Brown's super subs

John

Half of the four people you mention in the article are from a branding or PR background. That's fine for an opposition, where substantial policies are not essential. But for a government? David Muir's skill is in making things look good - I think it's a sad indictment of modern governemmnt and New Labour that these type of appointments are seen as exemplary. You talk about taking the policies to market but these big brains will be left polishing turds. ID cards, 42 day detentions, HMRC cock-ups, Northern Rock, no referendum, etc. ad nauseum. Furhter, it's a continuation of the dismantling of cabinet government. These people are nominally civil servants are they not, but fall outside the traditional civil service hierarchy. The focus is on spin rather than policy. You shouldn't praise that.

Oscar Miller

I agree with John. All pretence at any political principle seems to have been abandoned in favour of the PR people. The question then arises - what is the point of Gordon Brown? Fraser makes it sound as if the PR team could manage better without him. Not only that - it makes one wonder what is the point of the Labour party? This really is a depressing and rather frightening vision of the future of British politics - several steps beyond Alistair Campbell and spin. The spectre of that post democratic, one party 'big tent' is haunting the country.

Simon

I was at Uni with Carter. He certainly had no interest in politics but was relatively bright,vain and very driven. PR and organisational skills are one thing but to do that job successfully you need a feel for politiics too and that only comes with experience at the coal face.

David

It's amazing who you can get with a bottomless pit of taxpayers' money to pay a salary......

Chris

I agree with John. The US media would never let their political classes get away with the cynical way our Government operates. Our media need to stop the cosying up and speak up on behalf of the poor bloody taxpayer before it is too late.

Chuck Unsworth

Yes, yes, but this is all about silk purses and sow's ears, ain't it? Why were these posts not advertised in accordance with normal procedures for recruitment? And what particular skills do these people bring to the table of governing the country?

adrian drummond

We've already chewed over this. Brown is not up to the mark and no amount of help will change it. However, if it's a case of manipulation and spin then the people of Britain deserve it. They voted for this odious crowd of polticians. If they get taken for a ride - aided and abbetted by a supine media - then they deserve it. They can sit on their sofas, eating their pizzas, watching their soaps and get taken for the ride. And for the rest of us? We have to watch the sorry saga.

TrevorH

oh - come on - whom is paying for all this No 10n staffing -- US thye taxpayes stuffed by the staff. I do not care who they are they cannot diguise Browns total incompetence and unsuitability.

CS

Fraser, what is the rash of blog articles from you of late getting all dreamy over personnel changes at Number 10? I wonder if we should hold a sweepstake on how soon it'll be before you start hitting your head against the wall for ever having been so naive as to write the words: "He’s recognised his shortcomings, and subcontracted out to people who will not bungle."

CS

Oppositions are all about PR because their whole purpose is to look good despite having nothing to actually do. Governments have to do things and deal with day to day events. Exactly how will a new set of PR people make the next loss of 25 million bank account details appear palatable to the public? Exactly how will they make the next set of demands for tax credit repayments look palatable to the low income families on the receiving end? Exactly how do you imagine that they will make the next set of figures for MRSA deaths appear palatable to the families of the dead? What Brown should be doing is organising the civil service and the machinery of government so that it stops generating these crises (many of which are directly attributable to his own Treasury policies and restructuring. But his reflex reaction to chaos is to disguise it, not to fix it. We really expect better from you, Fraser, than making cow eyes at the latest set of rentaquote spivs for hacks to store on their mobile phones for the next time they have a story to write but find it far easier to take dictation from Number 10 than to engage their own brains and do some independent analysis.

Max Kaye

So many publicly funded Brown-Noses.... No wonder the bloke looks so ill at ease all the time. Soon we'll have to pay for a proctologist to remove them all.

Fraser Nelson

Gents, I hear what you say: we should focus on the turd, not the polishers. And we do. But its daft not to admit that Brown's operation is vastly improved from that organised (if that's the word) the bungled election. And PR? Nope - Moses is an ex Goldmans partner, Carter was ceo of a real company - NTL - before running Ofcom and then Brunswick. Heywood ran a Morgan Stanley division - how many civil servants are deemed competent enough to do that? Man of his failings in the last six months have not been spin but basic organisation. We can expect such balls not to be dropped in future, and that's the point of my piece. I know its a long piece, but please do cast your eyes over the second half of how bad things are in CCHQ - the fear of drift. You need the product and the marketing in politics. In CCHQ they seem reluctant to accept this and believe "you cant manage politics" as one of DC's lieutenants said privately. If they think proper professional organisation does not matter, Brown will have them. Browns ideas may still be duff. But his new team makes CCHQ look like a comedy operation by comparison.

John

Moses has quit already after her hubby's company lost several billion pounds. You compared these people to the US President's team while failing to grasp that the UK is supposed to have cabinet government and an independent civil service, not a team of brown-nosing apparatchiks surrounding the Prime Minister. It's not Heywood's job to "get things done"; there used to be a tried and tested system for doing that which has been destroyed by New Labour. You're too close to the story here Fraser to understand the bigger picture. These people, while certainly quite clever, are politicised civil servants. That's a role that shouldn't exist in British politics. It doesn't point to Brown learning to let go of power. Quite the opposite; it's all about concentrating ever greater power in the office of the PM. Pull back Fraser and see the bigger picture.

