Tag Archives: gordon brown

Gordon Brown

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So – it’s to be a coronation! Guess the clunking fist from the future Prime Minister and the spineless consent from the ranks of Labour MPs (the same spineless ones that voted through the war) will deny members their say, the party a proper debate and Gordon a mandate.

It would have been so much better if David Miliband or Charles Clarke or anyone had had the balls to fight Gordon. Even John McDonnell would have been better than nothing and no one. It feels wrong and will do so unless and until there is a General Election. And Gordon (middle name cautious) is unlikely to go for it immediately. Unless he really is new Gordon!

Gordon’s first (and only) hustings saw him present himself as ‘new’ Gordon, for a ‘new’ Britain, with ‘new’ ideas and ‘new’ challenges, etc. etc. ‘Scuse me for thinking he was the bloke what was there all along, hiding head below parapet whilst signing the cheques. Iraq, tuition fees, cutting benefits for the disabled, tube privatisation, and on and on. He was there, at the centre of power, all the time. Not so new Gordon!

What can we expect under Gordon? More announcement, re-announcements and then announcement for a third time of the same pots of money – and a dark, brooding, master pulling the central strings from behind closed doors. I hope I’m wrong, but …

Brown on Darfur

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I notice that Gordon in his hustings yesterday defended the principle of overseas military intervention in Darfur – saying that he wanted to see a joint UN / African Union force in the country almost immediately. Well – yes – don’t we all? But we are being taken for fools by the Khartoum government who clearly think they can play with us with no consequences. So – this is a test for Gordon: is he an action man or is it just talk, talk?

Will the pensions crisis cost Gordon Brown his next job?

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Westminster Hour and Mark d’Arcy was holding the fort for Carolyn Quinn. Ed Vaizey was my co-panellist. Gordon Brown and the pension scandal, Iran and various green bits were the key issues of debate.

The sky is darkening over Gordon Brown – and it’s a race as to whether he gets to the Prime Minister finishing line before being engulfed by bad opinion polls and damaging issues – such as this pension scandal. And Labour are doing themselves no favours with the usual New Labour spin: in this case deliberately timing the release of pension papers under a Freedom of Information request from The Times (well done The Times) on the Friday night of the parliamentary recess. Sneaky, disgusting, planned – and it won’t help him.

We will return to Parliament and Gordon Brown will have to face the music – which is not something often seen as most Treasury Question time he puts his minions out front and sits with head below parapet.

The damage to individual pensioners, the pensions industry as a whole and the damage to trust in politicians (if it can go any lower) is immense. But ultimately it may be damage to Gordon that is irreversible. We will see how things panned out. But he cannot say he wasn’t warned. The point is – he needed the money and clearly he didn’t really care about the consequences. That is sooooooo New Labour – live today and let someone else pay tomorrow!

Gordon Brown: too little, too late

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And I know – I haven’t mentioned the budget – but there is much coverage in the news today. I always find it interesting the day after when we have all had time to read the small print. In short though – nothing to narrow the widening equality gap between rich and poor and little on climate change action – the two great challenges we face. Perhaps that heralds the Brown style of leadership – too little and too late!

Ming Campbell, Gordon Brown and those five tests

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What a hoo hah! Coming back from party conference Harrogate got a message that ‘a senior official of the Liberal Democrats’ had given a briefing to the effect that Ming’s five tests for Gordon Brown were a prelude to consummating a marriage.

Complete bollocks!

The five tests – to respect civil liberties, to make sure that our foreign policy is made in Britain (not Washington), to be really committed to tackling climate change, to devolve real power to people and local communities and to break the poverty trap – are for Gordon’s first few months as Prime Minister. They will be the measure of whether there is any change from the status quo of Blair (for all whose policies, let us remember, Brown acted as the paymaster).

These tests aren’t about what happens after an election. They aren’t a hung Parliament wish list. And they aren’t the start of some public courting. (After all, at least in my book, if you are about to go courting – you normally start saying nice things about the object of your fancy!). And as Ed Davey (Ming’s Chief of Staff) pointed out – any suggestions to the contrary were unauthorised and – more importantly – wrong.

The Lib Dems are still as keen as mustard on PR. PR makes voting fairer. It’s not about what it does or doesn’t do to parties – it’s about what it does to the public – it means that we would have a voting system that fairly reflects the way people vote. The Parliament we end up with should reflect the votes the public cast – and our current system doesn’t do that.

We will be fighting all elections, as always, to get the most Lib Dem votes we can so that we can have the most Lib Dem elected representatives and therefore – the most Lib Dem influence and the most Lib Dem policies that we can! End of story.

The Pre Budget Report

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Pre Budget Report! Sky News had booked me from 11-1.00pm to be on their budget panel. I did it last year – and although it looked like two hours then, in reality my panel was whisked in and out a couple of times for two x five minute slots. So I assumed this would be the same.

However – this time I found I was on the anchor panel which means that throughout the time Adam Boulton comes back to the panel to comment on each bit of the process. My co-panellists were Stephen Byers (ex-Labour minister) and David Ruffley (Tory front bench).

Not being a member of the Treasury Team, I am always slightly apprehensive about covering the Budget and similar areas – but it’s excellent practise and there is no other way of learning. So I am grateful to Sky for the opportunity.

