This is Gordon Brown's big week - he's finally a Labour prime minister addressing a Labour party conference.
I'll leave aside for a minute the fact that he's destroying the last vestige of democracy inside the Labour Party this week and instead highlight two comments form the Observer today which show the mountain he has to climb if he is to live up to the expectation of those of us who think it is a Labour prime minister's job to effect social change for ordinary people, here and abroad.
Take Ruth Sutherland first:
The Prime Minister and his acolytes have been cheerleaders for the low-tax, high-risk, bonus-heavy City culture that has proved such a fertile breeding ground for this disaster. In their zeal to promote financial services as the saviour of a UK economy stripped of manufacturing, Brown and his followers have been far too uncritical of the buccaneers. Ordinary people in overborrowed Britain, in hock to a fragile housing market, will reap the consequences of the Brownian boom.
Then Nick Mathiason:
Campaign groups are pleased that Brown is passionate about poverty eradication. But they are wary of being manipulated in what could be an election year. Others are keen to bring issues such as tax justice into the development debate but the government has shown little signs of acknowledging these.
Brown's got a long way to go to acknowledge the link he must recognise between these two comments.
But will he? Is he destined for greatness, or not? I'd be bold enough to say that if he could address these two issues and change his policy to suit he could be.
But I'm not holding my breath.
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i have absolutely no doubt that Brown will have no intention of undertaking any confrontation with the corporate lobby and certainly not prior to a successful electoral approval of his premiership.
However, im looking to forward to attending a fringe Fabian debate on inequality tomorrow evening , where I hope toy get the change to put your above point directly to Ed Millband.
Hi, Tom, interested to hear if you managed to get your question in. I didn’t make it myself but wasn’t sure if the ‘equalities’ of the fringe title was the sort of equality I was interested in anyway. Saw EdM at another fringe event today but didn’t manage to get selected by chair Polly Toynbee – probably because she knew what I’d ask!
Bumbled into an FT fringe on ‘the City’ yesterday evening – pity there weren’t enough sceptics in the audience – Kitty Ussher, the Treasury bod on City matters, got off far too lightly. I’ve got a promise to go and see her – perhaps we can combine forces in some way – I represent the Labour Land Campaign but I also support TJN.
Carol,
unfortunately I didnt get the chance. As you seem to have picked up on, economic inequality wasn’t the prime focus anyway, with a much greater emphasis being placed on issues of discrimination.
Top end inequality was touched on very briefly by EdM but there was certainly no discussion of tax reform. This despite the headline behind the meeting being the 85% Fabian poll result in favour of reducing inequality between rich and poor.