BRITISH PRIME minister Gordon Brown has been warned by a group of former senior ministers that voters believe Labour is “intellectually exhausted” and faces being out of power for a generation after the next election.
“Seven or so months before a general election and it is not the best of times for the Labour Party. There is a general malaise,” said the group, which includes former lord chancellor Charles Falconer and former home secretary Charles Clarke.
“In the absence of a clear progressive agenda, many people feel that the cheap populist initiatives offered by the Conservatives are worth a try – and this will potentially open up the prospect of Britain sleepwalking into another generation of Thatcherite government,” they said.
The “widespread perception” that Labour “has run out of steam, [and] is intellectually exhausted” was “partly fair”, the group argued, even though it conceded that Mr Brown had tried clearly to outline the government’s direction.
“Certainly the electorate are less clear about what we stand for than in, say, 1945, the elections of the mid-1960s or 1997. This is probably only partly because a clear narrative is easier to set out in opposition than in government,” the group said in a pamphlet.
In the past, nearly half of the 11 people involved in drafting the pamphlet, who include former Europe minister Denis McShane, have publicly called on Mr Brown to stand down from 10 Downing Street, although they were careful to make no such pronouncements yesterday.
Meanwhile, Tory MP David Wilshire announced that he would not stand for election again after it emerged that he had claimed £100,000 (€109,000) worth of expenses for secretarial services from a company he owned.
Mr Wiltshire had attempted to hold on, but he finally bowed to demands to stand down at the next election following a meeting in the Commons last night with the Conservative chief whip Patrick McLaughlin.
Saying he was confident that he would be cleared by a Standards Commissioner’s investigation, the Surrey MP said he was quitting for the party’s sake: “I am confident that he [the commissioner] will confirm that I have done nothing wrong.
“These allegations also run the risk of harming my local party and our national party’s chances of winning at the next general election . . . I have reluctantly concluded that it is sensible for me not to seek re-election next year.”
An MP since 1987, Mr Wilshire held a safe Tory seat, with a majority of 11,684 at the last election in 2005. So far, more than 100 MPs have said they will not seek re-election – more than 40 of them since the expenses scandal broke.
Mr Wilshire claimed expenses worth £105,000 over three years which were paid to Moorlands Research Services. He claims the company never made a profit, and that the expenses had been cleared with the Commons’ fee office. Expenses from his parliamentary office and staffing allowances were paid to the company, in which he and his partner, Ann Palmer, were listed as the only partners. It was wound up last year.
The Surrey MP, who once promoted legislation to bar “the promotion of homosexuality” in schools, has had a tense relationship with Tory leader David Cameron, whose support he now needs.