Gordon brown

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

A rebellion stirs

So, what does today hold in store for Gordon Brown?  Howabout another 10p tax rebellion marshalled, as always, by Frank Field?  A bunch of around 30 Labour rebels have prepared an amendment to the Finance Bill, by which the last Budget couldn't pass into law until everyone who lost out from the 10p tax fiasco has been fully compensated.  It should be debated today, and the rebels have the support of both the Tories and the Lib Dems.  In response, Labour whips have cancelled all foreign trips by ministers and MPs, and are feverishly trying to rally the troops.   If the rebellion succeeds, then it will be hugely embarrassing for Brown - his beleagured premiership could well do without another Commons defeat.

Monday

James Forsyth

How important were all those initiatives the government kept announcing?

There was a time when the government seemed to be announcing new measures to get the economy and the banking sector in particular moving again on an almost daily basis. Today, the Wall Street Journal has done a rather good audit of these measures. For instance, in January “the British government created a guarantee program meant to revive the dormant market for asset-backed securities. The program aims to spur purchases of banks' asset-back securities, or bundled consumer loans, by guaranteeing them for buyers. The guarantees were made available in April, but since then, none of the major U.K. banks has issued a security with such a guarantee.” Also, only 13 firms have joined in the government’s £5 billion trade insurance programme.

Daniel Korski

No Brits in Europe’s likely new line-up

With the Swedish EU Presidency beginning, and most diplomats mildly optimistic that the Lisbon treaty will be approved by the Irish in a new referendum, European leaders have turned their attention to filling Europe’s top jobs. But Tony Blair, who looked a shoo-in for the post of President of the European Council (not quite the “President of the EU”), now looks as if he has been dropped. Blair’s main backer, Nicolas Sarkozy, is said to have gone off the idea of bringing his British friend back from the political cold; while Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was never keen.

Peter Hoskin

Brown puts on his gloomy face for the world stage

How peculiar.  After all the economic optimism coming out of government recently, all the talk of recovery by the end of the year, Brown's going to warn that the worst of the recession may be yet to come in his meetings with G8 leaders this week.  The Times has the full story here, but this snippet from the Dear Leader's address in France today gives you the idea: "If we do not take the necessary action now to strengthen the world economy and put in place the conditions for sustainable world growth, we will be confronted with avoidable unemployment for years to come." So does this mean he's losing faith in the "green shoots" strategy, by which a grateful nation will hail him for leading the UK out of recession?  No, I rather suspect not.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Blair is right on climate change

Ahead of Tony Blair's launch of a report on climate change, he's given an interview to The Sunday Times. The interviewer Jonathan Leake is highly sceptical of Blair and takes particular issue with this statement from him: “The answer to climate change,” he says solemnly, “is the development of science and technology. Yes, we will get changes in the way we consume but we will be consuming differently, not necessarily less. People are not going to return to the 19th century. The critical thing is to use the technologies we have and to incentivise the development of new ones. That is the only practical way we will make this thing work.” But Blair's analysis is surely correct.

Fraser Nelson

Pure Balls | 5 July 2009

According to the Sunday Times, poor old Shaun Woodward is getting the blame for inspiring Brown’s mendacious “Labour investment v Tory cuts” line. As if. This is the work of Ed Balls, and his trademark belief that the public can be easily fooled on such issues because their eyes glaze over when you mention statistics. A quick chronology: when the 10 percent figure came out in my Daily Telegraph piece it was Ed Balls who seized on it (his wife did so earlier that day with the Standard) and used it in a letter to Michael Gove demanding where those 10 percent cuts would be made. He used my figure as if it were official Tory policy.

