Tony Blair would be President of the EU, but only if they give him enough power. This is one good reason for Gordon Brown to fight giving the EU power [or at least the President role], as Blair being President of the EU would be his nightmare.

This is a perfect reason to re-post William Hague's speech in the EU (Amendment) Bill in which he paints the picture of Brown receiving Tony Blair as "Mr President"...

Watch the video of Hague's hilarious demolition of Gordon Brown in his speech on the EU (Amendment) Bill below [via Harry Hook].

Or read the text here at Daily Referendum.

Even Miliband can't help from laughing!

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?

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.

The "iPod generation" [an acronym for young people who are insecure, pressured, overtaxed and debt-ridden, but also quite a good description in a more physical way] has been throroughly screwed over by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and the Labour Party during the last decade. I wrote on this back in September, and the same facts have been reached through another investigation:

"The average graduate will face an effective tax rate of 47.2% in 2012 as a result of these factors, it says, including student loans and pension contributions... While rising house prices [now eight times the average earnings of 22-29 year olds] have exposed sharp inequalities between the generations, the report says that over the long term pensions will highlight the divide." (The Times)

My generation has thus been screwed over completely by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - who certainly can't escape any blame for the extra taxes! - during the last decade. We have been completely and utterly screwed over.

When we are facing an effective tax rate of nearly 50% in five years time, it is quite obvious that something has to be done. When this occurs, the entire country will suffer. The iPod generation will have to pay the costs of the welfare state, especially pensions, without getting any of the benefits.

We have all been failed by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and the Labour Party.

Source: The Times

The contest for the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party is "a cross between Big Brother and the Muppet Show" says David Cameron, to which Tony Blair's reply was basically 'I agree' as instead of refuting the statement he said "with the greatest respect to all my colleagues who are standing for the deputy leader: the leadership is the important thing." The leadership for which there was absolutely no vote at all, by anyone - not even an affirming vote. Nice to see that Blair has kept his love of democracy going all these years.

The most important question is, however - which Muppets are they [I'm going to do Blair, Brown, and Prescott as well]?

Tony Blair just has to be Kermit the Frog - the ringleader, who hogs all the limelight, despite seeming pretty incompetent. Especially since it's not easy being green - when you want to jet off all over the world, that is.

Gordon Brown is Sam the Eagle. because he's dull, boring, and usually wrong.

John Prescott can be none other than Sweetums. Just look at the picture, and guess why.

Hilary Benn just looks like Beaker. He may be described as an "orator" but I can never hear all that much more than Beaker's meeps...

Hazel Blears is none other than Miss Piggy. Who else could constantly follow Kermit (aka Tony Blair) around?

Alan Johnson is Clifford, because he's coooool, man. And he wears sunglasses.

Peter Hain just has to be Fozzie Bear. Because he is orange. Hain doesn't have any other distinguishing features, really.

Jon Cruddas is Gonzo the Great. "Do you really think this will work?" Gonzo's reply: "No! Isn't it great?!"

Harriet Harman doesn't appear to have a Muppet alter-ego - that I can discover right now, anyway...

Please let me know if you agree or disagree with [or have any other comments on] these classifications in the comments!

More people die every month in Zimbabwe than in either Darfur or Iraq. Rape, torture, and murder by government officials is commonplace. Mugabe has systematically destroyed the Zimbabwean economy by evicting white farmers and giving their farms to political friends, and once prosperous farms become desolate- and he wants to do the same to foreign-owned businesses. Zimbabwe has gone from the breadbasket of Africa, to a basket-case.

Yet will anyone help? Does anyone care? Over his decade as Prime Minister, Tony Blair has spent a lot of time on foreign policy with wars and intervention all over the world, most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq, and yet has done nothing about the abuses in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe is arguably as, if not more, oppressive than Saddam Hussein had been in Iraq.

This is an interesting look at the relationship between the Queen and her Prime Ministers, from the Downing Street YouTube channel. It features Tony Blair, John Major and Ted Heath.



via Dizzy Thinks

Whilst on his farewell tour of the world, Tony Blair met Nelson Mandela, who welcomed him to the "club of retired presidents". Yet he meets neither requirement. Blair is neither yet an ex-leader and has never been a president in the first place - however much he ran his Cabinet and his government like he was. He may be eligible to join the club of ex-world leaders from 27 June, but not that of presidents, how much he may have wished to have been one.

We have the Queen as our Head of State, not a politician. And that is certainly a good thing. If Blair had been President instead of Prime Minister, I shudder to think what could have happened to the country in the last decade.

