The apparently now terminal breakdown of the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is causing obvious dismay inside the government and Labour party. The Cabinet's heaviest bruiser, Dr John Reid, has weighed in with dire electoral warnings that the rift is threatening Labour's re-election prospects. The papers this morning were full of reports that Blair's days were now numbered/Brown was now on his way to the back benches. Might both of them now be drowning as they drag each other below the waves, forever locked fast in their deadly embrace?

Clearly, the situation is untenable. Even if the two of them patch up their differences for public consumption, they have surely gone past the point of no return. The accusation which, according to Robert Peston's new book, Gordon Brown hurled at Tony Blair:

'"There is nothing you could say to me that I could ever believe"'

has done irreparable damage. If I were Maurice Saatchi, I would even now be mocking up the Tory election poster bearing that quotation in squillion-point type.

Civil servants say despairingly that government is paralysed, since departments have stopped talking to each other or putting forward any initiatives for fear of getting sucked into the fratricidal turf wars between the two armed camps. And even if, by some miracle, the so-far useless toadies who run the civil service were to knock the heads of the First and Second Lords of the Treasury together, it is hard to see how the forthcoming general election can fail to be paralysed, too. For as Robert Peston observed today in passing :

'"There is only one battle in politics that matters, which is Blair versus Brown."'

This may have been an aside, but it is a crucial point. For the British media, the general election will not be a fight between Labour and the Tories. It will be a fight between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. All the adversarial drama of rival views of the world, opposing policies and so forth will be vividly played out. The problem is that it will be played out within the same party.

In normal circumstances, the principal oposition would clean up from such an implosion at the heart of government. But these are not normal circumstances. For we have not one party in meltdown, but two. The Tories cannot capitalise on this situation because they are still trying desperately to become neo-Blairites, just when the man who has paralysed them has lost every last vestige of credibility. The government's problem is that, the soap opera aside, they are led by two politicians with very different and strong ideals. The Tories' problem is that they have no ideals; no idea what they should be fighting for, and fighting against. The astonishing thing is that we now appear to have no functioning government and no functioning opposition.

The most likely outcome at the election is that voters will staty away from the ballot box in droves.This is not just a crisis for the government, but a crisis for British democracy.

Posted by melanie at January 10, 2005