Gordon brown

Wednesday

Martin Bright

Why is Charlie Whelan allowed into Portcullis House unaccompanied?

The parliamentary pass system is supposed to be strictly adhered to in order to stop lobbyists and interest groups getting undue access to politicians (indeed I recently received a slap on the wrist for not updating the journalists’ register of interests immediately after I left the New Statesman. And quite right too).  Guests of passholders are supposed to be accompanied at all times. So I was surprised to see drunken thug Charlie Whelan, the Prime Minister’s mockney fixer, wandering around Portcullis House unaccompanied yesterday. Perhaps he had simply slipped his minder. But I would be interested to know how he qualifies for a pass as a trade union official. One Labour

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Short term or long term inflation?

The news that the CPI rose to 3.5 percent doesn’t seem to have affected the markets, but the cost of living is soaring. Mervyn King has written to Alistair Darling predicting that inflation will fall back to the benchmark 2 percent over the course of the year, and that the current explosion is a result of short term factors such as the restored VAT rate, a 70 percent rise in oil prices and the depreciation of sterling. David Blanchflower is right: inflation may eat a little of Brown’s debt mountain and it will help those who now hold negative equities on houses. But it does precious little else that is

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cutting it with the Fink

I couldn’t let today pass without a response to Danny Finkelstein. We do agree on the ends, but not the means. And, as he says, this debate mirrors one about the methods of reform. So, let¹s go through his points. 1. ‘I am afraid I think Fraser overestimates (a lot) how politically difficult this is all going to be. And how personally painful for a lot of people. And how technically difficult.’ Painful, yes, but necessary ­ and it will be resented if Cameron is not straight about the cuts he will have to make. But how painful? Gordon Brown¹s great intellectual victory is to persuade the Tories that ‘cuts’

Monday

Mark Bathgate

Turbo-charged fiscal crises

The crisis in Greece shows just how quickly a fiscal crisis can blow up. Just two-and-a-half weeks ago, Greece was able to raise several billions in financing, with demand for almost 25 billion of their debt in an auction. The very next day, their bond market collapsed and the rout began. Just ten days later, they were turning up in Brussels with a begging bowl, and inviting the European Commission and IMF to Athens to start making their tax and spending decisions. There can be nothing worse for a government than having your economic policy dictated by the markets, and then other governments, as access to finance disapears. All you

Peter Hoskin

Will Brown’s next interrogators be the public?

So what next for the new, more human, Gordon Brown (as seen on TV)?  Well, according to today’s Times, there are some ministers who want him to take the show on the road.  The idea is to let voters tackle Brown directly – but about the topics Piers Morgan kinda skipped over: the economy, MPs’ expenses, Afghanistan, and all the other big stuff.  And the hope, in turn, is that this “masochism strategy” will make the public respect Brown more. Would it work?  Well, just like the Morgan interview and its wider impact, that’s something which is difficult to pre-judge from the confines of Westminster.  Of course, dealing with anger

Martin Bright

Does George Osborne finally have a big idea?

Listening to George Osborne on Today (and stripping away the visceral prejudice I always feel at his sneering patrician tone) I have to recognise that he was saying something very interesting. The idea of throwing open the public sector to worker-control is very, very intriguing. Co-operatives are the future of Britain: this is not something I ever thought I would hear from the mouth of a Conservative politician. I don’t know if George Osborne has any experience of living or working in a co-op (it strikes me he is not the type). They can be a mixed bag, but the principle is great one. I have long thought Gordon Brown

Martin Bright

Now Gordon Brown has to live with himself

It’s not hard to see why the Prime Minister opted for a soft interview with Piers Morgan as his latest attempt to relaunch himself with the British public. Forget that he said he wasn’t the kind of politician who used his family as political props (always a daft thing for someone in public life to say). The Life Stories show is perfect format for the purposes of the celebrity-politician, designed to reveal only that which the guest carefully intends to share with the public. It is anti-journalism.  All the pre-briefing and carefully-managed reaction was designed to leave all control in the hands of the invitee. This is particularly true of

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The best publicity Brown is ever likely to get

Brown is very lucky to have a friend in Piers Morgan. He did him a great service in the ITV interview tonight – and while it would have made CoffeeHousers nauseous (if they watched it), it will be the best television the PM will get this year and probably ever. Mark my words: the Labour Party will not produce anything that shows Brown in such a sympathetic light. It was powerful, I’d say, because it was not party political propaganda: Morgan genuinely likes Brown and did his utmost to project the human side of him. Those hours of coaching from Alastair Campbell paid off. He kept smiling in a credible

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It is Brown and Balls versus Darling and Mandelson again

If there was a story in the Sunday papers of a split between David Cameron and the two most senior figures in the shadow Cabinet over economic strategy it would be the talk of the town. But because it is about Brown and Balls versus Darling and Mandelson it is on the inside pages; it is as if the split over economic policy between these four men is priced into Labour’s standing. Patrick Hennessy reports that Brown and Balls would like to use the Budget as a pre-election springboard, announcing larger than scheduled increases in public spending and challenging the Tories to match them. Such a move would be economically

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

A ceasefire in the VAT war?

