Anthony @ 12:00 BST
Gordon Brown fulfilled his dream to become Prime Minister yesterday after more than a decade of waiting and pledged a decisive break with the Tony Blair era.
After spending almost an hour at Buckingham Palace with the Queen – twice as long as the departing prime minister – Mr Brown made a short stirring speech in Downing Street before entering the door of Number 10 for the first time as leader of the country.
Mr Brown, clutching the hand of his wife Sarah, finally stepped out from Mr Blair’s considerable shadow with a promise to heal the divisions within his party and the country over the Iraq war.
He also signalled a new, more low key style of government in stark contrast to the flamboyance of his predecessor.
“This will be a new government with new priorities,” Mr Brown said. “I remember words that have stayed with me since my childhood and which matter a great deal today: my school motto, ‘I will try my utmost’.”
There was conspicuously no mention of Iraq, the issue that dogged the final years of Mr Blair’s premiership and he repeatedly emphasised that he could provide the country with the “change” it wanted.
He stressed that his domestic priorities were “change in our NHS, change in our schools, change with affordable housing, change to build trust in government, change to protect and extend the British way of life”.’
Mr Brown said: “This is my promise to all of the people of Britain. And now, let the work of change begin.”
I’m glad that Gordon Brown acknowledges that change is needed, tho’ it’s a bit strange coming from someone who served in Blair’s government for ten years.
Gordon Brown has worked under the shadow of an unscrupulous power politician for too long. Will he able to break away from the systemic mould that (Reagan and) Thatcher had initiated and Blair carried on with it both at home and abroad? But we should be able to see how Brown operates and how far he can move away from the vicious legacy of Blair.
Hi, Sudhan.
I’m cautiously hopeful that the changes Brown brings about will be more than just a few new faces in his current Cabinet reshuffle.
I’ve long believed that the people with the real power, the Money Masters, operate behind the scenes, and Prime ministrs are limited in the change they can bring about.
As Lord Rothschild said, “I care not who makes a nation’s laws as long as I control it’s money.”
And as Disreali said, in his book Conningsby, “The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those not behind the scenes.”
“Will he able to break away from the systemic mould that (Reagan and) Thatcher had initiated and Blair carried on with it both at home and abroad?”
“I’m cautiously hopeful that the changes Brown brings about will be more than just a few new faces in his current Cabinet reshuffle.”
– Guys… I wish you could see me, right now… my heart’s all a-flutter!
“I’ve long believed that the people with the real power, the Money Masters, operate behind the scenes, and Prime ministrs are limited in the change they can bring about.”
– And THAT, my friends, is the reason for my eternal optimism!
Another poodle-in-training, guys.
Brown might turn out to be what Johnson was to Kennedy and that might be good thing and then again it might not be.
Blair is gone, now we have Bush and Cheney remaining, that’s one down and two to go.
“Another poodle-in-training, guys.”
Don’t count on it, Uber. Brown was privately against Iraq War, tho’ went along with it to keep his job as Chancellor.
When he met Condi Rice, they didn’t get along, which must be a good sign.
Hopefully, Brown is more likely to be what Nixon was to Johnson. While Kennedy increased the number of (non-combatant) US troops in Vietnam, there is oral evidence to suggest that he was going to pull them out. It was Johnson who got Congress to agree to hostilities after he lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and Nixon, for all his faults, who ended the war.