Jon Snow
So Peter Mandelson tells us Gordon Brown could handle a TV debate during the elections against David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Mr Cameron has responded by saying he wants one. This returns me to a theme I’ve visited before on Snowblog, and that relates to the nature of our own presidential politics. Britain’s democratic deficit…
Gary Gibbon
A former Cabinet Minister tells me it is “exceptionally unlikely” that Gordon Brown will lead the Labour Party into the next election. Labour rebels acknowledge that some support for the project has gone but claim some new blood is coming in, in particular from the soft left. The argument runs that the “opportunity cost” of…
Jon Snow
When history comes to review the Brown government, it has every chance of proving an unhappy event. Gordon Brown’s takeover from Tony Blair settled uneasily into a sad and dispossessed period of ‘readjustment’ to the global financial catastrophe. But one of history’s other asides in reviewing the Brown government may yet come to rest on…
Gary Gibbon
Gordon Brown at his press conference just now sounded like a man rehearsing his lines for Friday when Norwich North looks like getting a Tory MP. He said he thought “people do understand the uniqueness of this by-election” in answer (or rather in reply) to a question about why he deselected Ian Gibson. David Cameron…
Gary Gibbon
Why did Gordon Brown refuse the generals’ call for extra troops ahead of the Afghanistan/Pakistan strategic review published in April? It’s the real bugbear that underpins the other rows about equipment resurfacing today. The assumption amongst many in the MOD is that it was purely about money. But that might be underestimating the “political” elements…
Jon Snow
Yes another one joins the House of Lords for life. Alan Sugar is yet one more Labour appointed member of the Upper House pushing the number of peers well beyond the 700 mark.
I am losing count of the Gs. Yesterday we had the G8 + G5 (including China and India) + 1. The 1 was Egypt. Today we have the G8 + 9 + 7, which includes African nations and international institutions like the UN, but perhaps we should take away 1 from that list – so…
By the time you are reading this I hope to be supping on mozzarella di bufala in a medieval Italian hilltop town full of churches stuffed with paintings by Renaissance masters. The reality will probably be that I shall be going through umpteen security scanners along with some 3000 other journalists queuing for the G8…
Just off the PM’s plane in sunny Rome. Brown relaxed and on good form. The worst month of his premiership behind him? Though of course this could be his last G8, with election next year.
Gary Gibbon
Just been interviewing the Prime Minister on a train trip north… it’s the nationalised East Coast line and it is now crawling along because of signal problems. Gordon Brown clearly feels that David Cameron has too readily slipped into personal attacks on his integrity over claims that he’s used statistics dishonestly. He thinks the row…
Gary Gibbon
Out and about with the Prime Minister on his round-England trip today and you are very struck, listening to him addressing a business breakfast this morning in Leeds, by a sense of economic optimism. Not just a sense that the Budget growth predictions could be right but that they could be exceeded. That would mean…
Gary Gibbon
Cabinet this morning acknowledged that the “cuts versus spending” line of attack which Gordon Brown has been pounding out at top volume for weeks has been a bit of an own goal and ministers this morning talked about “refining” the message. The new mantra is supposed to be “more realistic”, I hear, with messages like…
Post-meltdown Mansion House was always going to be a little different from the traditional orgy of self-congratulation, backslapping, and an ever lighter regulatory touch. But in the end the bruising speech came from the governor of the Bank of England rather than the chancellor of the exchequer.
Gary Gibbon
Latest update from the Speaker hustings where potential candidates for the job are speaking.
Gary Gibbon
The Prime Minister will announce an inquiry into the Iraq war this afternoon. Given the nature of the military and intelligence material that’ll be under scrutiny Whitehall is expecting this to follow the precedent of the Franks Inquiry into the Falklands and be held in private.