Who wants to be PM?

There is something to be said for this very British farce being played out right now. The prime minister has gone off to Scotland for that very 

British institution of a summer holiday, much like the sahibs in India would retire to the cooler climes of Simla even though their sense of duty would not let them put government on hold. 

The Britain of today, alas, cannot afford to move government lock, stock (of Tamiflu) and barrel to Scotland so that the PM can enjoy a busman’s holiday, so instead a rota of available senior Cabinet ministers to act as stand-ins has been instituted in London. 

For each week that Gordon Brown is on holiday, a senior Cabinet minister — with an obvious eye on the main job, given the incumbent’s dire (and dour) prospects — has a go at being caretaker PM. For those who know better, it is seen as one week to pitch for the soon-to-be-vacated post. 

The first of the caretakers, Harriet Harman, Labour Party’s deputy leader and minister for women and equality, struck her colours by insinuating, rather inaptly, that had Lehman Brothers been Leh(wo)man Sisters, the whole financial crisis could have been (wo)managed better. 

After a week peppered with interviews and TV appearances, she retired to her holiday and was succeeded by business minister Lord Mandelson. Piquantly, his presence offshore at financier Nathaniel Rothschild’s Corfu mansion did not come in the way of taking charge — which most people think Mandelson is anyway, as he sits on 35 of the 43 Cabinet committees, compared to Brown’s 12. 

To disarm those who fear an eventual party coup d’etat, Mandelson has begun by declaring to the nation of pet-lovers, via the media, that he is a “kindly pussycat”. The blandishments of the two other Cabinet minister-caretakers, chancellor Alistair Darling and justice minister Jack Straw, are awaited. 

It is a pity that Indian PMs are normally workaholics and scarcely take a holiday, leaving no chance for their senior Cabinet colleagues to legitimately demonstrate their talents as stand-ins, and eventual successors. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate reality TV contest?