Brown follows Blair on unpopular policies

Brown has started his victory campaign this week by indicating he’s going to follow Blair’s unpopular policies on Iraq, Europe and nuclear power (makes you wonder what he is going to do differently).

If this slightly hysterical piece of fakery video by Greenpeace is anything to go by, nuclear power is the hottest political potato of them all.

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The Man Who Will Be King

Well, it looks like Gordon’s done it. Brown has secured 309 nominations against John McDonnell’s 29 thus making it impossible for Mr McDonnell to reach the required 45 nominations. Officially the nomination period closes at 12:30 today but it’s as good as over.

The deputy leadership race remains interesting with Hilary Benn limping towards the required 45 nominations, all the other candidates have secured the necessary support. The leadership graph is up-to-date as of 6pm yesterday with the details.

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Another book deal for Brown

It’s as if touring the country campaigning, preparing for Government and running the Treasury is not enough for Gordon. Yesterday he announced that he’s to write another book called Unsung Heroes. It’s going to be about “the kind of heroes we might each aspire to be”. Who might that include?

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Leadership maths- day 2

The updated figures are up on the Labour website and it seems that John McDonnell has increased his support by 2, now on 29 (a long, long, long way to go).

See who is supporting John here. It seems that no cabinet minsters are willing to risk their political careers, and Gordon’s wrath, by supporting John.

In the Deputy Leadership contest, Jon Cruddas has now got enough to stand and Hilary Benn has increased to 40 from 34…but still a way to go.

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Leadership maths

Labour have put up the number of nominations each candidate for the Leader and Deputy Leader contests have.

John McDonnell still needs 18 more bribes, friends, ideas supporters if he’s going to get on the ballot. This morning on the Today programme, Brown indicated that he has no intention on “lending” John any of his own votes, so this seems very unlikely.

In comparison the Deputy leadership contest appears more exciting. Hilary Benn currently looks like the only candidate who’s not going to make it on the ballot, with Alan Johnson in front (he’s supposedly even got the support of John Prescott).

Call back soon for our graphical interpretations of these results.

Update - See the sidebar for the amazing, Technicolor deputy leadership tracker.

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Bank independence

Writing in yesterday’s Telegraph, John Redwood attacks Brown’s policy decision to make the Bank of England independent, arguing that it is not in fact completely independent and has not resulted in low inflation nor unprecedented economic growth.

There are some truths to what Redwood says, but I think it’s also worth remembering that Brown would have had to make the Bank independent if Tony had got his way over joining the euro. The UK orginally secured an opt out from EMU in the Maastricht Treaty and if the euro was adopted then the Bank of England would have to be made independent to meet these rules.

Rather than the crowning achievement of the New Labour era, the independence of the Bank of England was part of the preparation for joining the Euroland. 

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Tracking Gordon - buying the beers

Not only was Gordon in Watford, Knebworth and the Imagination Gallery in Central London, he also popped into the Marquis of Granby in Westminster for a quick half.image_00061.jpg

Ok it was only a cardboard stand up…look out for attack ads staring this particular image.

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Campaign officially launched

Gordon has officially launched his campaign. His campaign website is now up (courtesy on Silverfish)

www.gordonbrown.org

It has a Gordon Moblog where you can look at pictures of Gordon excitingly preparing his speech. Doesn’t he look happy.

Update 

What can we gather from his speech?

Well, Gordon tried to suggest he would be a unifier, with a “cabinet of all the talents”.  During the Q & A, someone asked if this would include other political parties, Gordon wouldn’t rule it out (A hint that Ming could get a job after the next election then?!).

Gordon also suggested that he’s not going to give up on Constitutional reform (no doubt a promise to Jack to look at Lords reform), increase power to Parliament and to consult on a draft of the Queen speech over the summer….sounds very deliberative.

Brown also said that we need to deal with the mistakes made in Iraq…whatever can he mean?

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How to work with Brown: “quietly sidle out of the room”

Sorry about the lack of posts, faithful readers, but i’ve been away. And what a week I chose to go and sun myself on the Maltese coast (unfortunately Sarkozy wouldn’t let me aboard the Paloma). I return to find that several ministers have decided to leave rather than work under Brown (they probably wouldn’t have got a seat at the table anyway), that the Home Office is going to remain unfit for purpose and that Brown is still running the country, although at least the “official” PM has now resigned.

But my time away was not wasted. I have reread Hugh Pym and Nick Koch’s book: Gordon Brown: the First Year in Power. Chapter Sixteen: Treasury Tribulations, is particularly interesting, and I am reliably informed that it was essential reading in the Treasury for sometime. Several unerring quotes particularly stand out:

The Treasury Senior Economic Advisor Sir Alan Budd “found Brown’s hectic pace and style uncongenial and later told friends that he found the Chancellor quick to anger. Other officials learnt to deal with Brown’s fury by ‘quietly sidling out of the room’”.

One civil servant is quoted as saying:

“His area of greatest trouble is in handling people, he likes to have his own way with colleagues….as things go wrong, they will find it harder to give the appearance of invincibility. “

Even Will Hutton is quoted as saying:

“People close to the Treasury are infuriated by the way they cannot pin him down, the way he breaks off a meeting with seconds to go, to go to another meeting withour any prior warning. They do not like the way… he tends not to delegate.”

No wonder no one wants to work for him when he becomes King in a few weeks time.

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