Jonathan Freedland (Guardian Utd): Pragmatism isn't easy

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Thursday May 5 (Election Day in Britain)

Pragmatism isn't easy
By Jonathan Freedland

Usually it's wars that demand sacrifice - but elections make demands too. All of the lead players have had to pay a price during these campaign weeks, eating bad food, flying in bumpy aeroplanes - and starting all over again at dawn the next day.
Still, some have had to give more than others. Think of Gordon Brown, who never strayed from Tony Blair's side, providing him the cover he so desperately needed. Brown's one-word declaration that he would have fought the Iraq war in exactly the same way as the prime minister winched Blair out of a deep hole, but it cost the chancellor dear.

For that statement, along with his insistence that he trusts and respects the PM, raided the vast bank of public esteem Brown has accumulated. Until this campaign, the chancellor had avoided the taint of the Iraq adventure: Labour supporters assumed that his low profile meant Brown would not have made the same mistake. Last week, in order to get Labour out of trouble, Brown explicitly dispelled that assumption. He tarred himself with the Iraq brush.

Brown's gushy personal endorsements of Blair have hurt too. For one thing, they make the chancellor look a little bit more like every other politician, prepared to stretch the truth for short-term ends. Because, as they say in Northern Ireland, even the dogs on the street know that Brown does not really trust and respect Tony Blair. And yet he said it.

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