Race for the prize

David Miliband is no fool. Despite the cawing chorus of pleading Blairites, desperate for him to stand, it was reported on Newsnight last night that Miliband would rather ‘have his fingernails pulled out’ than take on Gordon Brown in the forthcoming Labour leadership election.

This news will surely come as a huge disappointment to Messrs Clarke, Milburn and Byers, that trio of discredited ugly sisters, who were yesterday hopping from tv station to tv station, telling anyone who would listen that it was utterly preposterous to imply that the timing of the launch of their new website, ostensibly dedicated to debating future Labour policy, was linked in any way to Blair’s impending departure and the ensuing leadership contest.

Unfortunately, Byers could not help himself during his lunchtime appearance on The Daily Politics, letting slip his great hope that ‘there will be a serious contest for the leader and that means someone [standing against Brown] who is either in cabinet or has been in the cabinet recently’. Clarke, on the other hand, warned Brown that unless he ‘engaged with the issues’ raised on the website ‘it is more likely someone else will come in [to the contest]’.

Despite Clarke’s refusal to rule himself out of the running, all three of the would-be assassins know that they themselves could not defeat Brown in a head-to-head contest. They are damaged goods – Milburn was a disaster as head of Labour’s 2005 election campaign, lasting only a week before Brown took over responsibility, while Byers must be considered brave even to show his head over the parapet given the 2002 revelations of his penchant for lying to Parliament and subsequent embarrassing exit from Cabinet. And if anyone can bring themselves to even contemplate a giant election billboard poster decorated with Clarke’s repulsive jug-eared mug they are a more courageous man than I.

Which is why Miliband is under such pressure to stand. Good-looking, sharp and, at 41, the same age as Cameron, Miliband is the anti-Brownite’s dream ticket. He is, in the public’s eyes at least, untainted by the failures of the Blair administration and could easily be portrayed as a new broom, sweeping out the vestiges of a weary party, just as Cameron swept away the challenge of David Davis. He, not the antiquated Brown, is the man to take on the invigorated Tories in the new golden future of British politics.

Except, of course, it is not as simple as that. Despite only entering parliament in 2001, Miliband is no political novice. A leading member of the influential IPPR think tank during the 90s, Miliband soon became one of Blair’s closest advisors and was, at 31, appointed head of the Downing Street Policy Unit immediately after Labour’s 1997 victory, a success for which he was given much credit. His speedy election to parliament and subsequent Cabinet position as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs surprised no one.

He is, therefore, not a man to be pushed around by former heavyweights like Clarke and Milburn, regardless of their past acheivements. And Miliband knows two things. Firstly, Brown will win the post-Blair leadership election. The hundreds of Brownite Labour MPs who have been waiting for over ten years, with varying degrees of patience, for their man to get his chance will not let this opportunity pass them by. Secondly, Miliband knows that he has the one thing that Brown, Clarke and Milburn do not. Time.

If Miliband stays out of the leadership scramble and lets Brown win, he cannot lose. He will be assured of a prime seat in a Brown cabinet, with some tipping him for Chancellor. And he will know that, regardless of how Brown does against Cameron, his chance will soon come – if Brown loses the next election, he will be out on his ear anyway. If he wins, he is too old to realistically go on for more than one term. Either way, Miliband will be in pole position for the succession.

Clarke, Milburn and Byers, however, know that stopping Brown is their last chance. They will be more than aware that the not-so-underhand sniping and derogatory off-the-record briefings in which they have been indulging recently will rule them out of participation in any Brown government. Their desperation to find a viable challenger to Brown is therefore only matched by their all-consuming desire to cling onto the last remnants of their dissipating careers. Miliband is all they have got, and he knows it. He also knows that they need him a damn sight more than he needs them. Hence the ‘fingernails’ comment; for Miliband is no more likely to sacrifice his career for the sake of Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn than you or I. The moment when the penny finally drops will be one to behold.