Reading the transcript of Gordon Brown’s interview with the FT one is struck by how little of a domestic policy message Brown has. Say what you like about Labour’s mantra in 2001 and 2005 of Labour investment versus Tory cuts but it was clear. By contrast, Brown’s attempt to explain his new dividing lines to the FT is distinctly muddled.
Brown’s main line is that things could have been a lot worse without the government’s action. But that is, of course, a hypothetical. It also seems doubtful that the public will share this view or forget who was Chancellor in the decade before the crisis.
Brown then moves on to what he thinks will be the battleground for the next election. Here is the bulk of his meandering answer:
“I think as we look to next stage…look, what is that Britain has to offer the rest of the world? What is it that makes us confident about our export potential for the future? What is it that makes Britain one of the likely beneficiaries of this new global set of arrangements that we call the global economy? And it is clearly the high value added, the creative, the high technology, the custom-built goods and services.
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