The picture that foretells UK political chaos

It’s very rare that you get a photo that sums up a present situation and foretells the future ahead of it. But on Wednesday there was one, a historic snap, and it points to at least 12 months of political chaos in the UK. It is this:

The credit goes to Bruno Vincent, possibly the best news photographer in the country, who sells all his work through Getty Images. It was a remarkable piece of work but apart from putting a hell of a lot of cash in his pocket (every single paper has run with it), it will have real political repercussions.

The sight of Brown leaving a meeting with prime minister Tony Blair with a broad grin is going to cause a massive political war within the Labour party. Everyone knows Brown orchestrated the resignations of a series of low-level ministers when Blair refused to give a date for resigning office.

He has played these games before but this time – because Blair has finally lost touch not only with reality but also with his party – he beat Blair at his own game. And Blair for the first time was forced to plea bargain over the premiership with Brown. Brown must have been ecstatic. But letting that be captured by a camera could well ensure that he will never win a general election as leader.

It is strange that people are so incensed considering that everyone *knows* Brown has been bitterly fighting to take over Blair’s job for years. And yet it is the shot, the image of a man who has never smiled so much in his entire life, that has got people’s hackles up. Even when his wife finally had a child after a tragic miscarriage the year before, his smile was not comparable. And I defy anyone to find another picture of this incredibly dour Scotsman offering anything more than a smirk.

Charles Clarke – who I have to admit I have a dislike of despite (perhaps because of) his political brilliance – picked out the picture in particular saying it was “absolutely a stupid, stupid thing to do”. It was, but Brown couldn’t help himself – and ironically that is what worries people. Should this man be allowed to become prime minister if he is unable to control himself at a vital time?

Personally I think he’s been too long in high-power, untrampled, to take over the job. He has lived in the strange twilight world of super-power for too long; he has next to no connection with citizens’ reality – and that’s dangerous in a leader.

My pet theory as well is that most of madness emanating from the Bush Administration these past few years has been thanks to George Bush Jr bringing in his dad’s old advisers. These people not only knew the system, having been through it once, they had then entered the after-government world of massive overpay and comfort in right-wing views that people-that-used-to-be-powerful usually fall into. To bring them back into government was always going to be a disaster and I think history will record that it was.

Fortunately, I don’t think the Brown lesson will have to be learnt at all. I am sure that because of the timing that David Cameron and the Conservatives will win the next election. People are absolute sick to the back teeth of Blair and because Brown has spent so long in his shadow, there is general feeling that there is a stitch-up going on. We don’t know who this man is – and we don’t want a strange unknown running the country.

And in a few years’ time, Gordon Brown is going to look at this picture of what he clearly believed at the time was his moment of triumph and realise that it was the picture itself that destroyed him.