So Gordon Brown is to officially move into Number 10 Downing Street. At long last, or so the Brownites say. Others are not quite so enthusiastic. Some worry that the new prime minister will ditch the reforms of New Labour in favour of some brand of Scottish socialism. Others worry that Brown, unconstrained by Tony Blair’s drive to make Labour acceptable to the aspirational classes, will find new ways of taxing the rich and not-so-rich so that he can continue his drive to redistribute income. Still others worry that his tendency to enclose himself within the circle of a few adoring colleagues will shut him off from the advice and criticism that every national leader must have.
Others, among them my American friends, worry that Brown’s idea of ‘the special relationship’ is that the United States and Britain should join together to lead the world in fighting poverty, to the neglect of the fight against terrorism, and devote their resources (most of them American) to lifting Africa from poverty, rather than shoring up the badly underfunded UK and US militaries.
The unfortunate fact is that we cannot be certain that any of these worries are unfounded. But we can make some educated guesses – and they are no more than that – about what to expect from a Brown premiership, always assuming that neither act of God nor act of pollsters nor an inevitable recession intervenes between the chancellor and his move into the top job.
Son of the manse
Start with the man. Those of Brown’s advisers who conceived the silly campaign to Blairise the chancellor have, it is to be hoped, been defeated. He will never look as smartly turned out as Blair or David Cameron, who, after all, has had a lifetime of exposure to the rules of formal and informal dress, reflected in his unfailingly perfect appearance strolling the high street, riding dogsleds in the Arctic, visiting troops in the field, or appearing in the Commons. Nor will he ever develop Blair’s easy relationship with everyone from heads of state to pop musicians. Blair styles himself as, and in many ways is, a regular guy. Brown definitely is not. He is what the French call un homme sérieux, and what the British more easily recognise as a son of the manse, a man whose Scottish Presbyterian father imbued him with a work ethic that is reflected in his abhorrence of unenforced idleness and his many welfare-to-work programmes.
Which is no failing, since the chancellor knows that he is not Blair, not the charismatic Bill Clinton who dazzles Labour audiences at party conferences, not the photo-op-friendly Cameron. Judy Garland, whose life was not exactly a model to be emulated, did have one thing right when she advised, “Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a second-rate version of someone else”. And Brown’s self is a massive intellect wrapped in a rumpled suit and topped by an unruly thatch of hair. Best left that way, with his sense of fun and his hearty laugh confined to private moments.
