Lewis intervention makes life even more difficult for Brown

My disclosure on Friday that Gordon Brown has booked himself to rally the troops tonight at the weekly meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party put Labour in a spin over the weekend. Party spin doctors were sent out to deny that there was any panic behind the PLP meeting but the blundering intervention by Ivan Lewis, the Health Minister, fuelled the impression that Team Brown is in disarray.

Lewis is believed to have been trying to reassure the public that Brown would not let the Government get out of touch, but his message - contained in an article for the centre-left magazine Progress - came across quite differently and has backfired badly on Brown.

Lewis wrote in Progress that the party could not afford to be "reticent or selective about what fair means in today's Britain.

"Fairness," he went on, "means everyone paying an appropriate level of tax... Fairness means a Labour government not remaining silent when any company rips the consumer off, or directors of poorly-performing organisations in the public or private sector receive extortionate bonuses.

"Fairness means equal treatment and opportunities for women and ethnic minorities in the workplace, not skilled white men denied career opportunities in the name of equality."

Lewis urged Gordon Brown to put policies on crime and poverty ahead of those of global warming, and said the public also wanted people caught carrying guns and knives to be imprisoned for 10 years. And so he went on, digging a deeper and deeper hole for his leader to climb out of.

It did not help Brown having the Home Secretary Jacquie Smith on the BBC's AM programme having to deny her boss is out of touch. She is facing a humiliating defeat on the pre-charge detention for up to 42 days and seems to be the only one at Westminster unaware that she is going to lose the vote.

Today, Smith and Brown are going on a visit together to promote the Government's plans for every neighbourhood to have a neighbourhood policeman whose name will be known to everyone locally. Turning back the clock to Dixon of Dock Green isn't likely to convince anyone, certainly not Ivan Lewis.

THE MOLE: PLP MEETING

FIRST POSTED MARCH 31, 2008