Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Doesn't it strike you that the political system itself is ill? At one moment Brown bestrides the scene like a colossus and the Tories are wet kleenex. The next and Brown is the empty box - but everyone is saying the way out for him is to show he is 'strong' and demonstrate 'leadership', as if the direction of march is irrelevant. See Simon Jenkins in today's Guardian but this is only one example of many. As often the case, in a land where most commentators are wrong, Matt d'Ancona is at least half right: the situation cannot be saved by Gordon 'being himself'. There is a structural collapse within the Labour Party.
Nonetheless, d'Ancona implies that had Labour not dropped the brilliant Blair as leader all would have been OK. Not so - I'll return to this in an overview of what has happened to the New Labour project. And he is right that a leadership contest was needed so that Brown took over with a programme rather than as an untouchable 'father of the party' , read "nation" (although I am not sure that Matt argued this at the time as I did in OurKingdom). But given that it is so obviously the case that we are looking at a system failure why does everyone think it is all about 'the man'? And that perhaps another man could solve it - or he could if only he behaved differently?
For a country that once prided itself on sang-froid there is a hysterical desire for strength through leadership. In its obvious manifestation this goes back to the Falklands and Britain "becoming the country it once was" in Thatcher's words, through a small victorious war. I am NOT 'blaming' her so please don't dump on me for looking back with dry eyes to that formative moment. She was the expressive symptom not the cause of what was a new form of the British disease. Blair picked it up perfectly and took this love of power to where it belonged ("Up the arse of the White House" - his words not mine.)
This illness is not found in the politicians, however, it resides in the commentariat and the media, the dogs howling for a strong commander and a striking media 'personality' to feed their revolting appetite. A similar, celebrity driven sickness has struck the French political system which has the presidency that the press here so longs for. How much healthier it is in dull, coalition Germany where, blow me down, they still make things and exports have risen despite the credit crunch.
We are capable of health, don't get me wrong, this is a much better country than it was in 1979. But where power has been taken away from Westminster and Whitehall. In Wales, in Scotland, even in Northern Ireland, politics proceeds in a much healthier way, it seems to me. Even in London itself, where Ken's support did not collapse. He got a record high vote but was defeated cleanly not least thanks to a fairer voting system. London worked. Londoners wanted it to work differently. There was no sense of hysteria. Reflected on in this way, don't you share the sense that we are observing the end of a regime - however long it may take - not just the end of a premiership. Or to put it another way, Cameron wants to become Blair II.
