Major-"we were nothing like Brown."

John Major,spotted in the members at Lords, today has written a piece in the Telegraph in which he refutes the suggestions that his government in 1997 bears any comparison to the current position for Gordon Brown.

The Conservatives were in their 18th year of government: Labour is in its 12th. The Conservatives had no majority, and were at the mercy of a handful of rebels: Labour still enjoys a large majority. Conservative divisions were over policy – notably Europe – in which the dissenters believed they must prevail for the national interest: Labour has no such excuse. And – crucially – the Tory economy was well on track to full vigour: Labour's is in the mire.

Furthermore he says Labour Labour have retreated to tactics he believes they will live to regret and adds that

Since the Prime Minister can no longer defend Labour policies, he attacks a fictional Tory past at almost every Prime Minister's Questions

Ht-Tim Montgomerie

Back to the Roy Jenkins doctrine

I havee just caught up with John Major's appearance on yesterday's Andrew Marr show.

It was a considered interview and Major made some interesting points some made previously over the forthcoming "R" word

The former PM took the credit for the unprecedented economic stablity of the last ten years and he went on to say that

It is quite extraordinary that in the 10 years that the world has had the most benign economic circumstances in a very long time that we have run up such a huge fiscal deficit,we have increased taxes and we have a trade deficit that is 50-60 times higher than 1997.

Claerly not a fan of the Brown economy he also pointed out that with government spending at between 42-455 of national income,the government had broken the Roy Jenkin's barrier of 40%

This formed one of the bases of Thatcherism.Here is a speech that she made in 1975 to the Hose of Common's press gallery

You have to have high interest rates if the public expenditure is too high. If public expenditure's too high as a proportion of your national income your borrowing is too high. But everyone wants to borrow and if the borrowing is not backed by goods, you have to get the interest rate up. That's why we have to get public expenditure down as a proportion of national income

The doctrine was that followed by Roy Jenkin's under Wilson's 60's administration who consistently tried to balance budgets.

Why Brown's position might be worse than Major's

Charlie Beckett has a good post on the media crisis facing Gordon Brown's administration and compares with the situation facing John Major after he took over from Mrs Thatcher.

He muses on a conversation that he had with Lord Fowler who

agreed that Major did have a similar problem. But he pointed out that Major was seen as a new face so it took longer for the media to decide to take him apart. Major was Chancellor and Foreign Secretary before becoming PM but it happened so quickly that he left virtually no trace. When he went in to Number 10 it was as if a new party had taken power. Norman felt Gordon has bigger problems.

The problem being that Brown is not a new face,will be associated with the problems surrounding the economy and has Charlie points out the main difference being

In the end John Major had enough support in the Conservative press, a brilliant election campaign and the guts to put himself in the front line. He may have been grey but I watched Major in action and he was impressive.

It hardly bears thinking that Gordon Brown would get on a soap box and address the electorate.Yet thatis what Major did in the 1992 campaign and it may well have been the move that gave him the edge in the election

War breaks out in the Labour Party.

Nick Robinson describes it as "an extraordinary on the record briefing."

Ed Balls has accused Frank Field as trying to bring down the Prime Minister as well as describing him as a loner and as being dishonourable.

Of course all this is simply providing more ammunition for the opposition parties.Nick Clegg has already described ministers as acting as rats in the bag.All this has overshadowed the so called relaunch today.It also puts Brown under even more pressure if that was at all possible.

The one thing that Labour had in its favour was unity,compared for example to the Major government.Now is the final act being cast?

I like the post over at Westmonster

Will the tides of time sweep over Mr Brown to leave him drowning? Or will he be cleansed and resurrected before the game's over?