Gordon Brown

[OpenMind]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... w_24092006



Brown vows to change way Britain is governed

By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor

(Filed: 24/09/2006)

Gordon Brown today commits himself to a "new politics" and a change in the way that Britain is governed, in a radical personal manifesto for the leadership of the Labour Party.

The Chancellor believes that the Government "still has lessons to learn", more than nine years after Tony Blair entered Downing Street, and must be more accountable to both Parliament and the public.



His comments, in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph on the eve of the Labour Party conference in Manchester, will be seen as an attack on Mr Blair, with whom he admits to having had "ups and downs".

Only days before the Prime Minister's farewell conference speech as Labour leader, the Chancellor – still the strong favourite to succeed Mr Blair – would only characterise their relationship as "a pretty effective partnership".

"We need a new way of communicating with the public," he said. "We need, if you like, a new politics, and that means also changing the way we govern.

"It means more accountability both to Parliament and the public. It means more transparency about how decisions are taken. And it means, wherever you can, taking power out of the hands of the executive … I've learned a lot from what we've done in the Treasury and there are lessons we can learn for the future government of the country."

The Chancellor's insistence that there are lessons to be learned and his plans for wholesale changes are likely to anger Mr Blair and his supporters as they suggest that Mr Brown believes the Prime Minister has made major errors during his nine years in charge.

Significantly, Mr Brown also appeared to distance himself from Mr Blair's unstinting support for President George W Bush. Asked if he would be as close to Mr Bush as Mr Blair, the Chancellor replied: "I would hope I would have a strong relationship with all world leaders, including the President of America."

The Chancellor spoke to The Sunday Telegraph on a whistle-stop trip to New York last week. He indicated that he would sweep away Mr Blair's "sofa" style of government, in which decisions are taken by a small clique of advisers, and the spin and sleaze rows that have dogged the Prime Minister's time in office.

In their place would come a return to Cabinet government, a greater role for Parliament and a wholesale devolution of powers in providing public services that are likely to see politicians losing day-to-day control in a wide range of areas, including the NHS.

The plans could also see the abolition of an entire ministry, the Department for Trade and Industry.

His officials later suggested that Mr Brown was also studying plans to give Britain its first written constitution, a document that would enshrine the roles of monarchy, government, parliament and judiciary, as well as the legal rights of citizens.

Mr Brown, who was born in Fife, also pledged that, if he became Labour leader, he would "stick up for -middle Britain" against "narrow nationalism in Scotland".

Surprisingly, he also held out an olive branch to his fiercest Blairite critics, the former Cabinet ministers Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn. Asked whether they had a future under him, he answered: "Of course. All people who've got an interest in the future have got a right to be considered for office."

On the timing of Mr Blair's departure, a bone of contention for Labour, he stuck simply to his line that it was for the Prime Minister to "decide what he wants to do and I will support him in doing that".

It was in his plans for changes in the way Britain was governed, however, that his strongest policy ideas came. He insisted that these were not designed to be a direct attack on the Blair years, but instead were meant to address problems that increased "over the last 20 or 30 years".

Mr Brown intends to use as a model for reform his decision in 1997 to give operational independence to the Bank of England in setting interest rates. He sees a future in which politicians set the broad strategic policy for a public service, and civil servants, or independent outsiders, deliver what is needed.

"It means the devolution of power from central government to local communities and to individuals," he said. "It means, wherever you can, separating out the business of setting policy, which is for politicians, and the business of implementation and administration, which should be done by civil servants, the public services or in some cases external bodies like the Bank of England, without political interference."

Mr Brown will make his speech to the conference, which he hopes will be his last before becoming prime minister, tomorrow followed by Mr Blair on Tuesday. The signs are, however, that Mr Blair will still not give a definite date for his departure or endorse Mr Brown as his successor.

The Chancellor defined the "main challenges" facing Britain as "security and terrorism, stability and global competition, strong cohesive communities and how they can be built and sustained".

In a separate interview, for The Politics Show on BBC1 today, Mr Brown opens up another front against Mr Blair by suggesting that he would curb the Prime Minister's drive for a bigger role for private companies in the NHS.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.

[OpenMind]

The idea of placing power with communities is one that appeals to me. The ideas presented are generally all appealing, save some concern for how we would devolve power over some institutions. But can we trust someone who has robbed us blind and run up a serious deficit in the country's coffers? Could we really see this man giving us back our individuality?

[OpenMind]

Here is a comment by The Sunday Telegraph.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... w_24092006



Which Gordon is to be believed?

(Filed: 24/09/2006)

Readers will find two different Gordon Browns in our pages today. In News, we meet a relaxed, modest Mr Brown, who assures us that he believes in Cabinet government, decentralisation and an end to spin. In Business, we audit Mr Brown's nine years as Chancellor: nine years in which the Treasury has arrogated powers to itself, raised taxes and swollen the public payroll.

Which is the true Brown? For the better part of a decade, the Chancellor stuck rigidly to his brief, turning aside every attempt to draw him onto more interesting ground. Once, told that his interview on the Today programme would last 10 minutes, he exclaimed: "Good God: I'll even begin to bore myself." Only very recently has he started to discuss his political credo.

But while Mr Brown has given us few words to judge him by, he has given us plenty of deeds. Under the terms of his 1994 compact with Tony Blair, Mr Brown was allowed to range widely across domestic policy. Indeed, he privately (and rather cheekily) described himself as prime minister to Mr Blair's president. We are, therefore, in a strong position to measure Mr Brown's assurances against his actual record.



