UR TV CAST

I have the feeling that the phrase “full term” originated with Mr Blair’s second visit to hospital for his minor heart trouble. The most recent is about something else, his back, though that does not seem to be specially serious either My advice to the Prime Minister is:Tony, take it easy. If Cherie likes it so much, as she told The Sun recently, tell her that she must do her bit too. Of course you must not be at all harsh, but tell her, gently, that she cannot expect you to do all the work I am sure she will understand. This was, I read, the policy adopted by JF Kennedy, who was younger than you when he died but whose back was much worse.

With average luck, you should have many years of active and enjoyable life ahead of you, though I am a little worried because whenever I see you, you seem to have a mug of something unhealthy in your hand.But where does all this leave Mr Brown? I do not, I may say, feel particularly sorry for him. He could have taken firm and decisive action in 2004, 2003 or even 2002, when the Iraq war was being incubated: but he chose not to do any such thing. He was not like Roy Jenkins, who did not really want to be Prime Minister at all. He was not even like RA Butler, who wanted the job but thought he would get it without too much struggle and was, in any case, averse to any unpleasantness. He is more like a luckier version of Denis Healey.It is perhaps worth remembering that every single election for leader of the Labour Party has been contested since CR Attlee defeated Herbert Morrison in 1935. Only one of the transfers of power, to use Mr Blair’s phrase, took place when the party was in government, and none of them was forced. James Callaghan succeeded the resigned Harold Wilson in 1976 (with Michael Foot, not Healey, as the runner-up).

Then the electorate consisted of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which was better than the present artificial and corruptible electoral college of a third each from the MPs, the constituencies and the trade unions.There is little doubt that Mr Brown would win any contest in this somewhat fraudulent forum fair and square. But if he and Mr Blair think they can somehow slip him in sideways, as Tory leaders were slipped in before the party went democratic in 1965, or as Mr Michael Howard was more recently, they have another think coming. All kinds of likely lads, maybe lasses too, will fancy their chances, the more so if our great economy goes awry.But success in a party election is the least of Mr Brown’s worries. What must be of more concern to him is an election involving rather more people, to be held in 2009 or even 2010, and the time he is given to prepare for it. The highest literary reputations can be acquired by authors – Jane Austen, Herbert Butterfield, EM Forster, Hugh Trevor-Roper – without the necessity of their having to write very many books or, in Lord Acton’s case, any books at all Not so with Prime Ministers Their reputations depend on longevity.

Conversely, politicians who put in a short spell at No 10 are rarely thought to be much good. Edward Heath had three years and eight months, Callaghan three years and one month, Eden a year and nine months, and Alec Douglas-Home a year only.Between Labour’s defeat in 1992 and the death of John Smith two years later there was an argument in the party about whether fundamental rethinking was required. Or would one final heave suffice? The argument was resolved in favour of the former by the arrival of Mr Blair The Tories are now having a similar dispute. My own feeling is that, provided they are sensible – a big qualification – a heave will now manage it. If Mr Blair serves his full term, the question then will not so much be whether Mr Brown joins the ranks of short-serving Prime Ministers as whether rather, like those other Chancellors, Butler, Healey and Jenkins, he will ever become Prime Minister at all
More from Alan Watkins.

My son, Jackson, had his first birthday last week. As my daughter, Parker, put it: “He’s gone from none to one” He shares similarities with the Queen. Not a penchant for wearing silly hats; rather, that he has at least three birthdays. His proper birthday is spent at home with close members of the family and a couple of his special friends. The next day sees a slightly bigger event where the village and local dignitaries are ushered in to pay their respects and leave presents in exchange for some warm sherry.