Gordon brown

Friday

Martin Bright

Harriet’s At It

My politics students at City University in London were delighted to have a visit from a master hack today. Kevin Maguire was an entertainining and marvellously indiscreet guest. The final question was straight and to the point: "What did Mr Maguire think Harriet Harman was up to?" Kevin thought for about a second before replying: "She's at it."  He also confirmed that Number 10 thought she was "at it" too. He made the point that Harriet Harman was an accomplished politician who had managed to win the Labour deputy leadership without the support of the unions. Her positioning on Fred Goodwin's pension and Post Office privatisation, was, he felt, a clear pitch for the leadership (and so did the people around Gordon Brown).

Thursday

Martin Bright

Didn’t He Do Well?

I have had some time to think about Gordon Brown's performance in Washington now and I would agree with an American liberal friend  I spoke to on the phone this evening that it was "not bad". This is someone who desperately wanted Obama to win and who, on balance, would probably not want a Tory government in Britain if he put his mind to it. In essence, Brown's speech to Congress just doesn't matter that much: not to Obama, not to the American public, not to the British public, not to Brown's chances of winning the next election. It mattered to Brown, of course, as a devoted student of American history and politics.

Tuesday

Martin Bright

Fear and Loathing at the Heart of Government

There's some really fascinating stuff knocking around today. Rachel Sylvester's column in The Times is really quite extraordinary. She claims that in a conference call with Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls, the Prime Minister could not be persuaded to concentrate on domestic policy and kept returning to the international global crisis. Were there others involved in the call or is one of Balls or Mandelson briefing the Blairite Sylvester (hmm, I wonder)? Pete Hoskin over at Coffee House has suggested that the level of humility in Alistair Darling's interview in today's Telegraph and similar noises from Ed Balls suggest that perhaps Brown will go for a mea culpa of his own in America.

Alex Massie

Mr Brown’s Trip to Washington

Poor Gordon Brown. Yes, really. The expectations for his visit to Washington this week could not have been framed more unkindly. It's as though the Prime Minister has been set up to fail. His enemies in the press will not mind this, but his friends' talk has not helped either. The less hype this visit, and this speech to Congress, received, the better it would have been for Brown. Then he might have been able to surprise everyone. Instead, there's been all this nonsense about Brown being, in a BBC News reporter's phrase, "sprinkled" with Obama's "rhetorical stardust". Yes really to that too. Normal people hear this sort of guff and think "who do you think you are kidding?". Then again, they can't help it, can they?

Sunday

Martin Bright

Gordon Brown’s Legacy Revisted

No one outside Downing Street can imagine how tense it must be getting in the bunker as the economic situation worsens and the period Gordon Brown has to turn things around shortens. My suspicion is that it is getting very tense indeed. I was informed on Friday that  No 10 was not happy with some of the things I have been writing on The Bright Stuff. We already know that people around the Prime Minster were concerned at the suggestion that they were studying footage of Obama's apologies. Officials have been unable to identify the person who was asking for this footage I am told. All very mysterious. But then again, would you put your hand up? Now they are unhappy at the suggestion that discussions of the "legacy" are off-limits.

Monday

Martin Bright

Don’t Mention the Legacy!

As the Cabinet meets in Southampton today there is one issue that will be strictly off the agenda: the Brown legacy. I have it on very good authority that Gordon and those around him will not even allow the subject to be discussed in case it suggests that he knows the next election is lost. People coming to him with new ideas are told not to use the "L word". I think this is very unwise. How can the Prime Minister expect anyone to come to him with innovative recession-busting ideas unless they can talk in terms of the legacy such projects will leave behind? No. 10 needs to get real. We are living through exceptional times that demand exceptional imagination.

Monday

Martin Bright

Can The Government Dig Itself Out ? (2)

From the response to the last post on this subject I get the impression that people around here don't much care if the government can did itself out or not. Some readers of The Bright Stuff have asked how I can justify wanting Labour to win the next election? But more of that later. First I want to examine the horror of the situation a little. I have finally read the Independent on Sunday's interview with HBOS whistleblower Paul Moore. Jaw-dropping or what! It's always wrong to leave the Sindy till last in the weekend reading pile because so often it punches above its weight. It would be one of the saddest victims of the recession if it is forced to close.

Sunday

Martin Bright

Can the Government Dig Itself Out?

If you just read one newspaper today you'd know things were getting pretty bad for Gordon Brown. Let's take the Observer for example: not exactly a hostile paper to the government over the years. Beyond the story of the defection of former DWP advisor David Freud to the Tory front bench, there's a terribly damaging piece of analysis from Andrew Rawnsley. He observes that a serious split has opened up in Cabinet between the "no contrition" camp and those who believe the Prime Minister should find a way of showing some humility over his role in the economic crisis. As readers of this column know, Downing Street has been taking a close interest in President Obama's recent public apology. But as a ministerial source told Rawnsley: "Gordon will never change.

Tuesday

Martin Bright

Who’s sorry now?

President Obama showed that it was possible to apologise with good grace over his appointment of Tom Daschle and now the masters of the financial universe are falling over themselves to follow his lead. Somehow he turned the fact that he "screwed up" to his advantage, though how many times he can get away with this ruse in future is open to question. The sight of the men from RBS and HBOS making their excuses for "screwing up" the economy of an entire country was pretty hard to watch. The difference is that people like Obama. At times like this you have to turn to the tabloids to fnd an expresssion of real fury. Sue Carroll put it rather well in her Mirror column today. I wonder if the bankers were reading her before they went before the Treasury Selct Committee today.