Brown can look in The Mirror for advice

Kevin Maguire was widely tipped to be Gordon Brown’s Alastair Campbell but in the end the Mirror man stayed at his paper rather than heading to Downing Street. His columns, though, have always been fairly supportive of the Brown government which is what makes his piece today—“Gordon Brown must make sweeping changes”—so interesting.

Maguire wants Brown to dump a whole bunch of policies including the planned 2p increase in fuel duty, ID cards and 42 day detention. In their place, he wants Brown to put:

“a living wage in excess of £7 an hour to replace the minimum wage, free school meals for every kid, axing of NHS prescription charges in England (copying Wales and Scotland) and abolishing swimming pool charges to let kids can splash about as well as look at fossils in museums without paying entry charges.”