Few would dispute the notion that Britain needs a more collegiate approach to government. From the first, Mr Blair relied on a tight cabal of advisers, concentrating enormous power in the hands of unelected officials and opening himself to allegations of cronyism. But would Mr Brown be so very different? His Cabinet colleagues are queuing up to confirm off the record what Charles Clarke said publicly: that Mr Brown is cussed, distrustful and unable to delegate.

The same is true of spin. Voters are heartily sick of a government that lives from headline to headline. But Mr Brown has been one of the worst offenders, tucking away the tax rises in his budget announcements so that they seep out days later, and announcing the same spending commitments again and again – and that was before this new, mawkish tendency to brandish his children before him for the cameras.

Most preposterous of all is the idea that he would devolve power. Mr Brown has fiercely resisted even the tiny, halting attempts that Mr Blair has made to increase parental choice and empower individual hospitals. He has used the tax system to reduce the freedom of all citizens, forcing more people into means-testing and dependency. He has squeezed the productive part of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented expansion of the state sector.

It is this meddlesomeness, this belief that the gentleman in Whitehall really does know best, that makes Mr Brown the wrong man for our time. This newspaper has been saying so for months and, if the polls are to be believed, the electorate is reaching the same conclusion. But there is no sign that Mr Brown's own activists can see it. That is Labour's tragedy; but it may soon be Britain's, too.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.

[OpenMind]

Yet, he's not all bad. Here is another article which reveals another part of Gordon Brown.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... xml&page=5

[Uncle Kram]

The only thing that is certain about Gordon Brown is, if elected to the top job, he couldn't possibly make a bigger hash of it than Tony Blair has. I can sum up the reason I lost faith in Blair in 2 words. Alistair Campbell.

[venus]

Im not sure if anyone in the entire universe could have made such a screw up of it as Blair has. Bet he is looking forward to having his leash removed....

I love my country and the vast majority of those who live in it..

But the day Blair and his lap dog war monger playing at house with entire nations leave l will be a whole lot happier.

We in this country are in a position now that we have very little say over the powers that govern it, we cannot control our immagration, children ,criminals.

Which has me chomping at the bit, when the goodie goodies, start bleating on about why is our country in such a state...:-5

ok sorry , calming thoughts....:rolleyes: slowly in out, exhale!!! ahhh:D

[Uncle Kram]

venus wrote: Im not sure if anyone in the entire universe could have made such a screw up of it as Blair has. Bet he is looking forward to having his leash removed....

I love my country and the vast majority of those who live in it..

But the day Blair and his lap dog war monger playing at house with entire nations leave l will be a whole lot happier.

We in this country are in a position now that we have very little say over the powers that govern it, we cannot control our immagration, children ,criminals.

Which has me chomping at the bit, when the goodie goodies, start bleating on about why is our country in such a state...:-5

ok sorry , calming thoughts....:rolleyes: slowly in out, exhale!!! ahhh:D
You're not wrong Venus

[OpenMind]

At the current rate we are going, I can see the day when we will all have to have breath monitors installed in our throats to count the number of breaths we take for a breath tax.

[venus]

During my studies we have to cover social policy.. in fact a whole year of it, l could even read the frustration on my lecturers faces when having to discuss the recent **** ups, oops policies made by the labour goverment..

It feels like they are mind set on removing a power and control from the avarage joe and then wondering why the country is getting srewed..

Now the bloody flower wearing brigade want to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14... have they forgotten the numerous accounts of 10 and above little criminal master minds..

parents have no power, schools have no power and they keep punishing the schools ...logic in that one please.....

now that wish to remove power even more!! from the police and justice system..

I am studying to be a social worker and because of this l get alot of information (sadly l cannot put it or really use it here) th figures are shocking in regards to hte way our younger generations are bgehaving and believe it is acceptable to behave.

now lm not saying beat em in the school and lock em up, but hell yeah the current methods arent working, but holding the hand of a criminal who did it for fun and buying them an ice cream will not help it.

THAT IS REWARDING THE BEHAVIOUR THAT GOT THEM THERE IN HTE FIRST PLACE, l sure do not reward my sons bad behaviour, it is punished..

aaaaahhhhhhh l get so mad and at times it is hard to type and think at the same time.. simply becauser l allow my emotions to enter the picture.

will there be any tears when Blair leaves..... lets just say l don't think so..now wheres that bunting...

[OpenMind]

A case of pluralism leaning heavily on structuralist policies placing the ruling elite neatly at the top of the dog pile. I have asked myself the question why we, the electorate, have not risen up over all the mayhem and chaos caused by these policies.

The schools simply churn out factory and office fodder. The hospitals are crumbling under the weight of administration. Small businesses are beset with expensive legal requirements to operate. The cost of living is too high. The average joe can hardly say a word in public lest he/she offends someone.

In the meantime, while our privileges are being eroded, the hooligans, yobbos, thugs, hoodies, whatever, stick a finger up to it all. They might not be the brightest of the bunch, but they've worked out that ity's all a load of bollocks and we're all being taken for a ride by the biggest scam going.

Individuals lack the wherewithal to do something about it. Everyone says how wrong the policies are, but no one can stand up and do something about it. Such an individual or group would need a clear aim, the ability to express themselves clearly in terms that even the least educated can endear themselves to, and the funds to cover lost earnings in persuing their aim.