Gordon Brown significantly enhanced his position as Britain’s prime-minister-in-waiting in a wide-ranging TV interview in which he promised to change the style of government and set the agenda for Britain’s relationship with the United States.
Brown, currently British Finance Minister, was interviewed on BBC TV’s AM programme. He sketched out how he wants to change the way the country is run by giving more power to Parliament and ordinary people, and less to the state.
In his first public comments on the relationship he expects with the White House, he said: “I look forward, if I am in a new position, to working with the president of the US, George Bush.
“Obviously, people who know me know that I will speak my mind … The British national interest is what I and my colleagues are about.”
His comments will be seen as an indication that Brown intends to adopt a more distant approach to the White House than that of Tony Blair, who has sometimes been accused of acting as Bush’s “poodle”. Brown has strong ties with the Democrats and Republicans, and he will be helped by the president’s loss of control of Congress.
On domestic issues, he said Britain needs “a new kind of politics in this country … a new style of government in the future. If you believed in the past that you could have a top-down approach and a government that simply pulled the levers, that is not how it is going to work in the future.
“I would see the state as the ‘servant state’. I would see government as serving people. I would see the service emphasis of government as being incredibly important.”
Brown confirmed previous hints that he would be prepared to give the House of Commons a vote on any decision to go to war, saying that except in an “extreme emergency” he could not conceive of a situation in which it would not have a role to play.
He envisaged constitutional change to give Parliament a stronger role than existed under Blair, arguing that new issues were emerging that required better parliamentary scrutiny. “We have got to look at the relationship as a whole between the executive, the law-making body, which is Parliament, and the people themselves.”
Behind the vague words is an agenda of change that will see a substantial switch of powers to Parliament, including the power to declare war and peace. He wants to make the security services accountable to a select committee appointed by Parliament rather than one chosen by the prime minister. He wants to revive a proposal to make the police and security services report to a select committee of MPs on the detention of terrorist suspects.
Brown is also keen to improve the delivery of healthcare and education by setting up an independent commission to manage the NHS and possibly one to manage education services.
The biggest style change is likely to be in the office of the prime minister. Brown wants a cull of “spin doctors”. He would like to see them replaced by mainstream civil servants in Downing Street, with other special adviser jobs going to people who have detailed expertise in policy. In effect, this will end the controversial role of special advisers empowered to order civil servants to implement policy.
Other changes would see Cabinet committees given a more powerful role in deciding detailed policies — and the end of the informal “sofa-style” government where decisions were made on the hoof.
Parliament could also be involved in more detailed scrutiny of planned policy changes, and his promise of a “a government of all the talents” was being interpreted as code for bringing in more outside advisers from all political parties to advise ministries on policy. — Â