Alan Watkins: Miliband, do a Heseltine? A Portillo, more like

One of the characteristics of the old Labour Party was that, on the whole, wives were kept well out of the way. It was not that women were meant to know their place. On the contrary: the separation of politicians and their consorts was intended as a demonstration of Edwardian feminism.

It was – still is – different with the Conservatives. Hopeful candidates used to be expected to parade with their wives, sometimes required to pirouette before the audience, as if they were participants in a fashion show or a beauty contest. The wives of Labour prime ministers were expected to be self-effacing, and did not want to be anything else.

Violet Attlee acted as her husband's chauffeur and was well known for losing her way, or suffering other misfortunes, on their travels around the country in their small car. Mary Wilson was a poet, admired by John Betjeman, and had not wanted to be a politician's wife at all, because she had thought she was marrying an Oxford don – as, indeed, she had been when Harold was a young man. Audrey Callaghan was prominent in social work and, with Jim, maintained a flat in Kennington in south London.

There was a change with Cherie Blair. Like Glenys Kinnock, Cherie was a more ostensibly political person than her predecessors had been. There was also a new style of journalism: more intrusive, more personal and, often, more offensive.

It may be worth remembering that, at the beginning of Labour's period of office, Mrs Blair was being displayed before our admiring eyes as a "role model", in the Daily Mail and elsewhere. After some months, however, perhaps longer, the Fleet Street harpies fell to work, and Mrs Blair was presented to us as a badtempered virago.

I only hope the same fate does not overtake Sarah Brown. The harpies' savoured ploy, to begin with at least, is a down-column item casting doubt on the poor woman's clothes, her hair, her shape, her appearance generally. But even Mrs Blair was not required to introduce her husband at a Labour Party conference.

According to the accounts immediately after the event, Mrs Brown was not made to do anything. She volunteered to undertake the task on the day before. I was taught never to doubt the word of a lady. I naturally accept the assurance. Even so, there must have been some organisation that was involved beforehand. She could hardly have marched up to the podium as the spirit moved her, as if at a revivalist meeting, or a Labour conference, long, long ago, in more spontaneous times.

The organisers of this affecting episode turned out, in these debased times, to have been fully justified. As the journalist H L Mencken once put it: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Likewise with the sentimentality of the Labour conference. They wanted to cheer the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister duly tried to give them something to cheer.

Human-interest stories are all very well in their way – he has added to his repertoire in this respect – but I do draw the line rather at outright fibs. For instance, Mr Gordon Brown boasted of his sagacity and public spirit in nationalising Northern Rock, while Mr David Cameron had been paralysed. In fact, Mr Brown and Mr Alistair Darling, month after month, did not know what to do next.

Several suitors had been invited to the front parlour for Sunday supper, but they were pronounced unsuitable, or took themselves off in a huff. Mr Brown could not even bring himself to mention the dreaded word "nationalisation", like a profanity overheard in the back pew of the chapel. At last, Mr Darling was prevailed upon to do the deed. As the two Welsh women were saying when they were discussing the newly arrived preacher:

"He is a fine-looking man and no mistake."

"With a beautiful voice."

"And so powerful in prayer."

"What a pity he is such a bloody liar."

Still, Mr Brown has had a good week. Only seven days ago, the papers were full of the story that there was an arrangement between Mr David Miliband and Mr Alan Johnson. This was christened the "dream ticket". The phrase was undoubtedly current, though whoever used it must have been having several disturbed nights.

A combination of Mr Miliband as Prime Minister and Mr Johnson as his subordinate would not strike many people as the perfect solution to the Party's difficulties. In any case, why should Mr Johnson want to be the chief bridesmaid? True, he has said several times that he does not want the top job. But if Mr Brown were to take himself off, or be removed by others, Mr Johnson would be wholly justified in trying to have a go.

The principal shift of the week is not so much that Mr Brown has become stronger – though he has – as that Mr Miliband has had to retire from the battle. "How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!"

No 10 has been rumoured to be part of a conspiracy to depreciate Mr Miliband in the interests of the Prime Minister. It seemed to be that the Foreign Secretary was doing quite enough on his own. Admittedly foreign secretaries, like ministers of defence, are rarely displayed to their best advantage at the Labour conference. It is not that kind of assembly. But Mr Miliband's choice was to dress up a defence of US interventionism in the language of human rights.

Mr Tony Blair adopted the same course over a succession of conference speeches. He was able to get away with it, because Mr Blair specialised in mist-enshrouded uplift, and because the audience wanted to cheer a Labour prime minister, as their successors wanted to cheer Mr Brown last week.

Then there was Mr Miliband's alleged remark in the lift that he did not want to "do a Heseltine". This was taken to mean that Mr Miliband did not want to detract anything from Mr Brown's glory. If that was indeed what he meant, it was self-delusion. Michael Heseltine was a tremendous performer whose services were exploited by the leader before he was to fall out with Margaret Thatcher.

The comparison is not with Michael Heseltine but, rather, with Michael Portillo. In the 1990s, Mr Portillo was regarded as the most likely figure to succeed John Major. He had a brief period of fashionability, before his supporters installed the telephone lines for his projected contest with Mr Major and then withdrew from any contest. Later on, he was to lose his seat at the 1997 election. He tried to come back following his return to parliament, but it was no good. Mr Miliband is – or has been – going through a similar period.

My guess is that Mr Brown will not choose to exact revenge.

Ms Ruth Kelly had for some months intended to leave the Cabinet at the reshuffle. I am unable to see why Ms Kelly should not have stayed where she was till then. This seems to be the result of panic by No 10 rather than of active malevolence on the part of anybody. The former may be worse.

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