Brown shows his naivety

This week, far from reinforcing his authority, our stumbling Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, stuttered through yet another crisis which he should have foreseen and which has resulted in a humiliating climb down.



The issue, of course, was animal-human embryo research where experiments to combine animal and human embryo tissue, creating what are known as cytoplasmic hybrids. These hybrids will be used specifically to look at the development of aberrant cells and to, hopefully, provide a major advance in the treatment of such diseases as Parkinson's disease and muscular dystrophy. There is no suggestion that such laboratory embryo cells would ever be transplanted into a womb and thus risk producing 'monsters'. The development which has allowed scientists to do this could be one of the greatest breaks for over 100 years in the treatment of serious disease.

Predictably the research, and the proposal to allow it, has fallen foul of the Roman Catholic Church who have spread alarmist views about the ethical consequences of such research and, in fact, have spread untruths about it. This should surprise no one, other than devout Catholics, for all through its history the Church has had a vested interest in spreading disinformation and preserving the ignorance of its acolytes.

But no matter, Gordon Brown should have used a lot more political savvy than he did when the issue of allowing the development of this research came to Parliament. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties allowed a free vote for their MPs, well aware of the moral dilemma pressure from the RC church would create among their Catholic MPs. Brown should have shown the same degree of comprehension. Insttead he insisted that the Labour Party would be subject to a three line whip. If we are going to appoint Roman Catholics to government, then it must be fairly obvious that there are going to be times when ingrained dogma flies in the face of logic, and this was just such an occasion. It should have been obvious to Brown that senior members of his government, like Ruth Kelly - a member of Opus Dei - would be terribly compromised by having to make the choice between her Church and her Party, and there were rumours that she, and other Catholics, would resign rather than vote for such a measure.



Brown has, of course, had to climb down with further damage to his reputation as a man in control of his government. He needs some good luck, and some sound decision making, over the next 12 months if the Labour Party is not to crash to humiliating defeat at the next General Election. Can't you just hear Tony Blair saying, "Don't blame me. I told you he wasn't up to the job!"