[PDF file]: […] a small majority, few predicted the results that trickled in on 18 June 1970 – Heath winning with an overall majority of 30. Labour casualties included George Brown (deputy leader), Sir Dingle Foot (Solicitor General), Anthony Greenwood (Minister of Housing) and a significant number of less prominent personalities – Woodrow Wyatt, Stan Newens, Robert […]
[PDF file]: […] proved you knew why those taboos were important and could be trusted to place an ironic fig leaf over the offending areas.’ On non-graduate comedian Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown: ‘Like Bernard Manning, he was simply not acceptable in polite society.’ On audiences cheering Brown’s remarks on asylum seekers: ‘And he was quite clear he meant […]
[PDF file]: […] of MI6 John Scarlett and ex-Blair chief of staff Jonathan Powell. Portland figures in addition to Campbell and Allan were Powell’s brother Chris; Martin Sheehan, a Gordon Brown PR man and Steve Morris, a one-time Blair adviser. The third Powell, Baron Powell of Bayswater, who was special envoy to Blair after long service to […]
[…] $2.07 at its peak in 2007). A strong pound is bad for the British manufacturing economy, making exports expensive and competing imports cheap. But Blair (and Chancellor Brown) didn’t care about manufacturing – or simply didn’t understand the impact the value of sterling had on it – or both. After all, we had the […]
[PDF file]: […] Halifax, Foreign Secretary; Reginald Dorman-Smith, Minister of Agriculture; David Margesson, Secretary of State for War; Lord Simon, Lord Chancellor; Sir Kingsley Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Ernest Brown, Minister of Labour; William Morrison, Postmaster-General; and Lord Caldecote, Lord Chancellor.3 Among those not explicitly branded as guilty, but still retained, was Lord Reith, known for […]
[…] took office in 1974. That narrative says that Labour politicians don’t understand the economy and can’t be trusted with it. This narrative had such power over Gordon Brown and Tony Blair that they spent the period in opposition from 199497 endlessly endorsing it and promising not to challenge its perceived prescriptions. When he was […]
[PDF file]: […] the world does not include political approval or disapproval. NuLab didn’t understand this. Their initial posture towards the City was fear mixed with buttkissing. As chancellor, Gordon Brown may have famously not worn the expected dinner suit for his address at the annual meeting of the City bigwigs, but as his central policy that […]
[PDF file]: […] and interests are not beneficial and are opposed to the armed forces. The unit is well placed to do this because its members are civilians.”’ When Gordon Brown dips into the bullshit basket he calls for some global action which he knows will never take place but which he thinks sounds impressive. His latest […]
[…] 3 hour TV profile of Tony Blair in mid February. Would it tell me anything new about the man? Probably not. Mr Blair summarised? He and Gordon Brown continued Mrs Thatcher’s destruction of the manufacturing sector of the economy; gave the bankers their heads and helped create the economic crisis of the mid 2000s, […]
[…] 3 hour TV profile of Tony Blair in mid February. Would it tell me anything new about the man? Probably not. Mr Blair summarised? He and Gordon Brown continued Mrs Thatcher’s destruction of the manufacturing sector of the economy; gave the bankers their heads and helped create the economic crisis of the mid 2000s, […]
