Breakfast with Brown

On Sunday-AM this morning Helena Kennedy and I were the warm up act for Rufus Wainwright and Gordon Brown. Both men are on tour at the moment so it was interesting to compare their respective acts. Gordon mustered the best performance of his campaign so far, not least because he had a good story to tell: the promise of eco-towns  has the merit of addressing the housing shortage while also issuing a direct challenge to Cameron’s greenery. The Chancellor was also good-humoured on the sofa afterwards during a classic skit by Rory Bremner – especially, it must be said, when Rory did Mandelson, and then Blair saying he had only promised to resign on June 27, but had not specified a year. Is the Brown ice beginning to thaw? We’ll see. At any rate, he and Rufus seemed to get on a treat, and the Chancellor evidently knew what he was talking about (he still has the scars of the Arctic Monkeys on his back). Rufus asked me who had played Gordon in ‘The Queen’ and I had to disappoint him by revealing that Brown was not, in fact, in the movie. As Gordon rushed off to appear at a Brighton festival – in a one-horse race you have to do all the work – Rufus played out the show with a haunting performance. One rather telling difference between the two men’s respective media handlers: Rufus and his entourage welcomed all into his Green Room. The Chancellor’s, by contrast, was strictly off limits before he went on. Oh Lord, help me to ‘listen and learn’: but not today.