Michael Henderson suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value events

Click here for exclusive articles, offers, tasting notes and discussion

Best for Britain? The Politics and Legacy of Gordon Brown

A false dawn

Simon Lee
One World, 304pp, £16.99,

Frank Field

Wednesday, 28th November 2007

Frank Field

Gordon Brown has a number of key political challenges to satisfy simultaneously if he is to lead his party to a fourth consecutive election victory. As Lee’s outstanding book makes plain, the Prime Minister’s immediate political task is to distance himself from the unpopular aspects of the Blair legacy without falling into the hole Al Gore dug for himself. Brown’s task is much more difficult, however. No one thought Gore had much influence on US politics. No one could believe the same here, with Brown’s unparalleled imperial power over home policy.

The Prime Minister has also to deal with the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath Question. This strategy coalesces around attempts to develop a new sense of Britishness. The scope of Brown’s ideas are to be marvelled at: a new kind of Britishness to emerge from establishing a new British enlightenment, no less. The vision is breathtaking.

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (6) | Apollo Art Books

1 | 2 Next page

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Terry Heath

November 30th, 2007 10:15am

"A new British identity, if it can be established, will only result after first securing the identity of England..." Absolutely Frank. Let's build a sense of civic national identity. That way we can make Englishness our own and not the far right's.

Visitor192

November 30th, 2007 9:57pm

I have visited your site 349-times

Stephen

December 3rd, 2007 4:28pm

Interesting idea. But the move to break up the UK is in Scotland not England. Most English,Welsh and Northern Irish are quite happy with the status quo. Not so Scotland. There is a powerful movement for independence that is feeding off the political developments in Europe. If Yugoslavis can split into six nations why not the UK?

Anthony Thomas Flynn

December 15th, 2007 8:51pm

I'm sorry Mr. Field, but we have gone well beyond the Left or Right wing of Politics. Westminster and Whitehall no longer count, to the average punter. None of it is any longer worth voting for. With the computer technology of today, and with the purpose built "loopholes" allowing quite Legal Avoidance of Taxation, there is no reason to even consider any demands from HMRC, for the payment of Taxation. The working TaxPayer can now, quite Legally, agree their own system of Taxation, free of any Political interference and based on the assumption of what the TaxPayer is prepared to pay. It is long past the time when Politics demanded ludicrous dollops of money from the general publics pockets, wallet or Bank Account. The days of easy money and Government are now over. Just like sub-prime loans. You might remember me from some little while ago. You are one of the very, very, very, few MPs I have a respect for. There are not many genuine People at that place. Regards, ATFlynn.