Gordon brown

‘Brown makes pitch for IMF job with plea to rich nations to meet education pledges’ reads the headline on page 3 of The Guardian today. This is all part of a growing body of evidence that Gordon Brown really does think he is in with a chance of succeeding Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Certainly, the usual suspects are out and about talking up his chances. Realistically, Brown is not going to get the job. But if Brown really does want to have a go, it is bizarre that he’s not tried to contact either David Cameron or George Osborne to reassure them about how he’d behave if he got the job; Danny Finkelstein gave a typically well informed take (£) about Cameron and Osborne’s worries about how Brown would use this bully-pulpit on Wednesday.

With Dominique Strauss-Kahn, known as DSK, undertaking scientific and forensic tests to determine if he sexually assaulted a hotel maid, the International Monetary Fund will be run by its No. 2 official, John Lipsky. A former banker, Lipsky was appointed “first” deputy managing director in 2006, and was expected to step down later in the year. But the change at the top will bring the former Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development, Minouche Shafik, into the limelight.

Maurice Glasman and Ed Miliband do not think as one. But Miliband's Favourite Thinker™ is an undoubted influence on the Labour party — and, as such, it's worth tuning into his ideas from time to time, if you have a tolerance for such things. Glasman's "Blue Labour" philosophy has already enjoyed heavy exposure this year, and he has an interview in today's Times (£) to explain it even further. If you're not minded to buy, borrow or steal a copy of the Thunderer, then here are a few observations. First, it's striking just how much Glasman dwells on the personal. "If you want to know everything that was wrong about Scottish Labour and Labour," he urges, "then just look at the career of Gordon Brown.

Gordon Brown may have gone, but advocates of his calamitous policies remain. David Blanchflower, the chief exponent of borrowing more, has a piece in The Guardian today which is worth examining. Written with his trademark chutzpah, it’s a very clear exposition of the Labour argument — along with its flaws. Here are some extracts, and my comments: "In his budget speech last month, Chancellor George Osborne suggested that he was hoping for 'an economy where the growth happens across the country and across all sectors. That is our ambition". Sadly, to judge by Wednesday's GDP figures, growth under this coalition remains just an ambition, a mere illusion." And why would that be? The GDP figures showed growth of 0.

Aside from the "Calm down, dear" drama, there was something else worth noting from today's PMQs: David Cameron trying for a calmer debate on the deficit. He admitted that his government is not really being that much more aggressive than Gordon Brown would have been. They're cutting £8 for every £7 that Brown and Darling proposed for 2011-12, he said. It's a line that Nick Clegg road-tested in his speech to the IPPR last week, and it represents a new and welcome strategy. To date, the rhetorical differences have been stark. The Tories have said: we’re the big bold cutters, Labour are deficit deniers. Labour has replied: your cuts are too deep and too harsh, and the GDP figures prove it.

By some dark magic, the Ghosts of New Labour have been roused from their political slumber. Over the extended weekend, we had news of Gordon Brown's new job and Alistair Darling's new book. Today, it is Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson who are haunting the newspapers. Both give interviews  – one to the Independent, one to the Guardian – with the same purpose: to rally the vote in favour of AV. Mandelson's is even front page news. "This is our chance to hurt Cameron," reads the headline, underneath a portrait of the man whom Labour learned to un-love after last year's election. Both interviews suggest that Labour are catching up with some of the risks attached to next week's referendum.

I'm sorry to do this to you, CoffeeHousers, at the start of a bank holiday weekend — but I thought you might have a morbid sort of interest in Gordon Brown's latest role. Turns out that, as expected, our former PM is to join the World Economic Forum in an advisory capacity. He won't be paid for his work, although the Forum will cover his staffing costs. One of his spokespeople has told ITV's Alex Forrest that his task is to "stop the next financial crisis." Which is to say, he'll be saving the world. Again. If nothing else, it's yet another demonstration of Brown's peculiar resilience. Our former PM may be electoral anathema in these parts, but he clearly still holds some allure for the technocrats of Davos, Geneva and Bretton Woods.

David Cameron turned in an emollient performance on the Today Programme this morning. He declined to stoke the coalition row over immigration, heaped praise on Vince Cable and stressed that the Liberal Democrats have been good coalition partners. Even when pressed on the question of whether Britain would block Gordon Brown from becoming director of the International Monetary Fund, Cameron spoke softly. The only line of questioning in the interview that discomforted the Prime Minister was when Evan Davis pressed him on why a localist government was placing restrictions on what local government could charge residents for recycling or rubbish collection.

There's an interesting post by Éoin Clarke on debt interest doing the rounds. It originally appeared on his blog, but was soon commandeered by LabourList — and little wonder why. Dr Clarke's point is a perceptive and striking one. Debt interest, he says, is lower now than it was under John Major. The implication is that when George Osborne rattles on about the money blown on just "servicing our debt," we should take it with an almighty heap of salt. It's not, perhaps, as bad as all that. Or, rather, that's one way of looking at it. There are other ways, which I would list thus:   1) Going beyond 2011.