Coffee House Shots
Is Gordon Brown back?
Subscribe to The Spectator in September and get three months of website and app access absolutely free. Follow the Tory's Leadership Campaign, Labor's Inaugural Budget and the US Elections with Britain's Best and Form Journalists and get your first three months free only in September. Go to spectator.co.uk/sale24. Hello and welcome to the special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots. I'm James Hill and I'm joined today by Patrick Mulgar of The Times and Katie Balls of the Little Earth and the Spectator. It was Guyston who once said, "Former Prime Ministers are like untethered rafts drifting around harbors, a menace to shipping." And on this podcast we've discussed a lot about the menace to the shipping of under Rishisunak, but now of course it's the turn of a new Labor Prime Minister and his relations with the two people who previously held that role, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Now Katie, in your column this week, you talk about how Gordon Brown popped into the treasury where he was master for ten years last week to visit Rachel Reeves in Downing Street. Tell us about that. As you say James, Gordon Brown was a surprise visitor in the treasury last week. At the first time the former Labor Prime Minister and Chancellor has been there since leaving government. Now I think that clearly when you join the dots you think, "Well, Gordon Brown entering the treasury ahead of a potential winter fuel payment rebellion." Gordon Brown of course being the Chancellor who brought the allowance in. Rachel Reeves being the Labor Chancellor who is acting it. Was the meeting about that? I think close to both sides saying, "No, no, no, it wasn't specifically about the winter fuel payment, but you can't help but feel that will have come up." Notably Gordon Brown hasn't publicly spoken about the payment in a negative or positive way, so perhaps there was some handling there, but also I think there's a question which is what does Rachel Reeves take from former Labor grandies and someone in the Kierstama? Because I think Alistair Darling, the late Alistair Darling was very much a mentor for Rachel Reeves, but Gordon Brown has summoned she has gone to for advice many times. And you do see in this Labor government, I think because it's been obviously over 14 years since anyone was in government, a tendency to try and find those of experience, which is just naturally because compared to the Tories you haven't had that many, you know, nearly as many prime ministers. It means that you have a bunch of Brownites and Blairites who I think are now starting to make their presence felt in this government, whether it's, you know, in the Department of Health, Alan Milbourn, others advising, where it's treating, you have, you know, brands for mayor policy head looking into review and environmental regulation. And I think, you know, Gordon Brown, it's not a former role per se, but it certainly I think has many who are more of the Brownite view and perhaps they hope to see with that quite excited that, you know, their man might be influencing things. And Patrick, obviously you've seen the Kierstama, someone who values experience, for instance, he chooses excellent committee chairman to be his ministers, do you think we're going to see more of these kind of appointments in the future and sort of relying on the two men who previously helped the job of prime minister and obviously ran the British country for 13 years. I think Kierstama, you're absolutely right, does value experience. And in Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, he has two people who are not shy of giving the new generation the benefit of that experience. You know, I've lost count the number of cabinet ministers who've told me of getting unrequited advice from Gordon Brown. The fact that, as Katie says, nothing has leaked out about his views on the Winter Pula Lounge, where he hasn't made a public intervention suggests that relationship is going well. From what I hear, there are peaks and troughs in how Gordon Brown feels that Rachel Reeves is responding to his advice. And you can always tell when Gordon Brown has tried to fail, tried and failed to win an argument within government because he appears on the comment pages of The Guardian, clowering, trying to advocate for a new policy proposal, because those policy proposals first appear on the phones and in the email inboxes of cabinet ministers at all hours of the morning. But I think definitely, given what you say about Kierstama's love of experience and his, you know, he sees himself as sort of post all the TB, TB psychodrama. He's quite happy to listen to the advice of people who've been there and done it. And, you know, Alan Milbourn has been a great mentor to us, treating for a very long time in opposition. So it's unsurprising. He wants to bring him into the Department of Health as a non-executive director. But the question always with these people, with Blair