Gordon brown

Whelan suggests Brown will turn up to Labour conference

A poll in today’s Daily Mail might have the Tories down to 29 percent (in part due to a very large number of undecideds) but it is Charlie Whelan’s interview blaming Peter Mandelson for Labour’s election debacle that is getting all the attention. In a fit of campaign nostalgia, CCHQ has tweeted out a bunch of lines from it. But I suspect it is the last Whelan quote in the piece that has them smacking their lips.  Whelan says, ‘Labour has not fallen out of love with Gordon. Quite the reverse. If he tips up at the Conference – which I think he will – he’ll go on stage and

Was Labour’s spending irresponsible?

An eyecatching claim from Ed Miliband, interviewed by Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy: “I don’t think our spending was irresponsible.” And here’s a graph in response: I’ll let CoffeeHousers draw their own conclusions.

To Labour’s successors…

Following this morning’s coalition press conference, the Tories’ have released this video: Labour’s Legacy. It’s effective, especially in view of Labour’s continued refusal to acknowledge that Gordon Brown did to Britain what Peter Ridsdale did to Leeds United, albeit on a grander scale.

Strange bedfellows

As the row over Naomi Campbell’s testimony at Charles Taylor’s war crimes trial fills up acres of space in the newspapers and hours of airtime for the news channels, I can’t help but remembering the friendship between the model and Sarah Brown. Brown even selected Campbell as her 21st century heroine in a 2009 Harpers Bazaar poll, praising her as a “loyal friend”. Now, it should be stressed that the work Brown and Campbell did together was for a series of worthwhile causes, improving maternal health and helping Haiti post-earthquake. But it struck me as surprising at the time that a savvy former PR woman married to the Prime Minister

Huhne backs nuclear energy through gritted teeth

You could almost hear the thumbscrews being tightened as Chris Huhne appeared on Today this morning to back nuclear power. The Energy Secretary has an, erm, patchy history when it comes to supporting nuclear – and that fact, coupled with his less than evangelical rhetoric on the matter in government, has got plenty of industry professionals worried. So there he was reassuring us that, actually, the first new nuclear power station is still on course for 2018. And he added, gritting his teeth no doubt, that “providing there is no public money involved, there will be a majority in the House of Commons favour of nuclear power stations.” He’s probably

Alan Johnson, summarised

What became of the likeable lads, that group of New Labour politicians who seemed more decent than the government in which they served? Alistair Darling was one, and he has effectively retired from the frontline of British politics. Alan Johnson was another, and today he gives a frank and wide-ranging interview to Rachel Sylvester. In it, Johnson spends much time cheerleading for David Miliband, and criticising Ed Miliband quite harshly, but there are some points which are worth recording. So here goes: 1) What a drag. As Sylvester puts it, “The [leadership] contest has, in [Johnson’s] view, already gone on too long and should not have been extended until September.”

Brown, the third worst Prime Minister since WW2?

Now here’s a poll that you can really get your teeth into. Reported in today’s FT, a survey of 100 or so academics has rated Gordon Brown as the third worst Prime Minister since the second world war. It marks him with 3.9 out of 10, ahead of only Sir Anthony Eden and Sir Alec Douglas-Home. At the other end of the scale, Clement Attlee comes out on top with 8.1 our of 10, ahead of second-placed Margaret Thatcher on 6.9. Which, as Tim Montgomerie says at ConservativeHome, is understandable enough – Attlee probably made a more indelible contribution to British life than anyone else on the list. I was

5 days that changed the country

Westminster has rewound the tape today, in anticipation of Nick Robinson’s documentary on the coalition negotiations tonight. There’s speculation about what Nick Clegg did or didn’t say back in May; Anthony Seldon has a piece on Gordon Brown’s side of things in the Independent; and Robinson himself has a summary article in the Telegraph. Much of what’s revealed so far could already be pieced together from the Mandelson memoirs, as well as from Westminister chatter, but some of the new contexts are eyecatching. This, for instance, from Robinson, suggests just how important personality politics was during those days after the election: “Gordon Brown had not prepared a policy offer, nor

Guess who’s back | 26 July 2010

Oh look, Gordon Brown has continured his return to public life with a sizeable interview in today’s Independent.  It’s a generous portrait which seems designed to dispel any rumours about the former Prime Minister’s wellbeing. Apparently, he “looks healthy and fit … seems quite cheerful.” And we’re treated to descriptions of his face, “like a map of a man’s soul.” For those who can read any further, there are accounts of his constituency work and his aspirations to “do more on international development”. The world shudders. Despite his claims to the contrary, there are ominous signs that Brown is keen to impact upon our national politics. His clearest boast in

Clegg’s revolution

At last, Nick Clegg got his chance to pretend to be PM today and he used it to give a dazzling impression of Gordon Brown.  Opposing him, Jack Straw was off-colour. Hoarse of throat and hunched of stance, he did his best to bring some clarity to Britain’s new mission in Afghan – Operation Leg It. He asked if the exit date of 2014 was ‘absolute or conditional’. Keen to offer value for money Clegg responded to a single question with two answers. He expected ‘no troops in a combat role’ by 2015 – not 2014 – although our departure was dependent on the Afghans’s ability to secure their own

All for show?

