Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Remind you of anyone? How Theresa May is morphing into Gordon Brown

In distancing herself from Cameron, the Prime Minister is following a dangerous precedent

Standing outside No. 10, our newly chosen — though not elected — Prime Minister decided to address the country directly. It was finally time, we learned, for a government dedicated to those who had been left out. ‘To those who feel the political system doesn’t listen and doesn’t care; to those who feel powerless and have lost faith; to those who feel Westminster is a distant place and politics simply a spectator sport: I will strive to earn your trust.’ These words — and other lines about parents juggling work and childcare — were perfect for Theresa May’s pitch of one nation Toryism.

But they had been uttered before: by Gordon Brown in 2007, as he accepted his Labour leadership nomination. May’s version of the same speech differed only in syntax: ‘You can just about manage, but you worry about the cost of living and getting your kids into a good school,’ she said, describing the people she wanted to address ‘directly’. She even borrowed Brown’s verbal trademark: pledging to run a government ‘driven not by the interests of the privileged few’ but by those of the many.

The two prime ministers bear other similarities to each other. Both struggle to delegate; both trust very few ministers. Both appointed chancellors who would obey them, men who could be relied upon not to make the Treasury a rival power base. Both encouraged the press to regard their arrival in No. 10 as the time when spin was supplanted by substance. ‘Not flash, just Gordon,’ said Mr Brown. ‘I just get on with the job,’ says Mrs May. And what was the job? Neither of them really said. Instead, both started their premierships by defining themselves against their predecessor.

Brown announced curbs on government power, promising MPs a vote over going to war or signing an international treaty.

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