The eight who know Britain’s future

23 September 2006

Fraser Nelson discloses the names of the only eight people who ‘speak with any authority’ for Gordon Brown and assesses the significance of this tight-knit ‘Octet’ for the way this country will be governed if the Chancellor succeeds Tony Blair

Naming the likely winners and losers in a Gordon Brown government has become a favourite parlour game among the political class. Enthusiastic supporters of Tony Blair’s agenda are routinely tipped for a long spell in political Siberia. Anyone with a Scottish accent or an aptitude for statistics is tipped for the top. Brownite MPs have found themselves being asked what the future holds — as if they were keepers of a great secret. The blunt truth is that everyone is in the dark. Or almost everyone, anyway.

For all his talk in his recent interview with Andrew Marr of being ‘inclusive’ and forming a ‘government of all the talents’, the Chancellor is running an operation so tight that even MPs who have proved unquestionably loyal to him are being kept out of the loop. While there is undoubtedly a Brown agenda for Britain — a blueprint that will affect every one of us if, as expected, he succeeds Mr Blair — it is one that is known to a tiny group of people. The contrast between rhetoric and reality could not be more stark.