Where are Bruce Forsyth, Larry Grayson and Jim Davidson now that Gordon Brown seems to need them? Well, Bruce is tied up with Strictly Come Dancing and Larry died in January 1997 (can it really be almost ten years?). As for Jim, I tried to examine his website on Friday but The Times computer system denied access to it on the basis that it had been “classified as pornography” (which seems a little harsh). Additional research revealed that he spends much of his time working in the likes of Dubai these days in an attempt to raise enough money to meet his huge alimony payments to a horde of former wives.
For Mr Brown is receiving wildly differing advice on how he should play the political version of The Generation Game, which is why he might find the counsel of these three men helpful (although in one case he would require a medium to solicit it). There are those who insist that once he assumes control he must promote younger people to senior positions in the Cabinet to challenge David Cameron, George Osborne and the Conservative Party for a youthful appearance.
If so, he should be encouraging David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, to run for the deputy leadership, and elevating those such as Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander and Yvette Cooper to the most prominent portfolios possible (Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, party chairman). Others retort that this would be quite unnecessary, worse still unwise, and that Labour should resist this Young Ones strategy.
The case for youth (and it is comforting to find one area of life where being 40 or so is deemed precocious) appears convincing. Those who advocate it tend to offer one or more of three arguments in its favour.
The first is that only the freshest available faces can “renew” a Government that will soon have been in office for a decade. Otherwise, it will simply be assumed that it is old and tired and destined for the electoral knacker’s yard. One opinion poll for a television programme yesterday revealed that more voters thought that Mr Cameron had “new ideas” than Mr Brown — even though nobody could identify them. Since Mr Brown cannot rewrite his birth certificate to knock off 15 years, the thesis runs, he should turn to those within his ranks who can afford him youth by association.
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The other arguments are slightly more sophisticated. One is that Labour has a larger and more talented pool of MPs born in the Beatles decade than its rivals and it should exploit that advantage. There is something to be said for this. One of the reasons why Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne have risen so fast (besides the strange transfer of the hereditary principle from the House of Lords to the House of Commons) is that they had few credible opponents — so much for the Conservatives as the party of competition. Besides these two, the only well-known Tory of a similar age is Boris Johnson, who is a smarter character than he is given credit for yet is stereotyped as more of a national clown than an aspiring Cabinet member. Furthermore, it is suggested, only younger politicians understand how political campaigning is moving away from the traditional media towards the internet.
On the surface, these are compelling claims. The Chancellor should surely be booking himself in for a face-lift and surrounding himself with those who have no need of plastic surgery. But before he does, he might ponder an alternative set of observations.
For the fixation with the youth image and vote is a false one. There is no evidence from opinion surveys that Conservative support among electors under the age of 25 is rising, despite all of Mr Cameron’s weird and wonderful online innovations. The blunt reality is that turnout among the 18 to 30s is terrible and this will not be reversed by superficially clever internet activity because, ultimately, the young condemn all politicians as “sad”.
Those of Mr Brown’s age and older, by contrast, are the bulk of the functioning electorate (the ones willing to visit a polling station and cast a ballot). An appeal pitched directly at them may be more valuable for Labour than trying to be hip.
Added to which, it is not in the party’s best interests to be too novel. Elections in Britain boil down to a battle between two phrases: “Time for a change” (the Opposition) versus “the Devil you know” (the Government). The enormous merit of a mid-term switch in Prime Minister is that it blunts the time- for-a-change charge (because a change of sorts has already occurred), while retaining the familiarity of the devil you know.
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And, finally, experience has its virtues. If Labour enters the next election with Mr Brown, Alan Johnson or Hilary Benn, Jack Straw, John Reid, Margaret Beckett and Alistair Darling as its top tier, it will be able to point to 50 years’ worth of Cabinet service. The Conservatives, in return, will have William Hague’s 22 months as Welsh Secretary.
Mr Brown could remind electors that the remainder of the Tories’ time in Whitehall consists of Mr Cameron’s role as a political adviser to Norman Lamont during the ERM catastrophe and Mr Osborne’s similar activities for Douglas Hogg in the BSE fiasco. Those debacles do not mean much to the youth (non) vote, but anyone aged over 35 or so recalls them. It may turn out, therefore, that The Generation Game is the wrong television reference point for the next Prime Minister. He should be looking at The Antiques Roadshow for inspiration.