“I am sorry about what happened”. That it took Gordon Brown five days to apologise for the unfounded allegations made against senior British Conservatives in a leaked e-mail by his political aide Damian McBride says a lot about the prime minister’s political style.
Mr McBride was immediately dismissed from 10 Downing Street and Mr Brown wrote to the Conservative leader David Cameron, the party’s shadow chancellor George Osborne and another named woman saying he understood the embarrassment caused by the scurrilous rumours involved and would tighten up the rules applying to political aides. But he did not say the allegations were untrue until later and did not apologise until yesterday. This unnecessarily elongated the affair. More importantly it allowed a flood of commentary to develop reminding voters of Mr Brown’s darker, more conspiratorial political side, which led him to hire Mr McBride in the first place.
That Mr Brown should be furious about it, as he said yesterday, is readily understandable given that the row has diverted public attention from his capable handling of the recent G20 summit in London and his continuing efforts to concentrate on British economic recovery. Despite poor polling, he scores well on such expertise and hopes to reinforce the impression leading in to the forthcoming general election, which must be held by next year. It is a difficult task, given Britain’s huge exposure to the financial crisis and the immediate prospect of a tough budget next week.
Public disenchantment with political leaders and parties has been driven in Britain and elsewhere by precisely such revelations of personalised spin-doctoring which play to the basest media instincts about what motivates politics. This shows up in reduced turnout at elections, loss of trust, smaller party membership and increased voter volatility at election time. Mainstream politics have less legitimacy and as a result it is harder for leaders to command support, especially during such an economic crisis.
Mr Brown’s own political life has combined highminded public morality and calculated careerism to an unusual degree. Their uneasy coexistence has been fully exposed in this affair. His reluctance to act decisively and at once by apologising and his inclination to blame the rules when the scandal broke reveals a weakness reminiscent of his caution in autumn 2007 about calling a snap election. He now has an even more uphill task to concentrate attention on his work for the public good.