Premiership of Gordon Brown


's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 27 June 2007 when he accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Tony Blair, and ended on 11 May 2010 upon his resignation. As prime minister, Brown also served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Leader of the Labour Party. He and Blair both extensively used the New Labour branding while in office, though Brown's style of government differed from that of his predecessor. Brown rescinded some of the policies which had been introduced or were planned by Blair's administrations. He remained committed to close ties with the United States and to the war in Iraq, although he established an inquiry into the reasons for Britain's participation in the conflict. He proposed a "government of all the talents" which would involve co-opting leading personalities from industry and professional occupations into government positions. Brown also appointed Jacqui Smith as the UK's first female home secretary, while Brown's former position as Chancellor of the Exchequer was taken over by Alistair Darling.
Brown's government introduced monetary and fiscal policies to help keep the banks afloat during the 2008 financial crisis, and as a result the United Kingdom's national debt increased dramatically. The Government took majority shareholdings in Northern Rock and Royal Bank of Scotland, both of which experienced financial difficulties. Large amounts of money were injected into several other banks, including newly merged HBOS-Lloyds TSB, which received £17 billion. Domestic policies focusing on education, employment and health were introduced by the administration. The Labour Party was persuaded to give Gurkhas settlement rights in Britain by the campaign of actress Joanna Lumley and attracted criticism for its handling of the Scottish Government's release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahithe only person to have been convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
During the first four months of his premiership, Brown enjoyed a substantial lead in the polls. His popularity amongst the public may have been because his handling of numerous serious events during his first few weeks as prime minister, including two attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow at the end of June 2007. However, between the end of 2007 and September 2008, his popularity fell significantly; two contributing factors were believed to be his perceived change of mind over plans to call a general election in October 2007 and his handling of the 10p tax rate cut in 2008, which led to allegations of weakness and dithering. Brown has since claimed that Labour would have won a 2007 election but he did not believe an early election was in the national interest. His unpopularity led eight Labour MPs to call for a leadership contest in September 2008, less than 15 months into his premiership. The threat of a leadership contest receded due to his perceived strong handling of the 2008 financial crisis in October, but his popularity hit an all-time low and his position became increasingly untenable following the May 2009 expenses scandal and Labour's poor results in the 2009 local and European elections.
With the onset of the Great Recession, the Labour government under Brown took the blame from a worsening economic climate, soaring unemployment and the expenses scandal. Brown's cabinet began to rebel; there were several key resignations in the run up to local elections in June 2009. However, Brown was backed by his party. He faced a second attempt to launch a leadership challenge by former Cabinet colleagues Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt in January 2010, but the plot failed to gather momentum and Brown remained as both Labour leader and prime minister to lead his party into the 2010 general election. The election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Conservative Party winning the largest number of seats but falling short of an overall majority.
Brown remained prime minister while the Liberal Democrats entered separate negotiations with Labour and the Conservatives with a view to forming a coalition government. He announced his intention to resign on 10 May 2010 to help broker a Labour-Liberal Democrat deal. However, this became increasingly unlikely and on 11 May, realising that a deal between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats was imminent, Brown resigned as prime minister and Labour Party leader, ending 13 years of Labour government. He was succeeded as prime minister by Conservative leader David Cameron and as Labour leader by Ed Miliband. Brown's premiership has generally been viewed as average in historical rankings and public opinion of British prime ministers.

