There is an unstated convention in British politics that prime ministers do not go out of their way to criticise their predecessors. Policies yes, but no personal attacks if you can help it. It puts flesh on the idea of ‘continuity’ – said to be the natural domain of the civil service – and important (in theory) to the working of No. 10. There is a closely related convention – that of the royal family staying above politics.
Two recent incidents may have left a hefty hole punched through these unwritten canons. First there was David Cameron’s blunt and public rejection of Gordon Brown’s undeclared bid to lead the International Monetary Fund.
Cameron’s reasons were that: 1. Brown was the architect of Britain’s disastrous ‘soft touch’ financial regulation; 2. But Brown still didn’t think Britain had a debt problem; and 3. In any case, there were far worthier Indian and Chinese candidates.
Great news, presumably, for India and Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Less so for a country that should be trying to heal divisions in bruising times rather than having to bat away avoidable frictions in public life.
It’s not as if jobs haven’t been blocked in Britain before. Apparently, Conservative John Major stopped Labour’s Neil Kinnock from becoming a European Commissioner until 1995. But, as one commentator said, Major didn’t rub Kinnock’s nose in.
Cameron, on the other hand, called Brown a “washed up politician”, and added: “If you have someone who didn’t think we had a debt problem in the UK – when we self-evidently do have a debt problem – then they might not be the most appropriate person to work out whether other countries around the world have debt and deficit problems.”
Brown appears to have clawed his way back somewhat. See my short followup here.
Even within the Conservative party, the moderates wedded to the philosophy of One Nation Conservatism are uneasy at the manner of the rejection. “However suitable or unsuitable for the job one thinks that Gordon Brown is, it looks indecent to blackball him before a vacancy has even arisen,” says a comment on the Tory Reform Group website.
At one level, it may just be all about politics: how could Cameron be seen to be backing Brown for an economics job abroad while blaming him at home for the economic mess that Britain is in?
More puzzling was the second episode: the humiliation heaped upon Brown and Tony Blair, who were left out of the guest list for the Royal Wedding, while Conservative premiers Margaret Thatcher and John Major were invited.
This snub – and a snub it appears to be rather than a cock-up – needs more unpacking than the IMF affair because it involves both the Palace and Number 10. The Palace’s response was that Thatcher and Major were invited because they are Knights of the Garter – the highest order of chivalry in England – and that this was no state occasion where every ex-PM had to be called.
The Order was created in 1348 and membership is limited to the Prince of Wales and 24 others. The current list is here.
Apparently, no one’s buying the Palace story (if it was a purely personal guest list what were Commonwealth high commissioners doing there, not to speak of the King of Swaziland?) Instead, there has been criticism and suspicion that No. 10 may not have pressed the case for Blair and Brown, thereby making the royal family look politically partisan.
One theory doing the rounds, emanating from the Daily Telegraph’s blogosphere, is that Prince William “cannot stand” Blair because Blair – apparently – made political capital from the death of his mother, Princess Diana.
Where’s the evidence for such cunning? The world knows Blair as the man who coined the phrase ‘People’s Princess’ for Diana and there’s little doubt that in the stormy days after her death the prime minister – just over three months into the job – acted as a bridge between an angry public and a seemingly distant royal family.
The event was Blair’s – and New Labour’s – trial by fire and it sealed his reputation as a leader. Sitting back would have allowed the monarchy to be tarnished in the public eye.
However, did the activist prime minister go too far in his forthright account of those events in his autobiography? According to Blair, the Palace’s reaction (the Queen was away in Scotland while the public were grieving) was “all very by the book, but it took no account of the fact that the people couldn’t give a damn about ‘the book’, actually disliked ‘the book’, in fact, thought ‘the book’ had in part produced the chain of events that led to Diana’s death.”
It is said that Prince Charles felt deeply hurt by public criticism of him and his family after Diana’s death. So was it Charles who kept Blair out? This passage from Blair’s book is illuminating: “There was a big debate over whether the boys [William and Harry] should walk behind the cortege with Prince Charles, and concern about the differing possible public reactions to him and to them.”
Or was it the Queen, forced by Blair (with Charles’ help, incidentally) to make a statement to the nation when she wanted to be left alone?
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