Peter Hoskin

More blows against Brown’s spending narrative

It's public spending time again, dear CoffeeHousers, with a couple of eye-catching articles in  today's papers.  The first is a comment piece by Steve Bundred, chief exec of the Audit Commission, on the necessity for extensive spending cuts.  If you recall, Bundred claimed a few days ago that health and education shouldn't be ring-fenced from cuts, and here he repeats the point, adding a snappy conclusion: "So don't believe the shroud wavers who tell you grannies will die and children starve if spending is cut. They won't. Cuts are inevitable, and perfectly manageable. We should insist on a frank and intelligent debate about how and where they will fall, which will then enable everyone to make more sensible plans.

Friday

James Forsyth

Brown’s U-turns analysed

Steve Richards’ column in today’s Independent - analysing Brown’s u-turns on the Post Office, 42 days and the abolition of 10p tax rate - is superb. As Steve notes, all these u-turns have in common the question of where does Brown stand in relation to Blairism; is he break from it or its continuation? Steve’s conclusion sums this up brilliantly: “The U-turns show that Brown has never acquired a clear voice of his own as Prime Minister and has failed to break away from his complicated past. Perhaps an early election would have liberated him from the manacles. Instead, we are left with a trail of major reversals that convey the insecure mindset of a Prime Minister trying too hard to win a big tent of support when virtually the entire campsite has moved on.

Fraser Nelson

One crisis after another

Many CoffeeHousers will give a horse laugh to the idea of “green shoots” – especially the idea of Gordon Brown winning a fourth term because a grateful nation will thank him for a recovered economy. It’s a delusion, nothing surer, and the same one Callaghan and Major suffered from. In both cases, there were firm signs of an economic recovery – but the electorate never forgave the government which landed them in the mire. But is Britain recovering? We’ve seen a few developments lately which, given the fun and games elsewhere, have gone unnoticed. So here’s a catchup. Pick up the financial pages, and you’ll find numerous stories of success: bonuses are back, the corporate debt market has recovered, house prices are moving.

Peter Hoskin

Can Brown’s inner circle be broken?

Given the speculation that's whirling around Westminster about plots to oust Brown in the autumn, it's worth noting this passage from Steve Richards' article for the latest New Statesman: "The most significant change since the hopelessly disparate attempted coup last month is how the rest of the cabinet relate to Brown, Mandelson and Balls, the trio who are working closely together. Recently a friend asked one cabinet minister on the so-called Blairite wing whether he thought Mandelson would tell Brown that the game was up if polls suggested Labour was heading for electoral oblivion. The minister replied that he could no longer have such a conversation with Mandelson; it would be seen as disloyal to Brown to present such a hypothesis.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Things the Tories shouldn’t do

It strikes me as being in both bad taste and politically foolish for Alan Duncan to suggest that Gordon Brown is “vandalising” the despatch box when he uses a thick pen to take notes during PMQs. It is bad taste because the reason Brown uses a thick, black felt-tip because he is blind in one eye and has poor sight in the other. Whatever one’s opinion of Brown, his eye problem is not something that should be mocked. It is politically foolish because one of the themes that Labour is trying to get into the national conversation is that the Tories are a bunch of posh bullies. This kind of behaviour from Duncan plays into Labour’s hands. It is unnecessary and unpleasant.

Peter Hoskin

Brown primes his new dividing line

With Brown shifting his position on spending by the minute, it's worth highlighting this snippet from today's Guardian: "Treasury ministers, in particular, believe they can look at whether there will be a need for cuts at the time of the pre-budget report in the autumn. They intend to use the report to show the scale of projected future savings, as well as how frontline services and new priorities can be protected by switching resources. Labour still believes the Tories have made a political mistake by committing themselves to public spending cuts so early." It rather supports Fraser's prediction that, following all their talk about "envelopes" and "projections," the Government will suddenly start saying those "cuts" aren't necessary after all.

