Who would have thought it? Cabinet government is making a comeback. Admittedly not the old collective-style Cabinet government of yesteryear, but at least a recognition that ministers must be asked what they think as well as being told what to do. According to one delighted Cabinet minister, it's no longer just the Tony and Gordon show, nor even the Tony and Peter show. After the political shocks of the fuel crisis and the 75p pension revolt, other ministers are, at last, being drawn into decision-making. In part, it's a result of their own new steely mood. They're fed up with having to do the government's dirty work, to go on television and defend something they might not agree with and have never been consulted about.

We're talking here about the safe pairs of hands the government always falls back on in a crisis: Jack Straw, David Blunkett, Alistair Darling, John Reid, Margaret Beckett and, yes, John Prescott, too. That's it, they're saying, enough!

Will the Prime Minister and Chancellor really release their suffocatingly tight hold on the administration, even a little? Well, they have both suffered serious dents to their authority over the past few months. Think not just of the fuel crisis and the pensions row but of the demoralising, self-destructive sniping that has emerged in Andrew Rawnsley's and Geoffrey Robinson's books, and you see why some of the rest of the Cabinet are becoming more assertive. This is their government, too.

Rebuilding a firm and larger political core (most definitely irreducible) for the Cabinet is one of the urgent tasks of the winter, because the truth is that Labour's overall position in the country is still worryingly weak. Individual polls come and go. They are mere headline-fodder. But a cautious, calm reading of the trends suggests that Labour's summer lead of around ten points has halved, and that William Hague has broken through the 30-point ceiling he had been banging his bald head against for so long. But even that understates the problem.

Hague's strategy is becoming clear. It is to pit "the real country" - in electoral terms, the clusters of marginal constituencies in the Midlands, the north-west of England and the south - against "the chattering, metropolitan elite". London is the enemy, or at least an idea of London. In the Eighties, for the left, it was the champagne-quaffing brokers of the City who symbolised the new ruling class. Now, for the right, it is the politically correct pro-Europeans of Islington and Hampstead, who dine, as legend has it, on polenta and sun-dried tomatoes.

Hague's potential stock of recruits, people who can be swayed by his ceaseless attacks on "London trendies", is concentrated in marginal government-held seats, in such places as Bury, Bolton and Blackpool, unlike the anti-London movement of the Kinnock years, which was concentrated in Labour's heartlands. According to local polling, Hague is doing better where he needs to than he is nationally. If Labour is not worried by this, it ought to be. Look at the Tory revival today and ask what might happen after a winter of grim news from hospitals, further personality battles at Westminster and the odd unpredicted "event".

So far, the government answer to all this is two words long: Autumn Statement. It is true, no doubt, that Gordon Brown, with his usual mixture of shrewdness and ruthlessness, should be able to win back some credit in the country. But Labour should still try to rebut Hague's cultural attack, just in case. After all, it shouldn't be so difficult. How can a government composed of so many northern and Midlands characters (Prescott, Blunkett, Beckett, Alan Milburn, Stephen Byers, Clare Short, Hilary Armstrong, Nick Brown), not to mention all those Scots, possibly be caricatured as a metropolitan elite? Whatever NS readers may think of Straw, no one could call him "chattering class". Geoff Hoon, John Reid, Ian McCartney, Paul Murphy - effete liberals? I don't think so.

What has happened is that a government drawn from across Britain, and less socially exclusive in background than any of its predecessors, has allowed itself to be ruthlessly caricatured as a clutch of metropolitan snobs. The disaster of the Peter Mandelson home-loan scandal was that it handed the Conservative Party a weapon in this cultural war that Hague has used very effectively.

Add Mandelson's involvement in the Dome and his supercilious air, and you have some, at least, of the reason behind the Tory revival. Undoubtedly, some of that stuff about the government being arrogant and out of touch has stuck.

But the left is too good at recrimination. What matters is the next vital six months. We need to see that the short explosion of apologies during conference week was not simply the latest "spin" but the start of a change of heart.

So what is to be done? More Cabinet discussion. More use of middle-ranking ministers - and not just for refuse clearance when things go wrong. More Commons debates, led by the top team, so that Hague has to reverse his promise to attend only for Wednesday questions. No flash, star-spangled parties, no conspicuous-consumption holidays. A low profile for Mandelson, doing the unglamorous grind in Northern Ireland. Lower profiles, too, for the Labour Lords. In sum, a bit less of the "Blair government" and a bit more of the Labour government.

Blair is no longer loved by the voters, but that's not really the problem. A prime minister doesn't have to be loved. A more ruthless, businesslike Blair surrounded by the plain, somewhat crumpled Middle British who actually make up most of his government would be a great improvement on the grinning clique of the Hague caricature. Perhaps, at last, Blair needs his Cabinet ministers as much, or more, than they need him.

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website