British prime minister Gordon Brown stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street two weeks ago to greet one of his predecessors in office, Margaret Thatcher. For this well publicised social visit, Lady Thatcher wore not a blue, but a pink dress; pink being politically a lighter shade of red.
Mr Brown, a former Iron Chancellor, has chosen to identify with the former Iron Lady, claiming that both are "conviction politicians", and therefore unlike the present Tory leader. Mrs Thatcher does not demur. The event was clearly designed to embarrass David Cameron. The Labour leader had stage managed it, perhaps with one eye on calling a snap election. His other, and better, eye is clearly focused on increasing Labour's appeal in Middle England, among disgruntled Conservative voters.
This very public wooing of Mrs Thatcher, now 82 and in frail health with a failing memory, has been just one of Mr Brown's initiatives to neutralise the electoral challenge posed by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. This he has attempted by co-opting MPs from other parties, by drafting them in as government advisers, in pursuit of what he has called a "new type of politics. . . that draws upon the widest range of talents and expertise, not narrow circles of power".
As part of this mission, he offered the job of Northern Ireland Secretary to former Liberal Democrats leader Paddy Ashdown who turned him down. He has, however, lured two Conservative MPs and a Liberal Democrat to serve in an advisory capacity. What Mr Brown is attempting in Britain, French president Nicolas Sarkozy has managed with much more success in France. In June, he formed a broad based government and, in pursuit of his strategy of neutralising the Socialist party, chose some Socialist party members to serve in his cabinet. His seduction of the left was exemplified in his appointment of Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister. Since then he has nominated Dominique Strauss-Kahn to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and secured international backing for his candidacy. By nominating him, he has deprived the Socialist party of a future leader and also removed a potential rival and credible challenger for the French presidency next time out.
At home Bertie Ahern, in the formation of his Government, may well have taken a leaf out of Sarkozy's book. In building his Dáil majority, the Taoiseach did not need the support of the Greens but chose to include them. It is a smart strategic move. It makes it harder for a non-Fianna Fáil alternative government to emerge next time. With the Greens in government, they are unlikely to make up the numbers for the opposition.