Has another dividing line faded into the sand?  It sure looks like it, going off this Times report on how both Labour and the Tories are considering hiking VAT to 20 percent.  If you recall, it was thought that Brown blocked Alistair Darling’s plan to introduce the rise in last year’s Pre-Budget Report – and all so he could attack the Tories over reports that they would do similar.  The PM will find it a lot harder to stage that attack after this morning. A few weeks ago, the rumour was that Labour would make keeping VAT at 17.5 percent a “main election pledge”.  Whether that pledge now appears, or

Friday

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Quote of the day | 11 February 2010

Is it just me, or is there something grimly hilarious about The Man Who Claimed To Have Abolished Boom-And-Bust describing our recent economic turmoil as a “one-off”?  Yep, here’s Brown in today’s FT: “We are paying a one-off cost for globalisation.” More seriously, this is the technocratic side of Brown which Downing St will hope to contain during the election campaign.  Calling the recession and its rocky aftermath a “one-off cost” is unlikely to play well with people who have lost their jobs and businesses.

David Blackburn

Lance Price: Brown became PM when his skills were declining

Gordon Brown is a creature of habit. Every morning at 7:30 he holds a telephone conference with his cabal of Shakespearean fools, who review the papers for him. I imagine a scene of domesticity, of coffee and muffins, an adoring wife and child milling about offering tactile affection – a hand on the shoulder, a kiss on the head. But then again Brown is a latter day John Knox and this morning he must have sat in pale fury as an aide summarised the extract from Lance Price’s latest book, published in the Independent. Price, Andrew Rawnsley and Peter Watt share the same lexicon. ‘Unforgivable’, ‘not a nice place for

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

A perky PMQs<br />

The Tory graveyard poster – brilliant and shocking – cast a long shadow over PMQs today. The debate itself came down to fine judgements about the validity of the leaders’ arguments. Cameron demanded to know if Brown planned to introduce this grim levy or not. He quoted acidic comments from senior Labour figures who’ve called the tax ‘a cruel deception’, ‘badly costed’ and ‘poorly constructed.’ Brown’s response, which seems reasonable, is that the Conservatives ‘voted for this in the House and now they’re refusing to help us to give local authorities the resources they need.’ His plan was to turn the issue into a question of Tory inconsistency whilst taking

David Blackburn

The Tories’ dirty tactics are dispiriting but effective

This death tax levy is gutter politics at its most visceral and it’s thrilling drama. Brown’s and Cameron’s loathing for each other is pure soap opera, and they’re having a right old slanging match. I agree with Pete, it is dispiriting to see the Tories stoop to misrepresenting policies, the show-stopper in Brown’s repertoire. Together with Cameron’s personal attacks, the Tories have surrendered the high ground, but as Iain Martin notes is anyone really surprised? The Tories have been expecting, righty, Labour to fight a grubby election campaign and have decided to fight Brown’s mob with fire. Personal attacks appeal largely to those whose minds are settled, so I see

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 10 February 2010

Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1200: And we’re off, bang on time.  First question on Labour’s elderly care plans.  Brown delivers a load of platitudes about how the government is committed to better care.  Even adds that he hopes for cross-party backing. 1201: Cameron now.  He leads on elderly care plans too – and how they will be funded.  With a nod to a letter in today’s Times, he adds that people who will have to implement it thinks its disastrous. 1202: Brown’s on fiesty, if typically disingenous, form.  He says that he “knows how [Cameron] likes personality politics”.  His substantial point, though, is that the Tories supported

Peter Hoskin

Has that Tory poster made Brown’s job easier in PMQs?

Yesterday’s Guardian story about a potential death tax would have been perfect material for Cameron in PMQs. Even after Andy Burnham’s denials, there are still legitimate questions to be asked about it. For instance, would the government say that they will never propose the tax? And, if not, how will they pay for their social care guarantees otherwise? Fired across the dispatch box, these enquiries could have put Brown on the back foot. But now that the Tories have jumped the gun, and released that poster attacking a Labour policy which isn’t actually a Labour policy, they’ve rather limited that line of questioning. If the death tax comes up, all

Peter Hoskin

Cameron attacks tax-happy Brown

A strident interview from David Cameron in today’s Express, in which he touches on everything from inheritance tax to not, never, ever joining the Euro. It’s this passage that jumped out at me, though: “Middle Britain has had a wretched time under Labour. This Government has taxed mortgages, marriages, pensions, petrol and travel and raised national insurance and the top rate of income tax. We cannot keep squeezing hard-working families.” Why so noteworthy? Well, off the top of my head, this is the first time that Cameron has referred to the current system as a “tax on marriage”. In which case, you wonder if the Tories are planning to place

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The problem with that David Cameron ad

Labour’s new ad with David Cameron facing both ways highlights what was wrong with the Tories’ opening ad of the year, that one dominated by Cameron’s face. The Tory strategy for the election campaign has to be to try and make it into a referendum on this failed government. But that ad, which emphasised Cameron so strongly, gave Labour an opening to try and turn the election not just into a choice between two parties but into a referendum on David Cameron and Tory policy. Labour’s success in doing this is largely responsible for the Tory wobble. The contrast between Cameron and Brown does work to the Tories’ advantage. But

Peter Hoskin

How should the Tories respond to those Labour guarantees?

If you’re going to take anything away from Andy Burnham’s press conference this morning – apart from his denials about a £20,000 “death duty” – it’s how heavily those Labour “guarantees” are going to feature in the election campaign.  Here we had social care guarantees, cancer treatment guarantees, waiting line guarantees, and even a new website and poster (see above) attacking the Tories for not signing up to the same guarantees.  So far as the government is concerned, it matters not that these pledges have been made before – what matters is the opportunity to draw more dividing lines across the landscape of British politics.  “Caring” versus “cruel”, as far