Thursday, May 10, 2007

Will Gordon Ask Tony For His Advice?

TIME Magazine has an interview with Gordon Brown today. You can read it in full HERE. The final question is quite revealing. I somehow get the feeling that Gordon Brown won't be allowing any backseat driving...
TIME: As Prime Minister, will you be calling Tony Blair for advice?
Gordon Brown: I hope we'll remain friends for a very long time. We first met about 25 years ago. We shared an office for quite a long time. We talked through all the issues that were relevant to the creation of New Labour. Every political relationship undergoes ups and downs but there's no time in modern British history where you've had the same Chancellor and the same Prime Minister for 10 years. And so it's been quite a unique political partnership and I will always feel honored to
have served under his leadership.

That's be a 'no' then...

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Judging by the first and last sentence it does not look like honesty is going to be a feature of a Brown government any more than under Blair.
Best comment from another politician who was an opponent was from Michael Howard yesterday. Gracious and honest, traits that I don't think Brown possesses.

Anonymous said...

"You can have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power."

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Anonymous said...

Everyone I've spoken to today who has heard any excerpt from Blair's Soliloquy said that they've wanted to vomit.

Unknown said...

Blair will probably step down at the next election anyway and take a backseat in the meantime, so we will be denied our fun. Shame!

Elliott said...

Maybe if he did call Mr Blair for advice he could learn how to accomplish not very much in particular as well ...

David Anthony said...

Don't know if you are watching Newsnight or QT, but on Newsnight it seems to be a five-on-one attack on Michael Howard rather than a judgement on Tony Blair. That's BBC balance for you...

David Anthony said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David Anthony said...

Quote from NN: One of Tony Blair's great legacies was making sure a racist Conservative leader could never make it into office again


...Disgraceful

Anonymous said...

Newsnight BBC balance:
Polly Toynbee, David Hare, Alister Campbell, Alan Milburn, Charles Kennedy v. Michael Howard.
Does Paxman ever look at Andrew Neill's programme and feel ashamed ?

Anonymous said...

Not only is M. Howard outnumbered, Paxman allows him to be talked over and interrupted when he has his few opportunities. Beyond parody.

Anonymous said...

fr - its the producers and above, living out their psychotic trotskyite wet dreams that are menace.

David Anthony said...

Howard vs. Campbell ... one of the classics.

Anonymous said...

I am not going to log in to make a comment on Doughty Street. Why "must I be logged in"?

Here is the comment I would have posted in the correct place, had there not been restrictions:

"Any chance, in simple words, that 18 Doughty Street can learn that VIEWERS WANT TO KNOW WHO IS TALKING? How hard is it to put up transparencies every 10 minutes? I mean, is this a technological marvel?

"Why have you failed to solve this problem sinced I first complained about it four months ago?

"Identify who's speaking. Otherwise, I don't see any point in tuning in to watch a bunch of anonymous people mouthing off." The man dressed all in black was very interesting, and at the end of the programme, when the host was thanking the guests, I found out he was Sean Gabb!

Time to lose the 'amateur night in the Ozarks' ethos.

Iain Dale said...

I was watching from 10-11 and the captioning was at exactly the right frequency, I thought. I wasn;t watching between 11 and 12, but it was the same director. Are you seriously telling me you saw no captions?

Anonymous said...

In otherwords they disagreed 25 years ago and haven't seen eye to eye since.

Anonymous said...

lol verity. how sad.

Anonymous said...

verity said...
I am not going to log in to make a comment on Doughty Street. Why "must I be logged in"?

Because that's what the site owners want you to do, hypocrite.

How many times have you berated other posters for daring to question or comment on the content or setup of Iain's blog? What gives you the right to swoop in like some screaming harpy, demanding that the site be redesigned so it works for you.

"Why have you failed to solve this problem sinced I first complained about it four months ago?"

Because, you arrogant bint, as Iain rightly points out, there is nothing to solve...it works as intended.

When you get a website, then you get to dictate how it works. Until then, just f*ck off.

Chris Paul said...

Brown said neither yes nor no, which is a proper answer to an impertinent trap of a question. Say yes and the media pounce, say no and the media pounce, say your mates and the media can stuff it.

Anonymous said...

Iain - Thanks for your response. I promise, I would not have been motivated to write in if I hadn't been so irritated.

I tuned around 11 your time and watched through to the end, and there were no captions. The viewer wants to know who's talking in order to place the comments in context in their own mind.

I didn't know that the man dressed all in black was Sean Gabb! - although I thought he was very interesting. No wonder!

Admittedly, one can go to the site for who's going to be on before the show, but I forget - partly because, due to the time difference, when the show starts your time, watching TV is the last thing on my mind - and just tune in and then am all at sea.

I've just advised a British friend of mine in Houston to watch, and I have a couple of American friends in Houston who tune in, so you cannot expect your guests to automatically be known to everyone.

Many thanks if this gets resolved because it is so annoying! And thank you for responding.