Why were Labour MPs wrong?

Matthew D’Ancona asks: if you were a Labour MP now, what would you do? What I’d be doing is asking myself: how could I get it so badly wrong?
Let’s remember that Brown was elected leader unopposed barely two years ago and was nominated by over 300 MPs, including several of those who are now calling for him to go such as Tom Harris, James Purnell, and Caroline Flint.
What’s more, Brown’s behaviour as leader has not been out of character. His alleged failings - his reliance on a narrow coterie of (mainly male) advisors, his love of Machiavellian plotting, his gauche public manner, his peculiar mix of Stalinism and indecisiveness - were all known two years ago.
So, why did Labour MPs misjudge him so badly?
One possibility is that they didn’t. Maybe what’s happened to Brown is just bad luck. Events just happen to have highlighted his flaws, whereas many previous PMs were lucky enough that their failings were either concealed by circumstances or actually turned into virtues: remember that it was largely the Falklands war that turned Thatcher’s belligerent stubbornness from being a liability into an asset.
A second possibility is that the MPs were indeed wrong. Those who had their doubts were swept away by groupthink or herd behaviour. This raises the question - which Labour MPs are not asking: how can we make better collective decisions - avoiding groupthink - in future?
A third possibility is that it’s just damnably hard to find the right man for the job, even when - as in this case - the candidate and job specification is well known. The consistent inability of football directors to hire the right manager is testament to the difficulty of spotting real talent; indeed, there is a parallel between the parliamentary Labour party and Mike Ashley, in that both have searched fruitlessly and incompetently for a new Messiah.
Which raises the question: if it’s so hard to find the right man for the job, shouldn’t we redesign the job so that it’s less demanding? Perhaps what we need is less cult of leadership and more ways of harnessing everyone’s dispersed and limited skills.
Now, I don’t want to take a view on which of these possibilities is right, or whether Brown should stay or go. All I’m saying is that Labour MPs’ discontent with his performance raises deeper questions - about psychology, leadership and organizational structure - than the mere fate of a single individual. 

Comments

[nm]

With 1600 redundancies from Cheltenham and Gloucester anounced today, LDV in administration, and Vauxhall facing an uncertain future, among many others, could it be that MPs had thoughts of the public reaction to a leadership contest called right now.

Do we want to see our MPs fannying around trying to find a happy smiley face to front them up or would we rather see them doing something constructive?

[dearieme]

"Perhaps what we need is less cult of leadership and more ways of harnessing everyone’s dispersed and limited skills." It used to be called cabinet government.

[roym]

"It used to be called cabinet government"

i agree. PMs have been increasingly dictatorial ever since thatcher

[Guano]

I'm struck by how little the hysteria of the last week has to do with the real challenges facing the UK. Our political class appears to be incapable of engaging its collectve brain and addressing the economy, or the environment, or the democratic deficit, or anything else. There has been a great deal of group-think that a new leader or a general election would solve everything. They are more lkely to be a distraction from the key challenges facing the country.

[Dipper]

It was obvious at the time of Brown's election that many were banking on him losing the next general election. If MP's such as Johnson thought Brown was going to win the next two General Elections, they would have stood against him

[jameshigham]

This thing all comes down to the serving of biscuits in the end.

[Tim Hicks]

Is there a fourth possibility? Perhaps Labour MPs did not "misjudge him so badly". Instead, they faced some kind of collective action problem whereby it was in the interest of no (or few) individual MP(s) to stick their head above the parapet and challenge the Brown-for-leader juggernaut. Dirt held by the Brown machine and/or an inability to agree on an alternative candidate would have made the costs of challenging Brown high and the expected pay-offs low.