The Wardman Wire

What a year!

It is hardly worthy of hanging out the bunting, but rejoice! For it is the first anniversary of Gordon Brown’s premiership. OK, but it is surely at least worthy of note? To think it all started from such heady heights of that surge in the polls – or the Brown bounce as it was known. I can imagine there are Sunday afternoons when Gordon drifts off in his comfy arm chair and dreams of the Brown bounce… only to wake up in a cold sweat as he realises that what goes up, must come down. And oh boy did the bounce come down. But first, let’s reminisce…

Oh for the days of terror, flooding and disease

Brown had the greatest start to a premiership a leader has had in living memory. He had terror attacks, foot and mouth outbreaks, mass flooding. It was the stuff dreams are made of! Oh how he must wish he could trade in credit crunches and lost data discs for a good old fashioned national crisis. You see, that is where the glamour is – Blair knew that from day one. Far better being the leader tackling something that is not of your making and looking like a superhero rather than looking like what he was to become: Mr Bean.

The Brown tactic: do nothing

As hard as it is to imagine now, Brown was polling in the 40s (amazing for a party already 10 years in to an administration), looked like a refreshing change from the Blair years and was tackling the chain of disaster events with what seemed like an incredible calm. In reality, Brown actually did nothing. OK, he cut his holiday short. But apart from that, nothing. For some reason, we applauded that. What we didn’t realise is that is how Brown reacts to everything – as if nothing is wrong and with absolutely no strategic plan to put in place.

Cameron on the edge

Now it seems the only thing Brown has in common with Superman is that we can see his pants – only Brown’s are round his ankles. Yet back then it was Cameron who was in the firing line from the media, his party and the electorate. While Brown did next to nothing as towns were flooding, Cameron was thinking of heading to Rwanda! How dare he!? It was becoming more and more likely poor old Dave was about to be ousted and the Labour party secure a dynasty in British politics. And now was the time to secure this dynasty: now was the time to call an election!

A tokenistic, tribal leader

Now we know Brown is an indecisive man – back then we called it cautious – and had no intention of going to the polls immediately. But his first mistake as Premier was being made at the very height of his bounce. Brown showed his true colours. Far from being a man who wanted to do away with party politics, a man who would happily welcome Thatcher back to No.10 and court an array of opposition figures to join his cabinet, Brown showed that actually he is a man of token politics and very much of tribal party politics. Brown refused to rule out an election because he liked watching Cameron squirm.

The defining moment in Brown’s Premiership

Unfortunately for Brown, however, he let the speculation run and run to the point where he had to call an election. By the time the party conference was underway, the speculation had changed in to fact: the autumn election was on. This was and will be the defining moment in Brown’s premiership. He demonstrated how bad a leader is by letting the situation run away from him. And David Cameron and George Osborn were just about to make things a whole lot worse. The Tories were on the brink, but something happened in Blackpool that year for the Tory conference. The Tories united as a party, Cameron and Osborn put on the performances of their lives and suddenly everything had changed.

The polls swung like never before. The Tories were commanding the lead. Brown had to go on to the Andrew Marr’s show to explain that he wasn’t going to call an election. Brown had officially bottled it. This was the ultimate egg on the face moment. The moment Stalin became Mr Bean. The moment Superman’s pants were pulled down. And just about every week from that moment on something has ravaged the government and Gordon Brown has not recovered.

If I were Gordon…

If I were Gordon Brown, I’d take a holiday this year – and baring World War three, I’d stay on it until the summer had ended. Then, and only then, I’d begin to tackle year two.

One lesson can be learnt from all this, both Labour and Tories alike: it can take a decade to build a reputation, but mere moments to totally ruin one. The electorate love a complacent leader – you can batter them black and blue: Cameron, you have been warned.