Monday, July 07, 2008

Brown Needs White Rabbit Or White Flag

If Brown wants to survive he's going to have to do something big and something real. Something which captures the public's imagination and turns public opinion. Like a magician, he needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat, or give up. 

If Brown doesn't do this soon, ahead of the Glasgow East by-election, he might as well back up his box of tricks and go home. 

Cameron's conservatives are having it too easy. They are reacting to Big Issues as they come up, unfolding hard policies slowly to a tightly controlled pre-election grid. The LibDems are going nowhere under Euro-boy Clegg. 

True Labour back-bench MPs are starting to pull their own rabbits out of the hat and maybe put their hats in the ring. 

Frank Field's comments in the Daily Telegraph read like a manifesto and are remarkably similar in tone if not content to a lament by John McDonnell in the Guardian recently.

John Cruddas put forward his white rabbits in yesterday's Sunday Mirror, as "a last chance to revive (Brown's) Government". 

At the moment Brown and the New Labour elite are just clinging on to power. A long-awaited cabinet resuffle won't help. Just the same old faces - but younger. 

After a decade, the New Labour Project is coming to an end and voters can see through the sham. Coming up with wasteful white elephants or just sticking green labels on things won't help. 

Brown was part of, but not one of the main architects of, the New Labour Project. 

He started out his premiership with a white rabbit when he scrapped the supercasino plan. But that was all. 

Brown still has time to pull another white rabbit out of the hat. He could call time on New Labour and pick up just one of the ideas from Field, McDonnell or Cruddas. There are plenty of white rabbits to choose from. 

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