Re-writing history...

Perhaps a revision (of Gordon Brown's time as Prime Minister) is in order, writes Jonathan Freedland in today's Comment is Free. He concludes with the words, Labour, whose future prospects partly depend on knowing what to say about its recent past, should do it sooner... And therein lies the point. Gordon Brown was the worst Prime Minister in British history - Freedland's piece makes that quite clear if you read between the lines. The real agenda here is not about putting right the catastrophic mistakes which we are still desperately trying to overcome, but the fact that Labour is unelectable until either the popular conscience has forgotten about Labour's disasterous economic mismanagement or the history of that dark period is re-written. With the chilling words Labour... should do it sooner, Freedland begins the process. 

And still Gordon Brown cannot see his complicity...

And still he (Gordon Brown) cannot see his complicity. "This is an issue about the abuse of political power..." he said of Murdoch's news-gathering tactics. Well, duh!, you might say. But oddly enough it isn't, or not as he meant it. At its core, it is an issue of the abuse of political power not by Murdoch, but by Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, David Cameron and every other elected quisling who supped with the devil not with a long spoon but from the devil's own satanic hands. "I came to the conclusion," Mr Brown went on of his urge for a judicial inquiry, "that the evidence was becoming so overwhelming about the underhand tactics of News International to trawl through people's lives, particularly the lives of people who were completely defenceless." Sweet Lord Jesus, isn't the point of a Labour prime minister to defend the defenceless? "I'm genuinely shocked to find that this happened," added the Captain Renault of Kirkcaldy. "If I – with all the protection and defences that a chancellor or prime minister has – can be so vulnerable to unscrupulous and unlawful tactics, what about the ordinary citizen?"

Brilliant piece by Matthew Norman on Gordon Brown's intervention into the phone hacking scandal. It concludes with a call for a Bill of Rights designed to forever formalise the relationship between the electors, commercial interests and the elected.

The great leader is angry

More revelations from today's Times on new Labour - this time the behaviour of one Gordon Brown.

The Times leader(£) comments "When someone comes to write an epic poem about those years, they will run out of words that rhyme with bonkers." Priceless.

The fall of the house of Labour

The Times has been running a great series on New Labour this week and today's episode entitled 'As the share prices tumbled, so did Labour's reputation for competence' relates the rising Brown terror as New Labour died.

Lord Turnbull, Permanent Secretary at the Treasury through the Brown years, suggests his old boss could not admit his own mistakes, "On fiscal policy, he fell into the trap of buying into his own story too heavily, of rejecting other points of view, still less criticism... This was more delusion or wishful thinking than a deliberate attempt to mislead. The failure of new Labour was a failure of self-questioning."

And from the Times leader -

Three pillars supported Labour’s attempts to build economic credibility. Fiscal discipline, supporting the aspirational middle class and its committment to wealth creation - that the business and regulatory environment was designed to encourage economic growth not just to punish its winners.

Each of those three pillars crumbled under the direction of Gordon Brown. When growth stopped, he refused to admit that he had to reduce public spending. When the top rate of tax was raised to 50 per cent in 2009, Tony Blair remarked to friends that it was “the moment new Labour died”. Labour’s relations with business soured to the extent that David Miliband could lament that the party fought the last election without the support of a single business leader.

The Brown Years

Just been listening to Steve Richards new book 'The Brown Years' being serialised on Radio 4. The first of three episodes tells the story of those first few months in 2007 when Brown took over as Prime Minister - the brief honeymoon through the summer and the catastrophic decision to pull out of an election he had himself hyped up simply to 'wind up' the tories.

The first thing that hits you is Ed Balls' role. This man was right at the heart of the Brownian cabal, describing not just events as they unfolded, but detailed emotions and thinking that characterised his bosses every move.

The Education secretary was not only there at Brown's side, he was tying the blindfold, tightening the noose and pulling the lever. Both Douglas Alexander and Ed Miliband were blamed for 'the election that never was' in September 2007. Both were briefed against to Adam Boulton by number 10. Both by Damian MacBride. Both on the instruction of Ed Balls. Both of which were denied on the program, but in just too general terms, 'I have never in my career...' by Ed Balls.

Did Gordon Brown know this was going on? asks Steve Richards. No answer. But an interesting consequence was that the famously-close Brown treasury team which had moved across to number 10, was now fatally fractured and would never again provide the same coverage.

The 'election that never was' left Brown in limbo - a non-elected Prime Minister, unpopular with a savvy electorate. As Peter Hain put it, the Brown premiership 'never recovered'.

Thereafter, Brown was wickedly mocked at PMQ's, his integrity lost with another enquiry into party funding, whilst the loss of Inland Revenue data disks screemed of incompetence. The seminal accusation of dithering was later reinforced by the ill-judged private signing of the Lisbon Treaty - as if the occasion were something to be ashamed of.

Disaster piled on disaster as events quite beyond Gordon's control blew up. But the media had already shifted. The narrative which Gordon Brow had so singularly failed to tell of what his ambitions for the premiership were had already turned from triumph to disaster.

The Great International Development Leader

Having supported Guido earlier, I now remember why I found it so surprising. Guido is now running a story that Gordon Brown is trying to return to the shadow cabinet as International Development Secretary.

I really can't think of a more stupid, irrational and unlikely move. Even for Gordon Brown.