of Brown is, what do they actually want? You know, with Brown, he was advising John McDonnell pretty intensely during the Corbyn years and Corbyn himself, you know, when John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn were discussing with Bob Curzlake whether to sat Kerry Murphy as chief of staff. The meeting was actually interrupted by a by a by a phone call from Gordon Brown. So, you know, they Gordon Brown is a very tribal labor guy who has always given labor people the benefit of his wisdom. Tony Blair has this part political, part corporate empire. He's a consultant to any government who'll ask, you know, very deeply and intimately involved in the politics of the Gulf, you know, has corporate relationship with Oracle, which is a big health tech company. The question for Keir Starmer is, what do these guys want? And what, to what end are they advising me? You know, when Tony Blair is saying, listen, Keir, AI is going to solve everything, you know, is he speaking with his foreign prime minister's hat on or his corporate, corporate lobbyists hats on? It's an interesting question. And it's one that's not going to go away. But as Katie wrote in her excellent column this week, nauseatingly good as I described, it's Katie. I like to make people feel a bit sick. It was it was so good. It made a rival columnist, a friendly rival columnist, green with envy. But I yeah, Katie's absolutely right that these people are going to be a fixture of this government, not least because of the lack of government experience. So many of these comparatively young members of the labor cabinet have. And then I mean, it was quite interesting this morning. I was reading an interview with Tony Blair, where he talks about, you know, he wishes every day he was still prime minister, perhaps not every day, but he feels, you know, he would still like to be doing the job. And it's clearly something I think that lots of former prime ministers feel because, you know, or former presidents and so forth, you go from being such an influential, important person that activates those to change. And then it's quite hard to replicate that feeling and say you might get, you know, very, very well paid, obviously much more money than a prime ministerial salary job. You can still obviously feel that so what you're doing is really quite small for I drop in the ocean compared to the old thing. And you know, you hear these stories of obviously about, you know, Tony Blair and the TBI as Patrick mentions, but you know, almost buying like a pretend checkers and intense with property. So I'm not trying to dive too deep into Tony Blair's psyche, but I think we can we can join some dots there. I think for Rachel Reeves, there's also a question which is something I say in the column this week, she is obviously facing a lot of criticism from her party at the moment. I think not to make this all about each other's columns as Patrick writes today. She has faced down her rebels. I mean, there's been a lot of talk. There's still unhappiness in the party. But I think one of the regular critiques that Rachel Reeves keeps getting from the unions and others is that she's similar to George Osborne. Now, her team obviously shrug that off and think it's a ludicrous comparison and so forth. Even if they lay like some of the things politically in terms of pitching that Osborne and Cameron did. But Gordon Brown, I mean, I was speaking to a former Gordon Brown advisor this week and they were saying that it probably, I'd imagine Gordon Brown may have similar thoughts, but Gordon Brown was quite good at obviously, you know, sticking to Tory spending plans initially, making some tricky choices, but suggesting there was a point to all this. And I think that certainly I think some of the Brownites and I was looking at the current messaging from this number 10, number 11, and they can probably they're doing the first bit. But perhaps not the purpose bit. And you can obviously get advice from grandis, but you know, whether you take it and apply. I remember when I interviewed Rachel, who was just before the election result, and I said, you know, are you taking advice from different, you know, from chances, I said, yes, I speak to them all, but you know, I've got to be my own chancellor. So there's always going to be, you're not going to want to look like you're completely following someone's playbook. But I do think some of you would like to see a bit more Brown at the moment in that way. Yeah, and as you say, Katie, the fiscal frameworks completely changed as well. Patrick, you write in your columns, you know, talking about sort of jam tomorrow and sort of hope and optimism. What is that going to look like over the kind of short to medium term? Obviously five years time labels will be reelected. But how do you kind of talk about fiscal realism, make some of the savings they need to while also, as you talk about having a bit of hope and change and all the positive stuff to what I think when this criticism