Chuck Unsworth

According to some reports Moses has 'delayed' joining the Brownies - some local difficulty with her husband's huge financial losses apparently. Strange really, you'd have thought that they could do with the extra salary just now... Anyway, I thought Sarah Brown was on the edges of PR etc. What has been her 'advice'? CCHQ may look like a comedy operation - but let's not get too anal about this. What will do for Brown is his crumbling record, his dreadful personality and his (lack of) political competence. He is devoid of polish or charm and he needs both in abundance. Any amount of image tinkering isn't going to change that.

SJH

"Gents"? Fraser, should you impose a minimum quota of women to comment on your pieces?

RW

From yesterday's Daily Mail: "A Downing Street source today revealed: 'Jennifer [Moses]was going to take an unpaid role in No. 10 but that has been put on hold because of what has happened with her husband's business'." (Peloton, the collapsed hedge fund). So it looks as if the super new-style Team Brown is starting to crumble at the edges already. Who would have thought it?

Ted Tedford

Great! Maybe with this 'trusted' team in place, he can stop undermining RAF base commanders live on national television. A truly staggering example of control-freakery.

CS

Brownies??? Rich, sticky and guaranteed to rot your teeth.

CS

Fraser, you may get excited by these Goldman Sachs CVs but try looking at the captains of industry who've been brought in to run government departments. The two recent chairmen of HMRC are a case in point. Once they realised that what is effectively a law enforcement agency with powers over people's lives couldn't be run like a private company, they spent a couple of years rearranging things into carefully crafted chaos and then did a runner with a knighthood before they were found out. The loss of 25 million records is directly attributable to the chaos in which they left HMRC. And let's not forget that it was under the stewardship of a civil servant turned merchant banker turned civil servant again that Customs flogged it's estate to a tax haven "by mistake".

EyeSee

Fraser, think on what the NAO said about Management Consultants. It's the same for Brown's mob. He is, as ever merely making free with our money for his own purposes.

Mike

A very large turd and a very large tub of industrial-strength polish will still leave a turd. No matter how good, experienced and well paid the polishers are.

Nicholas

John at 10.48 has hit the nail squarely on the head. Another Brownie - Brown promised an end to this when he came to power. He has made it worse. The government has become a propaganda machine. The combination of failures, incompetence and propaganda is unhealthy. When combined with the politicisation of the civil service, unelected and very inexperienced policy makers and Brown's own power hunger it is positively sinister. If anyone thinks a stop can be put to this I just made myself very depressed reading the comments to blogs at the New Statesman. We are in the midst of an old socialist stealth revolution being brought about in the shadow of a government masquerading as something it is not. Early casualties have been truth, openness and accountability. There will be more.

David

These new arrivals have, no doubt, enormous egos of their own. It remains to be seen how well they will get on with each other and the politician they serve. As for Cameron and co, the key for them is to formulate a coherent strategy and supporting action plan derived from their many study groups; and to do so without tipping too much of their hand to Mr "Goebells" Brown - who will seek or pretend to appropriate it for his own use.

CS

As for wanting CCHQ to have a Leo McGarry figure of their own, I'd have thought that the idea of getting an ex-drunk to run your affairs died with Alistair Campbell. Besides, I could never stand the way he spoke out of the corner of his mouth (Leo, not Campbell).

Tiberius

Fraser may be right about CCHQ needing to sharpen up in certain areas, but, quite frankly, anyone who now allows himself to be associated with Brown really is a goat revisited.

paul hill

CS @ 13.18 Spot on. In fact Cameron should go out of his way to highlight these changes in the Brown team Keep watching Moses/Peloton-m'learned friends will strip the remainder this carcass down and leave a very nasty smell wafting over team Brown Teaspoonful of Viagra in G.O's tea would be good as well

Hamish McCallum

"Carter was ceo of a real company - NTL - before running Ofcom" - Fraser Nelson That's cheered me up no end. I'm over 50, and I can say without qualification of any kind that NTL was _the_worst_ company that I have ever dealt with - so far ahead of its rivals, some of whom are notably poor themselves, as to be out of site. That this man was then recruited to head an important quango shouldn't come as a surprise to any of us these days. I'm not surprised that GB can't see these people for what they are: but you should, Fraser.

The Laughing Cavalier

NTL more or less went bust, owed billions and was the worst telecomms company ever. As for this obsession with the TV programme about fictional SPADs in a fictional White House with a fictional President, it is FICTION, not real life. Sadly, most of NuLabour, especially its SPADs seem to think that they are The West Wing personified. Years ago when NuLabour decided to copy the American Democrats they brought to the UK the very worst of that party such as Tammany Hall, the pork barrel, vote-rigging, sexual incontinenece and an unhealthy obsession with private wealth. There is nothing to admire in any of this.