Political notes

Gaitskell, Bevan, Healey, Heseltine, Portillo all missed out on the top job. But who are the latest contenders for might-have-beens?
January 27, 2010

Who will be the next best prime minister we never had? Every generation has at least one: a figure who gathers more admirers the longer they fail to wear the crown. The less popular the actual leader, the more beguiling the idea of the one who might be. “If only we weren’t stuck with Gordon,” echoes the cry in new Labour. Any party bearing the burden of a recession and long incumbency would be ill-loved. No denying it though, Brown invites such passion from the ABG (anyone but Gordon) camp.

An “effing disaster,” as former defence secretary John Hutton daintily put it. Labour’s centre-left has a pantheon of leaders-manqué, from Hugh Gaitskell and Aneurin Bevan onwards. It is often far warmer to them than to those who have held power. Environment secretary Ed Miliband’s emotional commemoration of Tony Crosland last year reminded me how rising Tories tend to venerate ex-leaders, while Labour devotes its worship to those unsullied by top office. So Denis Healey is lauded as the man who could have averted the disaster of 1979, when a vote of no confidence triggered the election that put Margaret Thatcher in No 10—though as a political loner he could never construct a convincing case for his own bid. Pro-Europeans, electoral reformers and SDP veterans still worship at the shrine of Roy Jenkins.



Alan Johnson, the home secretary, is another classic contender for the nearly-man mantle. “I look at Alan Johnson and think he’s a great everyman to have had against smooth Cameron,” whispers one frontbencher. He has the gift of likability and a story to melt the hardest spin doctor’s heart: orphaned, and rescued from poverty by hard work, with a helping hand from the union. But reticence, derived from intellectual uncertainty and self-preservation, mean the top job is unlikely.

Of the next generation, the foreign secretary David Miliband is most in danger of acquiring nearly-man credentials when talent and experience should favour him. A combination of bad timing and his own uncertain responses to Labour party turmoil has left his claim to the leadership less commanding than it should be. Michael Portillo’s jibe: “I dithered once, he dithered three times,” is an exaggeration: but not by much.

For the sake of accuracy, we should recall that, on the Conservative side, Portillo alienated as many Tories as he attracted, while Michael Heseltine was the more solid bearer of the “Oops, he missed it again” laurels. These days, mayor Boris Johnson, as charismatic as he is erratic, is the most celebrated national politician without an obvious route to the top. He must dread being the character adored by the Tory true believers who never gets to No 10. Indeed, the palpable animus between him and George Osborne centres on the tension about who the next Conservative standard-bearer would be if Dave fell under a bendy bus.

In David Miliband’s case, though, such calculations are more pressing. Not least because he was outwitted during the recent coup attempt when cabinet colleagues left the frontrunner out on a limb. He should be able to re-establish his claim in the clearer air of a Labour defeat. But he needs to be decisive, as the instinctive wing of the party lists towards the more emotive social democracy of his younger brother, Ed.

Whatever the outcome of the leadership race, it will not be long before Peter Mandelson is firmly established in Labour’s collective psyche as the maestro it missed. It’s not only a view in his own ranks. Talking to a senior Cameron strategist, I witnessed his scorn for the government evaporate at the mention of Mandy. “I used to think he was a complete jerk,” he said. “Now I realise he’s masterful. Why don’t they choose him?”

Mandelson is a reminder of the veering nature of popularity. The erstwhile prince of darkness today radiates cheerful light. “He’s been such an asset,” agrees one minister. “I’d seriously consider backing him after May, if I didn’t know what he was really like from years before.” I’m sure, however, that Lord M is wise enough to recognise that his knowing, lofty manner and postmodern playfulness would look less attractive if the light shone on him, rather than a protégé.

How should an embattled leader conduct himself, when so many around him are dreaming of rivals? One ex-adviser told me that Brown should run an election campaign which admits his personal lack of appeal. He should present himself as the unbending guardian of lower middle England’s interests, and the defender of the public sector in the aftermath of the recession.

The PM’s enduring travails make some people think he must wish he had never got the job at all. One look at his defiant, wounded face tells a different story. Better to have governed and lost, than never to have governed at all. Not much comfort: but as good as it is likely to get.