rosyth naval shipyard in his constituency, deriding proposals to privatise it and publishing a pamphlet attacking the arms trade and proposing that the yard should be converted for civilian use. He also opposed the closure of any coalmines, although they were often uneconomic, and caused many of those who worked in them to suffer fatal illnesses. On every social and economic argument he supported the hard, socialist solution. A test of those sentiments arose during the miners’ strike in March 1984.

      Few doubted that Arthur Scargill, the National Union of Mineworkers’ leader, was intent on repeating the miners’ triumph against Edward Heath in 1974. He wanted to prove his power to protect miners’ livelihoods and to embarrass a Conservative government. In 1981 he had humiliated Thatcher by threatening a strike if the government closed down uneconomic mines. Having assessed that the stocks of coal were low, Thatcher retreated. But two years later the government had quietly accumulated sufficient coal stocks to withstand a strike of at least six months. As anticipated, on 1 March 1984 Scargill declared a strike in Yorkshire. Knowing that he would lose a national ballot, he organised strikes in militant localities across the country without organising proper votes. Flying pickets intimidated other miners to strike. The television pictures of fierce clashes between trade unionists and the police, resulting in thousands of injuries and arrests, raised the stakes. If Scargill won, the Thatcher government would be as vulnerable as Heath’s had been. Her advantages were preparation and sharp disagreements among the miners. The outcome was not inevitable.

      Regardless of Arthur Scargill’s shortcomings, the miners’ plight became a human tragedy. Neil Kinnock refused to condemn the strikers, while Gordon Brown openly supported them, protesting against the government’s ‘vindictive cuts’ and refusal to pay benefits to their families. Instead of condemning the violence, he pleaded with the police and government to release imprisoned miners, and never publicly criticised Scargill despite the strike’s questionable legitimacy and the lack of support from workers in the power, steel and transport industries. On the picket lines he openly praised the miners despite being irked to be standing with their wives in the cold and rain, organising their communities’ survival, while some strikers were drinking in their clubs. At Christmas a trickle of English miners returned to work, isolating the militants. In March 1985, after one year, the strike collapsed. Brown, however, had never wavered. He earned the miners’ gratitude, accepting in appreciation gifts of miners’ lamps and certificates.

      Like most in the Labour movement, he did not fully understand the implications of the miners’ defeat. He thundered against the reduction of regional aid and the gradual loss of manufacturing jobs, and demanded that the government create new jobs, but he was bogged down in an ideological wasteland. Labour had reached a nadir, and was unelectable until the extremists in the party were expelled. Neil Kinnock had many weaknesses, but among his strengths was the courage in November 1984 to confront the militants in order to save the party from fratricide. Unlike many Labour MPs, Brown did not openly join that struggle. He did not travel through England supporting the fight against Tony Benn and the Militant Tendency, nor did he overtly attack the militants. Rather, he preferred to return directly to Scotland from London. Nevertheless, he was among the members of the new intake offered a chance to break the extremists’ stranglehold. Neil Kinnock told Roy Hattersley, ‘I want Tony Blair in the Treasury team.’ To avoid the impression of outright favouritism, Hattersley suggested that Kinnock appoint two new MPs, and that Brown also be promoted to speak on employment and social security. Labour needed his abilities, said Hattersley. Kinnock had met Brown during the devolution debates in Scotland. Although they had disagreed, he appreciated the young Scotsman’s efforts to prevent a party split. Soon after the 1983 election Donald Dewar had proposed that Brown should join the Scottish team, but Kinnock had resisted, saying he should cut his teeth first. By the time Hattersley made his suggestion, Kinnock felt Brown deserved promotion. But while Blair accepted the offer and was appointed spokesman on the City and finance, Brown refused. ‘I wasn’t ready,’ he later explained. ‘It’s crazy that Gordon rejected the offer,’ Blair complained to Hattersley. ‘The problem is that Gordon is so honest,’ replied the bemused deputy leader.

      Brown’s refusal was not wholly altruistic. He had, he believed, too much to lose by accepting a junior post, not least a delay to the completion of his biography of James Maxton. If he had written the book a decade earlier, his analysis of Maxton’s life would have lacked his personal experience of political struggle. In his heart Brown idolised his hero’s idealism for social responsibility, education and the abolition of poverty. But in his head he understood how Maxton had undermined his ambitions for a better society by refusing to compromise to obtain power. ‘The party whose cause he championed for forty years could, with justice,’ Brown wrote, ‘be accused of committing political suicide for the sake of ideological purity.’

      In spring 1985, as the biography neared completion, Labour moved ahead in the opinion polls and the opposition parties won important victories in the local elections. Electorally, Labour’s devotion to traditional socialism appeared justified. Despite the defeat of the miners, the government had been shaken by the botched privatisation of British Leyland, rising inflation and high unemployment. Brown was writing a regular weekly column for the Daily Record, the Scottish version of the Daily Mirror, providing money to pay his researchers and access to a wide audience. Through his many contacts he sought confidential information to embarrass the government in the Commons and in the newspaper. Once it was seen that he handled leaks properly and could be trusted, he expected a regular supply.

      In May 1985 he secured a confidential government review proposing to encourage the young unemployed to find jobs by reducing their social benefits. This, he raged, was ‘a raid on the poor’. In July he attacked the government for employing undercover agents to investigate young mothers claiming benefits for single households while secretly cohabiting. Those investigations, he claimed, punished the poor. Brown’s pride lay in his probity. Lawyers at the Daily Record were disturbed by the threat of a libel writ following an item in his column about the sale of council houses in East Kilbride. The newspaper wanted to settle, but Brown refused. He was, the newspaper’s lawyers remarked, ‘obsessive to be perceived as utterly truthful’. He discreetly warned the complainants, ‘If you want to carry on and do business in the future when we’re in government, you should drop the libel action.’ The complaint was withdrawn, and eventually Brown’s allegations were confirmed. Since Robert Maxwell had bought the Mirror Group in July 1984 Brown had refused invitations to his parties, albeit without revealing his reasons. Nevertheless, he was content to take Maxwell’s money and promote his own profile.

      The change of the political atmosphere in 1985 persuaded Brown to accept a front bench appointment. The invitation in November to work with the shadow spokesman for trade and industry by specialising in regional affairs was issued from John Smith’s office. Initially the two men forged an easy relationship, convincing themselves that the omens for electoral success were good. Thatcher’s position looked vulnerable, especially in Scotland, after a huge increase in rates. As the value of sterling fell following a drop in the price of oil, Labour was convinced that capitalism was in crisis. The mini-earthquake caused by ‘Big Bang’, the deregulation of the stock market in October 1986, confirmed their belief that capitalism was besmirched. The sight of bankers and brokers selling their companies for huge sums to foreign invaders aroused disdain about Thatcherism and free markets. Brown did not anticipate the social revolution sparked by the disappearance of the City’s traditional СКАЧАТЬ