ThunderDragon Blog

To be honest, I couldn’t give two hoots. Religion is a private thing. I don’t care that Blair has become a Catholic and how “moving” the service was or whether Clegg is an atheist. Whatever anyone’s religious beliefs are are simply their own and no-one else’s. It matters not one jot to anyone else. So can we move on please?

Well, he did say it!

Religion and politics should not mix. They are two separate things. Faith/religion is a personal thing, and should remain separate from the public political sphere. Whether a politician is a member of any faith/has any religious beliefs doesn’t make any difference as to whether they can be a politician, so long as they place a divide between their faith and their political actions. Have beliefs, but don’t preach them. Religion should stay out of politics. It has no place in it. Britain is, in practice, a secular society and this should be reflected in our politicians.

The juxtaposition of this with American politics is striking, especially considering that in America there is an official separation between the two

Sources: The Telegraph, BBC

First Gordo continued Tony Blair’s reorganisation of the parliamentary timetable in order to be able to act more like a Presidential administration rather than parliamentary executive, and now he has sidelined the Downing Street switchboard:

A continuation of Gordo’s mobile phone style of government - a change from Blair’s ’sofa’ government, but hardly much - if any - of an improvement.

Rather than being s “different” style of government, Brown appears to have very much picked up where Blair left off in making Britain into a Presidential rather than Cabinet government. Brown is taking on a presidential role even more than Blair ever even attempted. He has no wish to develop a “new” style of government and politics, but is more than happy with the old way of spin and point-scoring.

Brown just can’t help but reveal his Stalinist and centralist, control-freak tendencies.

Image: Beau Bo D’Or
Source: The Times

Gordon Brown has changed from the “sofa government” style of Tony Blair to a new style of his own - mobile phone government. This “direct” contact by mobile phone, sometimes as early as 6.30am, has got so bad that some Civil Servants and policy advisors say that they are deliberately avoiding answering their phone:

“We’ve got to the point where people deliberately avoid taking a call because he phones up so frequently. If you float an idea, he will ask you to write a policy paper on it and he’ll keep phoning you until you’ve written it. It’s absolutely nonstop.”

Dizzy is wondering what special ringtone people might assigned to Gordon Brown, so they know not to answer the phone. I think it just has to be Jaws…

Source: The Times

The Labour Party have spent the last decade making wars across the world, sending our military forces out to more and more places - yet without any more money. The armed forces have been stretched, over-stretched, and then stretched again. This has led to a shrinkage in the size of the armed forces, as more and more leave earlier than they had planned.

“Constant deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and the increasing amount of time spent away from home are key factors causing people to leave the Armed Forces, a committee of MPs said yesterday.
The number of officers leaving the Army and RAF early – and also other ranks in the air force – are at a ten-year peak, the Commons Public Accounts Committee said.
The committee disputed the Ministry of Defence’s claim that servicemen and servicewomen being deployed overseas were “stretched but not overstretched”.” (The Times)

A ten year peak. And yet, despite all the problems known to be existing in the armed forces already - lack of funding, over-stretching etc. - what is Gordon Brown’s first act as Prime Minister? To leave the bumbling Des Browne in position - and to give him another job [Scottish Secretary] to go with his Defence brief.

The MoD are “routinely” breaking their own “harmony guidelines” - the length of time which service personnel are supposed to be guaranteed at home between overseas operations. If the MoD is routinely breaking its own guidelines, they can be nothing less than severely overstretched. The armed forces have operated at a capacity above the highest level envisaged in defence planning since 2001 - that is six years spent working at 110% [or higher]. Yet this government has failed to do anything about it. No extra money, no extra personnel.

Labour have consistently and continually completely and utterly failed to give the armed forces what they need to do what they have been told to. Every Defence Secretary under Tony Blair shares this blame - and most especially Geoff Hoon. And Gordon Brown’s announcement that Des Browne will be both Defence Secretary and Scottish Secretary - he can’t do one job well, so why has he been given another?! - shows that he plans to continue this systematic neglect of Britain’s armed forces.

Sources: The Times

Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet has been announced - with musical chairs pretty much all around, with the only person staying in the same post being Des Browne at the MoD [with Tessa Jowell moving moving from Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport to Minister for the Olympics and out of the regular Cabinet].

Prime Minister: Gordon Brown
Chancellor: Alistair Darling
Home Secretary: Jacqui Smith
Foreign Secretary: David Miliband
Health: Alan Johnson
Transport: Ruth Kelly
Trade & Industry: John Hutton
Justice: Jack Straw
Attorney General: Baroness Scotland
Education: Children, Schools and Families: Ed Balls
Education: Innovation, Universities and Skills: John Denham
Communities & Local Government: Hazel Blears
Chairman of the Labour Party: Harriet Harman
Chief Whip: Geoff Hoon
Environment: Hilary Benn
Work & Pensions and Wales: Peter Hain
Leader of the House of Commons: Harriet Harman
Culture, Media and Sport: James Purnell
Northern Ireland: Shaun Woodward
Leader of the Lords: Baroness Ashton
International Development: Douglas Alexander
Defence and Scotland: Des Browne
Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Andy Burnham
Social Exclusion & Cabinet Office: Ed Miliband

So, as the rumour mill predicted, Miliband got the Foreign Office, Darling got to be Chancellor, and Straw became Justice Secretary. The most surprising thing about the new Cabinet has to be Jacqui Smith as Home Secretary. Yes, it isn’t the same position as it once was having lost prisons and the courts to the MoJ. Her appointment has to be the greatest risk for Brown in this Cabinet, since her only previous Cabinet-level job was as Chief Whip. I have no idea who she is, so the general public won’t have the slightest inkling - which may or may not work in their favour. The appointment of Shaun Woodward, the defective defector Tory as NI Secretary is a bit of a side swipe at Cameron and the Conservatives.

