Steve Richards: There will be no challenge for the Labour leadership - and the party should be grateful

As Labour prepares to change leader there is a real world and a wild fantastical landscape that bears little relation to reality.

Here is the real world. I am sorry if it is not as exciting as the fantasy one, but I promise you I will be coming to the wilder landscape shortly. Labour is approaching the most awkward junction a political party can face in government, the replacement of a leader. Sometimes the issue is resolved brutally when a governing party loses an election and the leader resigns. On rare occasions a prime minister is removed by force, a traumatic event from which, on the basis of the Conservatives' knifing of Margaret Thatcher, can virtually destroy a party.

The junction was always going to be unusually difficult for Labour as Tony Blair is still relatively young and admits that he has a job that is hard to leave. Some insurrectionists hit upon a third way last September when Blair was almost removed, but not quite. The subsequent lull has been awkward and has damaged Gordon Brown, but not as much as if Brown had led overtly a revolt that destroyed Blair. No one can claim the transition has been smooth, but there has been no meltdown or conflagration. For Labour the past few months have been bleak, but could have been much worse.

This is partly because Labour has taken a more or less settled view that Brown should succeed Blair. Most of the Cabinet and nearly all the younger rising stars have endorsed Brown. Some have reservations. It would be silly if they did not. But few yearn for a leadership battle with an alternative candidate, partly because there is no obvious alternative.

One of those who have praised Brown is the Environment Secretary, David Miliband. The mention of Miliband's name takes us to the wild, fantastical landscape. In reality, Miliband has been consistent for months. His public comments are not very different from those that he makes in private.

He states that Labour has a formidable candidate in Brown. Of course, he has his reservations about the Chancellor. Again, it would be bizarre if he did not have some doubts having worked in Downing Street at a time when Brown was not the No 1 pin-up. Even now Miliband does not unequivocally rule out standing. He is doing what anyone would do when contemplating an unlikely and massive promotion. There is no need to slam the door shut completely. But the door has been nearly slammed shut.

Why has it seemed so different in the fantasy world? After the Conservatives elected David Cameron as their leader there were a small number of Labour figures who concluded the youthful Miliband must be Labour's alternative. Until then, I do not believe it had crossed Miliband's mind that he could be Britain's next prime minister.

Sensibly, he got on with things, but was pressed regularly to stand by a small number of the more ardent Blairites. He would not have been human if he did not give the possibility some thought, especially as the polls turned against Brown. That was the limit of it. But the ardent Blairites with good media contacts have kept the story running in the fantasy world.

In that world a newspaper reports one week that Blair believes Miliband could win. The next week another newspaper is informed that the Home Secretary, John Reid, would back Miliband and that Charles Clarke would do so also, even though he might be standing as well, therefore being the only candidate in a leadership contest to back another candidate. These stories are being fed by Labour's small band of Brown haters in the hope of creating a febrile atmosphere in which an alternative candidate surfaces from somewhere or other.

They have had a bizarre impact on Miliband's reputation in the fantasy world. Some of the newspapers that talked up the prospect of his candidacy became cross when it did not materialise. There have been cartoons and editorials accusing Miliband of cowardice, even though he has been bravely consistent, strong enough to resist the flattery.

Recently, in its frustration, The Times went as far as suggesting that Miliband was to the left of Brown, which for that particular newspaper is probably the ultimate condemnation. Meanwhile, Michael Portillo, who had plotted for several years to be leader of the Conservative Party, has been ubiquitous, comparing Milliband's situation with his own in the mid-1990s. But Miliband has said openly that he is still getting satisfaction from being a relatively new Cabinet minister. In the Nineties, the soaring ambitions of Portillo would have stopped him from making the same claim.

Without saying or doing anything, Miliband has moved from being the media's noble young pretender to someone lacking bottle. In reality, Miliband has emerged as a more significant figure, boldly resisting the lure of the media that would have destroyed him if he had stumbled as prime minister. He will be more influential in the next few years than any of the candidates currently standing for the deputy leadership.

Let us stay in the real word. Labour will perform badly in the elections next month. The national opinion polls are poor for Labour. This is causing a degree of panic at the highest levels of the Labour Party, unused to being behind. For the past 10 years, nervous New Labour ministers have felt and behaved like impostors disturbing the natural order of things in which the Conservatives rule Britain. That was their insecure approach when polls put Labour 20 points ahead. Imagine how they feel now the Conservatives are ahead.

Yet the polls are not especially surprising for a mid-term government. The anomaly was in the first two terms, when the Government's lead was consistently high. For Labour, the current situation is novel but not irretrievable. There is no fundamental sea change yet, such as the one Jim Callaghan rightly detected in the build-up to Labour's defeat in 1979. The political dynamics will feel different quickly once Labour has negotiated the nightmarish leadership junction.

Until then the wild fantastical winds will sweep all before them. Newspapers will discover that Brown was given advice about the risks of other hugely necessary revenue-raising measures. Perhaps we will hear that Brown has sold more gold, like a James Bond villain, although last weekend's non-story about gold selling made few waves. If there is no contest, Brown will be slaughtered for being crowned without an election. If there is a contest Labour's relatively minor divisions will become a civil war.

But remember - the reality is calmer, a party in power for 10 years is about to, more or less, unite around a single, formidable candidate. That does not mean Labour will win the next election, but in the real world it is not anywhere near in a position where it is doomed to lose.

s.richards@independent.co.uk

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