The Pre Budget Report was pretty much like a budget with Gordon Brown playing Santa Claus. When you listen to him (and we watched it live on a monitor) he is magnanimous – he giveth. He will save the British Film industry, back excellence in science, ensure more young people go to university, give money for investment in school buildings and so on and so on.

Blinding us with reports and statistics – Gordon likes big volumes of commissioned research (well who wouldn’t) to back up his arguments. By the end of his speech you would have though the world would be set to rights – albeit there’s still much to be done and a long way to go.

But whilst the impression is Santa Claus, as the day unfolds and the experts do their analysis – the gilt comes off the presentation to reveal the truths underneath.

Adam B asked what we thought of Gordon, Prime Minister in waiting. Stephen Byers said that he never commented on such matters. However, I was not so unforthcoming as I have for years now said on this blog and elsewhere that I think Gordon doesn’t quite have the finishing punch – albeit clunking. When the going has got tough for Tony – where has Gordon been, other than brooding in the background?

And despite his recent charm offensive – he is still comes over as basically a rather serious man with a grumpy look. He will frighten Middle Earth! I suspect when he is PM he will find Prime Minister’s Questions very difficult. He is not, as far as I can tell, quick like Tony in terms of retort and I have hardly ever heard him speak outside of the narrow focus of his treasury portfolio in the ten years he has been at No 11.

So – back to the budget. What Gordon didn’t deal with at all is the risk to the stability of our economy caused by huge personal debt. We in this country are responsible for one third of the debt in western Europe and three quarters of a million people have already defaulted on one or more of their mortgage payments. We are at a peak in terms of house prices which has happened three times before this century – on each occasion a rebalancing has occurred. That would knock 30% of house prices and destabilise the economy.

We are calling for the Bank of England to measure house prices in their targeting of inflation – otherwise we are at risk!

As for Gordon’s environmental measure – some good things but on the biggy (air travel) he chose to tax the traveller rather than the producer. Adding tax to each ticket doesn’t help force airlines not to fly empty planes. Much better if he had taxed plane journeys – as that would encourage efficiency.

Anyway – two and a half hours later I left to rush late to an interview with Russia TV about Mr Litvinenko. The Russians are clearly somewhat sensitive about their possible connection with these goings on – but I don’t think that stating that they will not extradite anyone is particularly helpful. Yesterday the Washington Post phoned for an interview too – a reminder of just how this story has caught people’s emotions and interest.

If Brown was PM and Blair wanted the job…

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So – today was Tony’s big farewell day. How did he do as regards his speech? Put it like this – if Brown was Prime Minister and Blair the heir apparent, I think after their pair of speeches, Labour members would be begging for Brown to step aside. Tony’s speech was a class act of oratory – unlike Gordon’s dullness the day before.

I have never been much of a fan of the Punch and Judy show that passes for Prime Minister’s Questions, but there’s no doubt that Blair is very, very skilled in that arena. As he also is at the podium in a party conference hall. There is much I disagreed with in his words today, but you can admire his skill in speech making even as you disagree with content.

And now – we enter a rather weird twilight, “he’s going but he’s not yet gone” period. Today’s speech was the speech you expect as someone goes, not months before they go. All very odd!

Gordon Brown's speech

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So – today was Gordon’s big day. For a man renowned for obsession with detail and preparing speeches for ages – I thought it was surprisingly bad. Overall – ok, but in the circumstances – Gordon didn’t rise to the occasion. He has sometimes in the past – “we are best when we are Labour” was one of the few speeches of the New Labour era that really seemed to strike a chord and stick in the memory – but not this time. Today it was dour and brooding Gordon.

For me, as a London MP, he’ll always struggle to overcome his obsession with privatising our Tube, pouring away millions and millions in fees for lawyers, accountants, consultants etc etc drawing up hugely complicated contracts rather than putting the money straight into improving the service. Prudent, not!

As front-runner perhaps he just wanted to play safe in the leadership election, though as David Davis showed with the Tory contents front-runners don’t always stay at the front…

Haringey Peace Week

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Watched Gordon Brown being interviewed by Andrew Marr and trying to be nice and cuddly. Problem is, as William Hague put it, no one can possibly believe he has had nothing to do with the events of this last week. Most damning was his too long silence. But I guess when you have kept silent for a decade and let TB take all the knocks – you don’t really know how to step to the front. It was evident that he is so used to saying almost nothing when a controversial issue hits (remember his long silences over Iraq? tube privatisation? etc etc). So he reverted to tired phrases. But you can’t have tired phrases if you want to lead a Labour renewal.

Spent the later part of this afternoon at a church service to mark the start of Peace Week. Haringey is the cradle of Peace Week, courtesy of the charismatic Reverend, Nims Obunge. Now a London-wide movement, it is going from strength to strength. Much singing and praising – and I, David Lammy (MP for Tottenham), George Meehan (Leader Haringey Council) and others all addressed the congregation.

Part of the praying and the blessing was to bring strength and wisdom to the leaders of the community (including us the speakers). It is very nice to be prayed for. I am not religious – but that doesn’t mean you can’t feel the spiritual side of life in a way.

It was also very moving to hear prayers for community safety, for entrepreneurs to move into the area, for health and so on. It was very practical prayer. Peace and justice was the overall theme – and of course the point is you cannot have peace without justice.