Until 27 June (26 days away still), Tony Blair is officially the Prime Minister of Britain. He really shouldn't be doing a farewell tour at all yet but, if he won't let Brown take over officially, he should be running the country whilst Gordo and the deputy leader contenders tour the country. Especially since Prescott has also swanned off to top up his tan, who on earth is running the country?!

Source: The Times, The Metro

Gordon Brown is now Prime Minister-elect, as John McDonnell has conceded the contest since, with Brown being nominated by 308 Labour MPs, there are barely enough of them left to get McDonnell to 45 nominations even if they all nominated him - which they all wouldn't.

So now that Brown is facing no opposition for the leadership and Prime Minister-ship, I just have to ask the same question as Ellee Seymour - Why must Brown wait another 42 days? Certainly after the deadline for nominations tomorrow at 12.30pm Brown should be able to take the reins of power, and Blair should resign.

Why should the country have to suffer another six weeks of political paralysis as we wait for Blair to finally go, a resignation that has been expected since September. The sooner Blair goes, the sooner politics and government can begin moving again. The sooner the better.

Sources: BBC, The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph

Even though he has only just announced his departure date, people are already excessively over-analysing his premiership. The BBC already has three historians giving "instant expert views" and the Guardian has a similar thing, only with more historians and a higher quality of analysis - including one by Eric Hobsbawm, whose work I normally dislike, but the passage here is quite good.

Neither Blair nor the "Blair years" are yet over or finished in any way. Blair is still Prime Minister until 27th June, and Brown will inherit a majority won by Blair. Brown himself is also too closely tied to Blair's premiership for it to be possible to draw a line under the "Blair years" even after Brown takes over. You can't claim to write the history of an event until it is fully over - and the Blair years aren't.

It is plainly ridiculous to write "historical" analysis of the "Blair years" yet. He still hasn't even left office! It is simply all too modern and immediate to write this sort of thing yet. It is far too soon, at least a decade needs to pass before any real sort of historical analysis can be written. Indeed, it is questionable whether real historical analysis can be written of an era by anyone who lived through it. If you have first-hand memories of it, can you write a history that has even a small claim to impartiality? Not a chance.

Of course, historians - like all people - can never claim to be entirely impartial, as everyone has opinions and makes assumptions. I myself have read some deeply, deeply biased history that has presented itself as the "truth", and it disgusts me. Bias can come in the turn of a phrase ("murderers" rather than "killers" etc), in the selection, analysis and interpretation of sources, and even through just ignoring contradictory evidence.

This doesn't mean that no summation of the "Blair years" can be written - but it does mean that no-one who claims to be, or markets themselves as, a "historian" should write a "history" of it. When journalists write these things, they don't carry the weight that the title "historian" does. Journalists are expected to have opinions; historians aren't expect to, even though they all do - and most of them (in my experience) are on the Left.

The "history" of an event cannot properly be written until a good decade or more after its conclusion, really. And they're best not written until after 30 years when official records become available.

Graphic Hat-tip: BBC

The date that Gordon Brown has been waiting for for ten years is finally known: 27th June is the day that Tony Blair will formally tender his resignation to the Queen. If all goes as planned for Gordon Brown, he will then become Prime Minister. This seems very likely, since the only opposition seems to be either McDonnell or Meacher, who are having to pool support in order to have either one of them stand! The only contest seems to be for deputy leader.

There have been calls for a snap election after Blair finally goes. There is no need for one, and I very much doubt if Brown would hold one if he didn't have to - and he doesn't. Labour were voted in as the largest party in the House of Commons, and thus hold a mandate to govern even without Blair as leader. The British electoral system means that we only vote for our own MP, and not the government itself, specifically, even though most vote for a party rather than an individual. A case can be made that there should be a general election, but one doesn't have to be held, and it would set a bad precedent if one was.

Blair spent most of his speech saying that he thought that: "Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right." Though he did apologise for "the times I have fallen short," which has to be a first for him and probably for pretty much any politician over policy and their record in office. The only thing they ever seem to apologise for normally is sleeping with prostitutes or something!

Now that the departure date of Blair and Prescott is known, the competition for the deputy leadership can get under way. There will be no competition for leader, even if Meacher or McDonnell manage to get 45 MPs to support them - they are simply unelectable, and all they will do is give Brown some legitimacy, since the Labour Party doesn't plan on having an "affirmative vote" on Gordo at all.

Even though there will now be seven weeks of governmental paralysis, after 27th June, politics will be able to actually move on away from the dead duck that has been Tony Blair since he announced that he wouldn't be leader at another Party conference. That is something I am looking forward to.

Sources: BBC - article 1, article 2, article 3; The Times - article 1, article 2; The Telegraph - article 1, article 2, article 3; The Guardian - article, TB's speech,