Grisly Fate
A large part of the reason for that, in my view, Gordon didn't really favour elections, if another option was available - he didn't stand as Labour leader when John Smith died, for example - he was 'elected' leader of the Labour Party unopposed when Tony Blair stood down - and having assumed the crown through the practice of 'machine politics', Gordon bottled his chance of calling a snap election and seeking a new mandate from the electorate when he finally became PM in 2007
But Kevin Toolis, whom I take to be a Labour supporter, goes further than charting Gordon Brown's grisly political end - he draws the conclusion that the present Labour leader, Ed Miliband, will meet a similar fate - in essence that the electorate have already made up their minds about Ed and they don't like what they see.
I wouldn't go as far as that myself because I think that the UK is heading for another hung parliament - since none of the parties can muster more than 35% or so of the popular vote - yet Kevin Toolis makes a number of telling points and I think he's spot on in his assessment of how the Great British public picks its future leaders.
Is Ed Miliband heading for the same grisly fate as Gordon Brown?
The writer of a new play about the former prime minister's time in office says it is already too late for the current Labour leader to avoid a similar ignominious end
By Kevin Toolis
Ian Grieve as Gordon Brown in The Confessions of Gordon Brown.
Will the sea in Brighton run red with political blood next month as Ed Miliband's tottering leadership of the Labour party finally collapses? For Julius Caesar it was the Ides of March but for Ed, now openly mocked as the "nowhere man", the normally tame Labour conference in Brighton next month could prove to be his nemesis.
You don't need to be a soothsayer to see why. Whatever happens in Westminster in the daily slog, in its current shape, with its current leader, Labour is, I and many others believe, heading towards electoral oblivion.
In the Westminster village, where the dispatch-box state of play fills the 24-hour vapid news cycles, it is easy to forget that less than 5% of the population ever attend a political meeting, even if you count in parish councils, and that more people turn out for amateur football matches than are members of political parties.
The Great British public intuitively picks its future leader by a mishmash of prejudice, rehashed news, myths and – crucially – what these would-be rulers look like on the telly. So the image and the aura of a would-be prime minister are utterly crucial.
For Labour the supreme question remains – why did Gordon Brown fail so badly in office? And how can they pick another leader like Tony Blair, rather than Brown?
After the 2010 election I went round Brown's inner court and spoke to his closest allies – Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander, Damian McBride, Spencer Livermore, Stan Greenberg and Deborah Mattinson – to understand why Gordon Brown was our greatest failure as prime minister in 200 years.
The result is a play, The Confessions of Gordon Brown, that had its world premiere at the Edinburgh fringe and opens at the Trafalgar Studios in London next month. We are also putting on the play as this year's party conference. But when we tried to advertise in the official conference magazine, party leaders – after initially agreeing to accept our advert – reversed their decision and refused to carry an advertisement anywhere, apart from in a "prestige" slot, costing over £6,000. That's a position, and a price level, usually reserved for powerful trade unions or companies in the nuclear industry.
The one-hour monologue, which stars Scottish actor Ian Grieve, looks back at Brown's career and delves into the "dark arts" of modern political leadership: the focus-group polling, the image consultants, and – judging by the television pictures – Brown's assiduous use of hair gel and teeth whitener to make himself more appealing to the southern English electorate.
As the play outlines, election manifestos come and go but a real leader sells only one commodity – hope. Hope that our tomorrows will be brighter, better and safer under his command.
Obama's Hope poster for the 2008 election was the very crystallisation of that ancient yearning in the leader we choose to rule over us. "Operation Volvo", on the other hand, which dates back to 2005, was Brown's doomed attempt to refashion his public image to become the sort of leader he thought the English wanted him to be but never was. In the responses to seemingly bland focus group questions, Brown's team discovered what the electorate thought of its leader: Gordon Brown was a bear, who drove a Volvo, wore a wool suit, drank Newcastle Brown and his other job was a headmaster. On such slender arts modern leaders are created. They also discovered that the southern English never liked this dodgy Scots bloke with a jowly neck and a rictus grin. And, unlike Blair, they never wanted to invite Brown to a family barbecue. Nor would they go out of their way to vote for him at the general election.
On the surface, Brown should have been supremely qualified for Downing Street. He remains one of the most successful chancellors in British history and unlike Blair he is devoid of material avarice. He dominated the political landscape for 20 years and is a man of considerable intellect with a formidable capacity for work. But in office Brown stumbled from crisis to crisis – even without the greatest financial crisis of our lifetimes. His internecine war of attrition to remove his usurper Blair poisoned the well of his support among Labour MPs. He ascended the throne more like Macbeth, and was beset endlessly by rebellions from within his own ranks. He ruled alone. He was a victim of the forces he had himself unleashed and his own terminal indecisiveness. The burden of the office of prime minister crushed him.
All the posturing and image tweaking never changed the underlying dynamic. Brown could never sell hope to the southern English – vital for Labour's marginal constituencies – in the same way that Blair could.
If the fall of Brown was a tragedy foreseen, Ed's moment upon the stage has proved to be a debacle.
After three years in opposition to an economically hamfisted, lacklustre, divided coalition government, Labour is still picking up the electoral bill for its alleged misdeeds in office. No one can stand shoulder to shoulder to Ed against the Tories because no one is exactly sure where he stands on anything.
In his tenure as leader of the opposition Miliband has proved himself even worse than his former mentor. His own focus-group pollings, kept highly secret, must be revealing his own lack of definition among the electorate. Brown was at least a bear: burly, potentially threatening, substantial. With his current poll ratings, Ed is more likely to come out as a squirrel.
The dwindling Miliband court is already pleading to delay the inevitable day of execution by promising some momentous turn of events. But what could such events be? The time for a miracle hand to save Ed Miliband from doom is long past. If you can't make an impact after three years on the political stage, you never will. In the eyes of that great indifferent telly-watching electorate, it is already too late for Ed to refashion his image as a would-be leader. Or stave off electoral defeat.
The next question for the Labour party is: does it go down with him?
• The Confessions of Gordon Brown, Trafalgar Studios 2, Whitehall, September 3-28th and Old Courthouse Theatre, Brighton, September 22-24. www.gordonconfesses.com
