At some point in the last few months YouTube turned from a harmless extra to something that could kill. Gordon announcing a shift in government policy on YouTube in the end may turn out to be the moment that maimed him, and, if not, then a small pun by a small pun of a cabinet minister turned Hazel Blears and her YouTube gibe into a bullet. Whereas once you could wheel Blears out to defend the government, suddenly she was delivering the blows.
Rumours abound as to why she penned that (very good) article and they are all ridiculous. She was shielding Jacqui Smith who that week would otherwise have taken a beating from the press but for the unwise words of a sister; Blears was putting it out there that she disagreed with Gordon ahead of a reshuffle in which she was shuffled out of the cabinet; and then this one: she knew her expenses were irregular and this was her way of getting on the right side of the backbenches ahead of a sacking.
Downing Street knows it got that YouTube device wrong. Apparently it was the prime minister’s idea – unchivalrous to reveal on the part of his aides, you might think. Brown is supposed to have said: ‘Let’s do this on YouTube rather than get the broadcasters in.’ So, five minutes before cabinet one morning GB did a couple of takes, considered it done and dusted before bundling into cabinet to talk Recession.
His staff are more chivalrous in their meditations on what went wrong – namely Brown pulling the kind of smile that looked like aides, off camera, had been pulling at the PM’s cheek muscles with a fish hook to enact the smiling expression. ‘It was our fault;’ ‘We should have made him redo it;’ worst: ‘Alastair would have made him redo it.’ Alastair as in Alastair Campbell. He would not have let it go ahead. You also get the feeling that had Damian McBride lived to tell the tale he’d have thrown the resident cameraman out the window.
But the YouTube incident may have come about because of precisely the vacuum caused by McBride. Into his shoes has stepped a YouTube addict – David Muir. Advisers can now be heard down the Westminster Arms railing against Muir who sends them emails suggesting YouTube forays for their individual ministers. To which they can be heard saying: ‘Yeah, right’ and ‘No way’.
But Downing Street is very proud of its YouTube style. Supposedly, when Obama visited Brown, Downing Street aides – including the entire civil servant employed by Downing Street to twitter Brown’s movements – were meeting with David Axelrod and Obama’s technology team. And according to those present at the slide shows made by the two teams, the admiration was mutual. Axelrod was reportedly impressed with the Ask the PM website and went back to America and set up Obama’s. Team Obama were also impressed by the tweeting of the budget and will be doing that soon (if not already). Had Axelrod sent Muir an email from the other side of the pond commenting on a YouTube strategy gone momentarily sour? The Downing Street aide wouldn’t say. But grinned.
Jackisms & Johnson went up the hill
So the odds get shorter that there will be a challenge to Gordon after the June elections. Never has an election campaign been treated so much like the treading of water and passing of time and less like the sacred act of franchise that it really is. The current strategic fear is that the party will finish behind UKIP but not behind the BNP – at least, say some extremists, coming behind the BNP would make sure the story wasn’t about us. Now even this is a shrinking possibility. Labour expects a meltdown and is preparing accordingly.
And, just as the police cancel leave ahead of civil unrest, lobby hacks are rescheduling their summer villas and the House of Commons’ authorities are tanking up on food for feuds. The contagion is spreading to ministers of state who arrive at modest sounding meetings with backbenchers expecting to talk casework and instead finding themselves involved in intrigue – the normally loyal backbenchers inform the minister that the game is up for the boss come the morning after the European elections.
So who next? Some believe that, despite a month in which Harriet Harman said no and no again, that she has cooked up a deal with Gordon and that he will only stand down – anointing her. A decreasing minority believe it will be Straw. Expenses did not help his cause. ‘Why are we in this mess?’ one backbencher said to the Insider, in the middle of the farago over expenses. ‘It’s a “Jackism”. He’s the one who came up with these bloody fiddly allowances, and he’s the one who brought in freedom of information, and said “don’t worry, it’ll all be alright”. No it bloody won’t and no it bloody hasn’t been.’ Which means Johnson is the favourite. Downing Street was astounded by a weekend of television interviews in which each of three possibles – Straw, Harman and Johnson – appeared and the most emphatic in ruling herself out was HH and the least emphatic in ruling themselves out was the Blairite Johnson. When faced with Johnson, the chances of the Harman inheritance becomes a little more likely, the Insider is told.