Master of the long game

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Writing in the Daily Telegraph today Simon Heffer (a signatory of the Power Inquiry Fellow Citizens petition) says, "Mr Brown enters Downing Street in more propitious circumstances than any of his recent predecessors. There is no national crisis, no divided party, no hate-filled mass media, no inexperience on the new Prime Minister's part. His words today hardly matter: he has no excuse to fail, and must now show by deeds that he will not". Leaving aside the threatening words at the end, Heffer is right to point to one thing that has long been Brown's goal, "no divided party". Brown learnt not only from the consequences of internecine conflict that long crippled Labour but also from the conflicts which erupted among the Tories after Heseltine stormed out of Thatcher's Cabinet to the deep wounds left by her expulsion from No 10 in 1990. True they won the election in 1992. But the Conservative party has never really recovered a capacity to lead the country since. Whenever his supporters urged him to stand against Blair openly, his reply was that if Labour divided it was lost. His caution was always regarded as weakness. It turns out that his exceptional patience was a strength.