They don’t call it the “Brown Bottom” for nothing

I knew it would not be long before someone did a story on Brown’s gold rush (they don’t call it the “Brown Bottom” for nothing). According to the Sunday Times, the decision to sell off the gold was made without discussions with the Bank of England and cost the taxpayer £2bn.

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Buying office in Euros

The BBC have been running an excellent documentary on 10 years of Blair called Tony Blair: The Inside Story. In tonight’s episode, Clare Short is going to reveal how Blair told her, on a flight to Africa, that if Brown allowed the UK to join the Euro, he’d allow him to become PM in the second term. Short then informed Brown, who had already been told by two other people. What a great way to run a government.

If only Brown had ignored all the economic data and expert advise and joined the struggling Euro-zone, he could have been PM. But at what cost?!

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Who’s the mysterious minister?

Although Bremner, Bird and Fortune has become stale over the last few years, it is still witty, clever and well researched. According to an interview in the Telegraph, it seems that Bremner has a secret tape he is unable to release (yet). It is a recording of Bremner pretending to be Brown and speaking on the telephone to a Cabinet minister in 2005 in which the minister revealed important information about their cabinet colleagues, including advice not to bring back Stephen Byers (no surprise there).

So who is this cabinet collegue? David Blunkett perhaps?

Update:  

Mystery solved.  It was Margaret Beckett.

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Demise of Labour

I think Benedict Brogan is reading far too much into this.

Blair: Gordon Brown will lose

I’m not sure Gordon Brown will thank Tony Blair for his assessment of Labour’s future prospects. Speaking in Scotland today the Prime Minister said: “In the years to come, at some point of course we are bound to be in opposition.”

You can see his point, but it does sound like he’s predicting eventual defeat for his neighbour next door.


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Brown forced to continue New Labour project?

The Telegraph is running this story that Blair is going to try and hang on until late summer/ early autumn in an attempt to rush through some policy initiatives and prevent Brown from screwing up Blair’s legacy halting Blair’s reforms. Blair’s advisers are telling him he “has nothing to lose” by staying on.  Surely no one can truly believe he can hang on that long! There’s no way Brown’s going to let Blair tie his hands to the New Labour project.

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Things will be worse under Brown in 6 months time?

Replay Miliband’s “Freudian slip” from last night’s Question Time. Miliband won’t be getting a seat at Gordon’s table in 6 months time.

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