The splitting of the Education brief into Children, Schools and Families and Innovation, Universities and Skills is an odd choice, I think, although it is quite obvious Gordo’s way of saying that he will live up to Blair’s 1997 promises of “education, education, education” himself. It especially seems an odd thing to do whilst parcelling Scotland and Wales off all around the place - Scotland added to Des Browne’s brief [whilst still having Defence], and Peter Hain keeping Wales and going to Work and Pensions with it. It would make more sense to amalgamate Nothern ireland, Scotland, and Wales into one ministerial brief, with a name such as “Department for Devolved Government” with a non-Cabinet Ministers with specific responsibilities for each area - including England, of course, which should it’s own Parliament.

Making Harriet Harman Leader of the House of Commons as well as Party Chairman and Deputy Leader seems odd, and implies that Brown has no more respect for Parliament than Blair did. Since she also keeps hold of her Minister for Women portfolio, Harriet Harman really is going to be spreading herself rather thinly for a while.

Despite having as long as he did to organise his first cabinet, Brown hasn’t got it perfect. He has kept in enough Blairites to say that it isn’t a complete break from the past, and brought in enough new [and young] faces to mark it as “different”. But I don’t think he has divided the jobs up quite right and to the right people - but we shall see.

Now that we know what Gordo’s first Cabinet looks like, we just have to wait for David Cameron’s response will be in the reorganisation of the Shadow Cabinet [and I suppose Ming Campbell's as well].

UPDATE: A very brief glimpse of Brown’s first Cabinet meeting as PM [via The Spectator Blog]:

As we are waiting for Gordon Brown to announce his new Cabinet - he has apparently promised the BBC the name of the new Chancellor by 6pm - it would be nice to remind ourselves who is currently doing what:

Prime Minister: Tony Blair
Deputy Prime Minister: John Prescott
Chancellor: Gordon Brown
Foreign Secretary: Margaret Beckett
Home Secretary: John Reid
Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor: Lord Falconer
Chief Whip: Jacqui Smith
Party Chairman: Hazel Blears
Commons Leader: Jack Straw
Culture, Media and Sport: Tessa Jowell
Defence: Des Browne
International Development: Hilary Benn
Education: Alan Johnson
Environment: David Miliband
Health: Patricia Hewitt
Trade and Industry: Alistair Darling
Leader of the House of Lords: Baroness Amos
Transport [and Scotland]: Douglas Alexander
Work and Pensions: John Hutton
Communities and Local Government: Ruth Kelly
Northern Ireland [and Wales]: Peter Hain
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster/Cabinet Office: Hilary Armstrong
Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Stephen Timms

What will happen to them? Several we already know are leaving - obviously Blair and Prescott, but also Reid and Armstrong - but who else is to get the chop? The rumour mill has be active, and when Brown starts to announce his new Cabinet, we will see how accurate it was!

Gordon Brown entered the Palace to kiss hands [but not literally] just a few minutes ago, and has presumably by now been invited to form a government by the Queen. So he has now achieved his ambition of at least the last 24 years, since he became an MP, and formally taken over from Tony Blair. He has managed to last ten years as Chancellor, the longest anyone has ever served, and thirteen years as the heir. No matter what you think of him, that is some success.

However, now he has to face the reality of the situation. He can no longer pull his Macavity act whenever anything goes wrong, as it is now his responsibility. Who will he have in his new Cabinet? We will find out soon - and since he has had so long to do it, he cannot get it wrong.

He is going to make a statement when he gets back from the Palace. What are his aims for his premiership going to be? We should soon find out…

UPDATE 2.48pm: Gordon Brown has just left the Palace as Prime Minister.

UPDATE 2.55pm: Extracts from Brown’s speech just before he enterted 10 Downing Street:

“I just accepted the invitation of Her Majesty the Queen to form a new goverment… This will be a new government with new priorities… at all times I will be strong in purpose, resolute in action… I want the best chances for everyone. That is my mission… As Prime Minister I willcontinue to listen and learn from the British people… This need for change cannot be represented by the old politics… I am convinved that there are no wekanesses in Britian today that cannot be overcome by the British people… I promise to do my utmost…”

UPDATE 3.05pm: The Number 10 website has already been was updated with Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. It was as Brown left the Palace, but seems to have changed back for some reason… Wait, it’s back again! I wonder what happened there?

Click to enlarge

UPDATE 4:

Nick Robinson on Brown’s first speech as PM here.

Tory Radio has the audio of Brown’s speech online here.

The Times have the full text of the Brown’s speech here.

UPDATE 5: Brown’s speech on YouTube:

Today is Tony Blair’s final day as Prime Minister. In just an hour or so, he will no longer be Prime Minister. At his last PMQs, he got a standing ovation from MPs on all sides.

He has now just left 10 Downing Street for the last time on his way to the Palace, to formally resign from office. As they left, Cherie Blair had a very direct message to the media: “We won’t miss you at all”.

Very soon after Blair formally resigns, Brown will be called to “kiss hands” although not literally. Very soon we will have a new Prime Minister and a new Cabinet.