Alan Watkins: Mr Gordon Brown has made his first big mistake

I have always had a soft spot for both Sir Menzies Campbell and his immediate predecessor. But it is Mr Charles Kennedy who has, I think, behaved more shrewdly. Ever since he succeeded Lord Ashdown as leader of the Liberal Democrats in 1999, he resolutely refused to say anything of any significance about his future relations with New Labour generally or Mr Tony Blair personally. Instead, the party's representation increased from 46 in 1997 (under Lord Ashdown) to 52 in 2001 and 62 at the last election.

Ten years ago, left-leaning commentators were urging Lord Ashdown, as he later became, to make common cause with Mr Blair; while the new Prime Minister showed every inclination - on the surface, at any rate - to display the accommodating side of his nature to Lord Ashdown.

Mr Blair, or it may have been somebody else, even contemplated offering a new ministry for Customs Enforcement to the Liberal Democrat leader, on the reasoning that he had once been in the Special Boat Service, and was accordingly in possession of expert knowledge about the boarding and search of delinquent vessels. Either Paddy or his party turned the proposal down flat, but the Liberal Democrats did get on to a Cabinet sub-committee.

As Mr Blair had a whopping majority, he had no need of Liberal Democrat support. But, for a time, he kept the flirtation up, partly for the fun of it, partly because his head had been stuffed full of nonsense by Roy Jenkins to the effect that the 20th had been the Conservative century, whereas the 21st would be the century of the radicals.

Mr Blair also persuaded Jenkins to preside over a committee on electoral reform, which the 1997 manifesto had promised. The report produced numerous solicitous phrases and happy metaphors, clearly the work of Jenkins himself; it recommended the adoption of the alternative vote in Parliamentary elections (first, second, even third preferences), supplemented by a topping-up system; and it was quickly forgotten by all concerned, except, of course, by the industrious authors.

The flirtation with Jenkins lasted slightly longer than it had with Ashdown. Accordingly Mr Kennedy decided to waste no more time on Mr Blair. There was something else as well. This was the memory, not of the Lib-Lab pact of 1977-78, which had been unexpectedly successful, but rather of the divided leadership at the 1987 election, when the Liberals and the Social Democrats went out under the same Alliance umbrella. David Owen could always be relied on to say something different from David Steel. Lord Owen would usually take the initiative in lofty speculation. Even with a single leader, Mr Kennedy concluded, there would always be trouble over hung parliaments, coalitions and the rest of it.

For a time, Sir Ming echoed this prudent advice. Then in March, all of a sudden, for no good reason that I could see, it was back to the old ways. There was a tentative offer of possible support to Labour. One condition was specific: the dropping of identity cards. Four others were less amenable to objective testing: they were about climate change, inequality, devolving power in the UK and taking power back from Washington.

Sir Ming made no reference to electoral reform generally or to any system of proportional representation. The omission brought about a small row, causing an official to resign, but there was no great interest among the political classes.

The interest that Mr Gordon Brown aroused last week is much greater. It brings in names: Paddy Ashdown, Alex Carlile, Anthony Lester, Julia Neuberger, who is always being canvassed for any job that comes up. They are all members of the House of Lords, so existing political arrangements in the Commons would not be disturbed too much.

One aspect is that Mr Brown means to be different from Mr Blair: though, as we have already noted, Mr Blair had already lived his brief moment of multipolitics in the 1990s. But Mr Brown also means to be different from Mr Brown, as we have known him for the past decade.

For a few years, admittedly, he has been making a great song and dance about national identity, to not much effect. Now he has taken up decentralisation, which used to be, and, up to a point, still is the curse of English and Welsh education, maintained as it was by a tyranny of local education committees. But decentralisation - or, as it is sometimes called, power to the people, which is not by any means the same thing - is undoubtedly the cry of the moment. I still remember "The spirit of John Smith'', a heady Highland brew which lasted for about three days after his death in 1994, before all the parties resumed attacking one another with their customary vigour and lack of scruples.

The cut-price Machiavellis of this world may conclude that Mr Brown is trying to destroy the Liberal Democrats. I do not share this view. It is much more likely that, looking at unsettled waters ahead, Mr Brown may fail to obtain an overall majority in 2009 or the year after. The Parliaments of the recent split premierships of Macmillan/Home, Wilson/ Callaghan and Thatcher/Major all went to the five-year term. By 2010 it may all look very different.

The odd thing, to me at any rate, is how little difference the Iraq war has made to the calculations of the Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders. After all, it was Labour, not Mr Blair, Mr Brown and the rest of the Cabinet, but the majority of Labour MPs who took us to war in the Middle East. Certainly Mr Blair was their leader. He is now, I see, trying to fight a nifty rearguard action on the lines that everything was going marvellously until the Americans made a mess of it afterwards. So Mr Blair now says: I told them, but they wouldn't listen. Some story!

Mr Brown could have stopped the war - more precisely, our contribution to the war - as effectively as Harold Macmillan stopped Suez. Yet Mr Brown telephoned the war's most fluent critic, Sir Ming (which has now been largely forgotten) in the most friendly fashion. Mr Brown may be cooking up some withdrawal from Iraq under cover from the Liberal Democrats. Some of them, even Sir Ming, may be able to see him coming. It seems Sir Ming was friendlier to Mr Brown than his allies have subsequently indicated. There is a cloud of disapproval over any Liberal Democrats who might be tempted to sign up under Mr Brown; the proportion of indignation is probably even greater on the Labour side. Undoubtedly, Mr Brown has made his first big mistake, and he is not even Prime Minister yet.

In all the excitement of the past week, Mr David Cameron has been strangely neglected. The assumption is made by almost everybody that, even if Labour had fewer seats than the Tories in a House where no party had a clear majority, the Liberal Democrats could still be relied on to do the propping up. In Sir Ming's own best interests, he should deny this presumption to Mr Brown.

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