Wednesday

Martin Bright

Goodbye Kitty

So now Kitty Ussher has gone too. This really is becoming a significant clearout as hopes for the next generation of Labour politicians fall away. I always rather liked Kitty, who seemed decent enough and even spoke out against Tony Blair's failure to speak out about the Lebanon war. But it's difficult to see how she could stay in the government. An old colleague has just tweeted me that I shouldn't be too soppy about her as she was "a Blairite SPAD who was parachuted into safe seat of which she knew nothing", which is a little unfair, but not completely off the money.  His comments remind me that she was one of the people grinning like a Moonie Scientologist at Labour's 2007 Bournemouth love-in. I remember her speech to the Fabians saying "everyone's smiling, smiling"...

Friday

Martin Bright

The Madness of New Labour

A subject close to my heart is the fear of mental collapse that lies just below the surface of New Labour. So I wrote about it for this week's Spectator magazine. You'll find it here.

Wednesday

Martin Bright

Why the Reshuffle is Not the Solution

As I wandered through parliament on Monday evening I bumped into a former minister who had just come out of the do-or-die parliamentary Labour Party meeting. He reached in his pocket and showed me a text message on his mobile from a constituency activist: “So it’s a slow, lingering death then,” it said. This was the week the Labour Party finally, definitively admitted defeat. The European elections demonstrated that Labour can’t win under Gordon Brown’s leadership. James Purnell’s courage in being the first Cabinet minister to voice what his colleagues know to be the case was met with shuffling feet and bowed heads. The expressions of loyalty from those who remain are the hollow cries of the already crushed.

Friday

Martin Bright

The Least Democratic Cabinet Since the War

I didn't think Gordon Brown's narcissistic statements of principle could get more embarrassing. The idea that he is driven by his presbyterian conscience was bad enough, but this Washingtonian nonsense about being taught by his father to always be honest is just hide-behind-the-sofa excruciating. It's been my experience that people's own mythology of themselves is often completely out of kilter with the way other people see them. Gordon Brown appears to have no self-knowledge at all. Richard Reeves, the director of Demos put it very well on Newsnight tonight when he said that James Purnell has simply said what he believed to be the case and that this is a refreshing change for a politician. The contrast between Purnell and Brown could not be greater.

Thursday

Martin Bright

Moving from Crisis to Catastrophe

Perhaps James Purnell was at Hamlet last night as well. There is a kind of tragic inevitability to all this now. Until tonight there was at least the appearance of a government. Now even that thin veil has been removed. There is nothing left with which to govern. Think of the already vacant Cabinet posts: Home Secretary, Communities and Local Government and Work and Pensions. Then imagine who, with any talent,  you would put in those posts. It's hopeless. The idea that Gordon Brown will simply fill posts with newly-elected peers is part laughable, part terrifying. I went on Sky News tonight and said James Purnell's letter was an act of unusual honesty. Resignation letters never usually mean what they say.

Martin Bright

It’s Truly Shakespearean Now

I'm just back from seeing Jude Law's Hamlet at the Wyndham's Theatre. I'll leave judgement on the quality of the production and performances to those more qualified than myself. But  it was certainly a very clear, no-nonsense retelling of that most terrible of stories. Since the point was first made about Gordon Brown being a character from a Shakespearean tragedy, it's been a fascinating parlour game to identify which tragic hero he most closely resembles. Like Lear, he must have imagined himself betrayed by at least one ungrateful daughter this week and he has always had the vaulting ambition of a Macbeth. He also shares Hamlet's gift for indecision. But as I was watching tonight, I felt the play was more relevant as a picture of Labour's wider tragedy under Brown.

Tuesday

Martin Bright

Why the Reshuffle is a Nightmare for Brown

There are a number of peculiar aspects of the political moment through which we are living: the fact that the Prime Minister has no mandate from the country or his own party, the collapse of the economy, the meltdown at Westminster. But never before have we had a political moment where junior ministers will be praying not to be promoted and Cabinet ministers will be relieved to be leaving the government. When they are reshuffled, Jacqui Smith and Alistair Darling will be delighted to join the backbenches (although in Darling's case the torture may continue if he gets the Home Secretary job). Who in their right mind would want to work in this government now? Has there ever been a time when the attractions of power have simply drained away like this?