Gordon Brown cozies up to neoconservative Democrats PDF Print E-mail
Michael Carmichael, 23 April 2006

Bob Shrum
Bob Shrum
As is well established, Gordon Brown is Tony Blair's heir apparent.  Currently Chancellor of the Exchequer, Brown has developed a perplexingly close personal relationship with Bob Shrum, a US political consultant who has been vilified by the Democratic Party's rank-and-file because of his disastrous involvements in eight losing presidential campaigns.  

According to the latest reports, Shrum has visited London recently to discuss his role in Brown's next political campaign for the office of Prime Minister of Great Britain.  This emerging relationship could trigger an outcry from the Labour rank-and-file, who must wish for a fresh perspective from their chief political consultants rather than the stale and uninspiring track record of Shrum.  

As we all know, Shrum was the principal architect of the systematic homogenisation of past Democratic campaigns which has made the Party and its leading candidates all but unelectable in recent years.  Another American consultant with a disturbingly consistent record of losses, Stanley Greenberg, was summoned to London for a crisis meeting in February when polls revealed a sharp reinvigoration of support for the Conservatives under the guidance of their new leader, David Cameron.  
Both Shrum and Greenberg are stalwart doyens of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the right-leaning pressure group that has faithfully supported the neoconservative agenda of the Bush-Cheney era.  In recent years, the DLC has been demonised by the rank-and-file members of the Democratic Party who are far more progressive than the senior right-leaning generation of Democrats including:  the Clintons, Joseph Lieberman, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Tom Vilsack and Barack Obama, who has disappointed his supporters by his consistent trait of tacking to the right.

Today, the UK press is replete with images of David Cameron driving a dog sled over an arctic glacier in search of a greener policy than that of Brown's Labour Party.  The political profile of Brown linked below will do little to inspire confidence that he is the man to contend for the premiership against the intrepid Cameron.

To raise even more concerns among progressives on both sides of the Atlantic, in his most recent public statements Brown has endorsed the war on terror.  At the same time, Foreign Minister, Jack Straw has distanced himself from the US planning for a concentrated bombing campaign against Iran.  The war in Iraq is a keystone legacy of Blair, but there are growing concerns that Brown may well decide to reject the mysteriously beguiling embrace of George Bush and his neoconservative foreign policy if he senses a shifting in the political winds.  

Even with these complexities, the probability that both the US and the UK will stagger onward under the domination of neoconservative regimes for years to come is beginning to dawn on an increasing proportion of the Party faithful on both sides of the Atlantic.

Reference

White House struggles to read the intellectual who may come to stay, by Tom Baldwin, The Times, 21str April 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2144520_1,00.html


Michael Carmichael has been a professional public affairs consultant, author and broadcaster since 1968. Michael is a board member of the European Association of Political Consultants. In 2003, he founded The Planetary Movement Limited, a global public affairs organization based in the United Kingdom. He has appeared as a public affairs expert on the BBC's Today Programme, Hardtalk, PM, as well as numerous appearances on ITN, NPR and many European broadcasts examining politics and culture. He can be reached through his website: http://www.planetarymovement.org/

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