Gordon’s new friend

There is nothing new in Gordon Brown’s taste for citizens’ juries and new forms of consultation – the cornerstone of his speech on the “New Politics” today – although his plan to review the Speakers’ Conference will repay careful study as part of what will clearly amount, in the end, to a substantial package of parliamentary reforms. It had emerged overnight that John Bercow, previously expected to defect to Labour from the Tories, will be advising the Government on children with learning difficulties, and the appointment of the Lib Dem, Matthew Taylor, to advise ministers on land use scarcely quickens the pulse. But for now let us acknowledge the truly astonishing news that the Prime Minister has hired Patrick Mercer, former Tory spokesman on homeland security, to advise Lord West, the security minister and former First Sea Lord. Mr Mercer, you may recall, was sacked from the Tory front bench in March after claiming that is just “the way it is” that a black soldier might be called a “black bastard”, and that some “idle and useless” ethnic minority soldiers “used racism as cover for their misdemeanours”. David Cameron saw Mr Mercer’s remarks as a test of his modernising credentials and declared them “totally unacceptable.” There was much grumbling at the time, on the grounds that Mr Mercer had been speaking empirically rather than polemically. Evidently, Mr Brown made a mental note at the time, and has now brought the disgruntled Right-winger into his own Big Tent. Mr Blair used to talk about “Operation Hoover”, his campaign to recruit One Nation Tories and Lib Dems to the New Labour cause. Mr Brown seems to have dumped the Hoover and got hold of a super-powered, commercial-use Dyson. Who’s next? Edward Leigh?