Labour leadership bid

In October 2004, Tony Blair announced he would not lead the party into a fourth general election, but would serve a full third term. Political comment over the relationship between Blair and his chancellor Gordon Brown continued up to and beyond the 2005 election, which Labour won with a reduced majority and reduced vote share. Blair announced on 7 September 2006 that he would step down within a year. Brown was the clear favourite to succeed Blair; he was the only candidate spoken of seriously in Westminster. Appearances and news coverage leading up to the handover were interpreted as preparing the ground for Brown to become Prime Minister, in part by creating the impression of a statesman with a vision for leadership and global change. This enabled Brown to signal the most significant priorities for his agenda as prime minister; speaking at a Fabian Society conference on 'The Next Decade' in January 2007, he stressed education, international development, narrowing inequalities, renewing Britishness, restoring trust in politics, and winning hearts and minds in the war on terror as key priorities.
On 11 May 2007, following months of speculation, Brown formally announced his bid for the Labour leadership and replaced Blair as prime minister on 27 June 2007. Brown launched his campaign website the same day as formally announcing his bid for leadership, titled "Gordon Brown for Britain". On 16 May, Channel 4 News announced that Andrew MacKinlay had nominated Brown, giving him 308 nominationsenough to avoid a leadership contest. A BBC report states that the decisive nomination was made by Tony Wright with MacKinlay yet to nominate at that point. Following Blair's announcement of his resignation and Brown's bid for leadership, the Labour Party rose in popularity in the polls, gaining three points after months of low polls and trailing behind the opposition Conservative Party. However, Labour subsequently lost this lead.
After Blair tendered his resignation to Queen Elizabeth II, Brown was invited by the Queen to form a government and become prime minister. After accepting the Queen's invitation to form a government, Brown and his wife Sarah Brown were driven from Buckingham Palace to Downing Street. In his first speech as prime minister, Brown said "This will be a new government with new priorities and I have been privileged to have been granted the great opportunity to serve my country. And at all times I will be strong in purpose, steadfast in will, resolute in action, in the service of what matters to the British people, meeting the concerns and aspirations of our whole country."

Core policies

Brown was careful not to imply that there would be any reversals in the key areas of Blair's social policy, or any radical breakaway from New Labour. He did propose a different style of government than that of Blair's much-criticised 'presidential-style' government. Brown was unclear on certain parts of his policies, but he said that a Brown-led government would introduce the following;:
  • Sleaze-busting package: Following the cash for honours scandal, Brown said he would reduce sleaze, which led to the belief that Brown would introduce a new Ministerial Code that would set out clear standards of behaviour for ministers. Brown said that he intended to strip the Prime Minister of some the powers conferred on it by royal prerogativeincluding the ability to declare war. This would give Parliament more powers and rights to vet and veto appointments to senior public positions, in a bid to eliminate cronyism.
  • Environment: Brown pledged to make Britain a "world leader" in combating climate change; there would be large cuts in carbon emissions that were bigger than those of most developed nations.
  • Constitutional reform: Brown did not clarify whether he proposed a written constitutionsomething the UK has never hador a looser bill of rights. He said when announcing his bid that he wanted a "better constitution" that was "clear about the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen in Britain today". He planned to set up an all-party convention which would consider new powers for Parliament and the rebalancing of powers between Whitehall and local government. Brown also said that he would allow Parliament to decide whether British troops are sent into action.
  • Housing: It was suggested that House Planning restrictions could be relaxed. Brown said that he wanted to release more land and make house ownership easier with shared equity schemes. He backed a proposal to build five eco-towns, each housing between 10,000 and 20,000 peopleup to 100,000 new homes.
  • Health: Brown said he wanted doctors' surgeries to open at weekends, and GPs to be on-call in the evenings. Doctors had been given the right to opt out of out-of-hours care two years before under a controversial pay deal signed by then-Health Secretary John Reid, that awarded them a 22 per cent pay rise in 2006. Lord Ara Darzi was appointed to review NHS service delivery, especially in London. Proposed policies included the induction of polyclinics, which would be open to tender and possibly run by private companies.
  • Foreign policy: Brown remained committed to the Iraq War, but said that he would "learn the lessons" from mistakes made in Iraq. He remained supportive of American policies but said that he wanted a "solid but not slavish" relationship with the US.
  • SOCPA: Brown intended to repeal sections 132 to 137 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, thereby enabling protest within the area around Parliament without prior permission from the Metropolitan Police.
  • ID cards: Brown's campaign manager had said that one of Blair's unpopular key policies would be reviewed. The cost of the £5.5 billion identity card scheme was rapidly increasing. However, Brown said on 12 May that he would continue with it.
  • Europe: Brown supported the EU Reform Treaty and repeatedly dismissed calls for a referendum on the issue.