Gordon Brown will be seething, and with some justification: he never got photo-ops like these with Barack Obama. Shots of a cosy chat in the Oval Office are usually reserved for Benjamin Netanyahu, following the latest impasse between Israel and America. The Obama administration has gone to great lengths to repair the damage it did to Anglo-American relations at the start of its term. The President was all sparkle and bonhomie during the joint press conference, and he was careful to name-check ‘The Truly Special Relationship’ twice. Obama may be faking it but he looks comfortable with Cameron. He has always given the impression of being a cold fish, short

Osborne keeps it simple

George Osborne has talked of simplifying the tax system for years, and today he launched the OTS, The Office for Tax Simplification. The OTS will be chaired by Michael Jack, s Treasury minister in the Major government, and John Whiting of PWC and Chartered Institute of Taxation. The OTS looks suspiciously like a quango, but some public bodies are necessary and welcome. The tax system is unintelligible, and, needless to say, Gordon Brown complicated it further with morass of stealth taxes, tax credits and new loopholes opened more by chance than design. This has particularly affected small businesses and the OTS will identify salient businesses taxes and recommend their simplification.

International development’s statist underpinning

Why increase aid to Afghanistan by 40pc when troops are dying from a lack of body armour and helicopters? The pledge to not just protect but vastly increase the aid budget is one which, polls show, leaves the public puzzled.  I was on the Politics Show with Jon Sopel, who was putting to Andrew Mitchell some very sharp questions about all of this. Why build schools in Afghanistan, but cancel them in Britain? Worse, in fact, DFID has a habit of building schools but not finding teachers for them – its ideology states that teaching should be a job for central government, just like it is in Britain. The Afghan

Mandelson’s miscalculation

Peter Mandelson’s decision to support Gordon Brown right to the end enabled him to cease being a purely factional figure in the Labour party. The multiple standing ovations he received at the last Labour conference were a recognition of that. As he put it, he was now the prince of stability not darkness. It was easy to see how Mandelson could become one of the elder statesmen of the party. But The Third Man has thrown all this away. Mandelson is once more a highly factional figure. He has admitted that he wouldn’t have stopped his Cabinet colleagues toppling Brown if they could have and that Labour would have done

Who still believes in Peter the Great?

Asks Jeff Randall in a pugnacious column for the Telegraph. The memoirs, Randall argues, have finally exposed the conceit that Mandelson was a tactical genius. Randall says that Mandelson was a devious and divisive backroom spinner. Well, he ain’t the Prince of Darkness for nothing. But Mandelson’s career and political persona were fashioned in a bygone era. Today, ambitious homosexuals climb the greasy pole out in the open – both in terms of their careers and their sexuality, (David Laws was an exception in the latter case). Mandelson’s modus operandi was determined by the conclusion that the 1980s were not an era for gays in politics, whether preening or discreet.

James Forsyth

The Balls deterrent

There have been many interviews with Peter Mandelson this week, but I don’t think any of them have got as much out of him as Patrick Wintour has in today’s Guardian: ‘For he is quite clear in the interview that Labour would be probably be in power now if it had been possible for Brown to be replaced by a consensual alternative. “If you really force me, I think probably it would make a 20 to 30 seat difference to the result. They would have gone to 280 and we would have gone up to 270. They probably would have been the largest party, but not by a decisive margin.”

Ed Miliband pitches for social responsibility

Reading Ed Miliband’s piece in today’s Times on how Labour can win back southern voters, I was struck by this section: ‘We need to be clear that part of the job of social democratic politics is to conserve those things in society that free-market Conservatism would destroy. Our communities are too precious to be dictated to by markets. Take the example of how our towns have changed. If you travel through the market towns of the South, too often you find them dominated by late-night bars, clubs and betting shops, even when local people want a more friendly place to live.’ Ed Miliband has made this kind of argument before,

McFadden talks sense

Pat McFadden, the sullen-looking Shadow Business Secretary, has given an important speech to the Fabian Society. He said: ‘Fight the cuts is a tempting slogan in opposition, and there are indeed some that must be fought. But if that is all we are saying the conclusion will be drawn that we are wishing the problem away.’ He is the first shadow minister to recognise that Labour’s current approach is counter-productive, and Ed Balls’ philosophy is suicidal. He notes: ‘In fact, that is the position the Tories and the Lib Dems would prefer us to adopt. They want Labour to retreat to its comfort zone and allow them to say that

Mandelson strikes gold

Well, sort of. Today’s offerings in the Times are as disappointing as yesterday’s. Mandelson adds to the croaking New Labour chorus that there was no deal at Granita. Blair and Brown, barely on speaking on terms in the run up to the 2005 election, cut a deal in 2004 to ease the succession.  Later, Brown and Blair re-opened hostilities over the EU Presidency, but that was already known, or at least expected. Mandelson’s adoption of the terms of corruption has ceased to shock – New Labour’s personal history has long since been prejudiced by perpetual briefing and counter-briefing, and 24 hour news. However, hacks are pouring over the memoir, fresh

Balls clutches at straws

Many CoffeeHousers will have heard Ed Balls’ preposterous performance on the Today programme this morning. We have transcribed it below, to put it on the record. Three things jump out at me. The way that Balls is the last purveyor of Brownies, still talking about new jobs when all of the new jobs can be accounted for by immigration. Next, the way he airbrushes his record to strip out all the disasters. It was the Balls-Brown economic model which rigged the Bank of England so it would keep rates artificially low, flooding the economy with dangerously underpriced debt and putting not just the government but the whole economy on a