“Go forth and multiply, Make fields of human grain Live longer lives and never die And pray to God for rain...”
From Population Blues
by Bachchoo

This week has seen the culmination of a soap opera in British politics. Just as I can’t explain the plot of, shall we say, Coronation Street to an Indian audience by referring to the drama and machinations of an Indian soap — like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, it is difficult to get across the actual drama of this real-life soap on the political stage and its possibilities without referring to an Indian political parallel.
Now

I don’t want my Indian visa cancelled. Neither do I want to be arrested when I next step onto the tarmac of the Indira Gandhi International Airport, nor be invited to some party in the Dilli Capitol and be disposed of in an “encounter”; so let me very clearly state that what I am about to say is pure conjecture, fictional, imaginary etc. Suppose, just suppose, the Congress Party elected its leaders by a really democratic vote of the whole party and its various component sections. One may accept that within this process there will be “votebanks” and some horse-trading will inevitably take place as rival would-be leaders jockey for positions — a democratic tradition prevalent in the Greek city-states.
Suppose further that the Congress Party has gone into Opposition and a coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party rules in Delhi. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has resigned and moved on to some illustrious international appointment and an election for Congress leader is to be held sometime soon.
Rahul Gandhi, as is already being proposed even out of our supposed fictional frame, is the favourite to win the election. All the other candidates lag far behind him in popularity. He has the endorsement of Soniaji and of Dr Singh. Then a few weeks before the election, despite all her seeming reluctance in the past, Priyanka Vadera throws her pallu, so to speak, into the ring. She speaks at the hustings against some of the policies and initiatives with which her brother is associated and, when the day comes, narrowly wins the poll and is declared leader of the Congress Party and potential Prime Minister. Rahul, somewhat annoyed at his sibling stealing the election from him despite being, till the last moment, the bookies’ favourite, decides to quit politics and go off and train as a pilot.
Let me repeat that this is just an analogy I wish to draw to what has just happened in the British Labour Party. Ed Miliband, a junior minister in the last New Labour government, stood in the leadership contest to succeed ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown who resigned when Labour lost the May elections, competing against his older brother David, who was strongly tipped to win.
David had been Mr Brown’s foreign secretary and was in very many senses treated by the party and its MPs as the heir apparent. He was the favourite for all the months since the contest was announced. There were three other candidates, at least one of them a credible leader and relatively senior politician, but the Miliband brothers made all the running, with David ahead in every poll.
The soapish drama of such a contest was unavoidable. The Miliband brothers, sons of Marxist academic and writer Ralph Miliband and a Labour activist mother, were both brought up in the traditions of the British Left. According to their family friend (and my mate, who has tales to tell) Tariq Ali, who was in and out of their house when they were but infants and teenagers, they were brought up in a hothouse environment of Marxist and socialist debate.
Come the Labour Conference this week in Manchester, the votes of the three sections of the Labour Party were garnered. The first section, the general membership of the country, gave David Miliband a majority. In the second section, the Parliamentary Labour Party, a majority of MPs voted again for David. What tipped the balance in younger brother Ed’s favour were the block votes of the third section, the trade unions. The difference between Ed’s majority and David’s minority was less than two per cent. Ed was duly elected and in his inaugural speech as the new leader made very generous, even sentimental, overtures to the brother he had come from behind to defeat. Newspapers and TV programmes, neglecting to some extent the policies that the brothers put forward as their policy platforms, played up the sibling rivalry.
In that first speech Ed denounced the Iraq war and Labour’s enthusiasm for it as “wrong”. It was a war David had strongly supported and the cameras turned to his face to show the nation his jaw tightening as Ed denounced this bit of the past. Very many in the packed conference hall clapped their support. David, with other ministers who had taken the country to war, kept his hands in his lap.
And now David has announced that he is going to leave the Shadow Cabinet and not serve under his brother as a front bench opposition spokesman. He gave his reasons. If he did join his brother’s team, the media would be on the lookout for every cigarette-paper-thin difference in their policies and pronouncements in order to revive the brothers at war soap opera story.
Meanwhile, Ed Miliband, leader of the Opposition, has given clear signals to the Liberal Democratic Party, which is the junior partner of the present governing coalition, that their policy preferences are close to his. During his election campaign he attacked the Lib-Dem leadership who had taken ministerial positions in the Tory-led government of David Cameron. He even appealed to dissident Lib-Dems to cross the floor and join Labour. Not a word of it in his inaugural speech.
Which leads me to speculate on another possible turn in the soapy politics of Britain. David Miliband’s departure from the front bench will leave vacant the position of shadow chancellor of the exchequer. A very senior Liberal Democrat, one Vince Cable, now business minister in the coalition, is rumoured to be extremely unhappy with some of its key fiscal and other policies. There is no indication that he is so inclined, but Mr Cable could announce his discomfiture, quit the government and even quit the Lib-Dem Party after holding secret talks with Ed. His crossing the floor and becoming shadow chancellor for Renewed Labour would bring the coalition crashing and precipitate a fresh election, giving the Ed-Vince Labour Party a real chance.
As I said, Machiavellian fantasy, based on Leftish principle — but one would love to plant the possibility in Vince’s head.