is put to number 10 and number 11 as it increasingly is, they say, we are still in the first hundred days of this government, the first phase of this government was always going to be pinning the blame on the Conservative Party. And the combination of party conference and the budget are the point at which we can start to cast all of this doom and gloom in terms of what it is for, you know, we'll certainly get a lot of that in key star was conference speech. Rachel Reeves, while the budget is going to be full of awful news for Labour and peace and indeed tax payings and anyone who was hoping to spend a couple of hundred million on a big infrastructure project, you know, I'm told there will be, she will show a bit of a, she will try and spin a narrative about what this is all for, you know, as Katie puts it, you know, we've had loads and loads of prudence, I think both Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are aware of the need to start sketching out the purpose, even if they don't immediately change their tune to open change, which isn't going to happen. You know, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, it's no coincidence that Ben Dunn, who used to be Keir Starmer's communication supreme is now Rachel Reeves, communications supreme. Both of them at another three stage plan as a result of that. And Rachel Reeves is three stage plan is, you know, fixed the foundations and then move on to rebuild a better Britain. You know, this week at the parliamentary Labour Party, she was literally waving a copy of the Labour manifesto in the face of terrified MPs saying, you know, well, the first lines in this document is stable public finances. And only then can we get the rest of this stuff, the rest of the more sort of radical, hope you change your stuff that we like to talk about. Only then will we gain permission. And so I think party conference is the time they can do it front is the time they need to do it because you can't take a message of doom and gloom to the party faithful who just helped you win the biggest landslides since 1997. But that balance is going to be a tricky one. But, you know, when does it go from being a party management issue to a public opinion issue? Are you frankly looking at the approval rating? It probably already has. But again, I think both number 10 and number 11 are very well aware of the fact that go too far the other way, you end up in the Richie Cinek and Jeremy Hunt zone, which is where you point to a single decimal point increase in GDP and say, everything's amazing. Look at how great a job we're doing when people at home will say, hang on, no, you're not. I still feel poorer. So it's difficult balance to strike. But in party management terms, if nothing else, I think party conference, the budget will hear the new music will light in somewhat, but it will all be about the difficulties since we're taking now are for this purpose. And as Katie Rantsen says, they've lacked the second half of that. West Street, he did a very good job of saying it in his very damning diagnosis. Lord Darcy's very damning diagnosis of the NHS this week. He said, you know, take these decisions now, we can have a brilliant health service, et cetera, et cetera. Rachel Reeves does a bit of a kid's stomach has basically done very little of it. And I think there's an awareness that that probably needs to change as a political imperative. Yeah, because I think it's fine to say, oh, I'm fine being unpopular, but you have to be unpopular for a reason. Yeah, it's fine. You have people in number 10 and others say, oh, we don't mind that, you know, I think today, there's a poll suggesting kids down those now, as I'm popular, always favorability ratings are as low as the Hartley-Pill by election, which is obviously a difficult time for him. And I think people can get behind this idea of making these decisions in your first year. What have Boris Johnson's problems as well as, you know, many others? And the pandemic did make it harder was there wasn't really a point where they made the trickier decisions. And then it meant you got sown in the election and then some of those decisions haven't been taken. So there's a point on cycles. But I just think I always remember Liz Truss said she was happy to be unpopular soon after she said she was fine for it. Apparently others were not in terms of the prescription. So I think that quite quickly, he has some needs to avoid not that I think he's going to have a mini budget to be very clear. He's having an actual budget and the OBR legally will be consulted these days because of the new law. But I think he does have to quickly get to the point of this is why we're going to be a bit unpopular for X. Otherwise, you are just, you know, it's almost like, yeah, I'm fine being unpopular. It doesn't matter if I'm not invited to your party. I'm okay. And there has to be a reason. Thank you, Patrick. Thank you, Katie. And thank you for listening to Coffee Outshots. [MUSIC] (upbeat music) You