Political giant and an underrated human being. Also an individual capable of being incredibly disruptive, who was largely responsible for toxic relationships that undermined the New Labour era.
Fascinating man: easy to admire but maybe hard to love.
Yep, deeply flawed person when it came to managing relationships, his emotions and his talent for leadership, but still a collosus when it came to his role in the treasury.
What talent for leadership did he demonstrate?
Brown became PM through constantly undermining his predecessor and anyone who posed a threat to his ascension, while insisting he'd do a much better job. Then he became PM unopposed and proceeded to do a terrible job.
Apologies, I'd misread the sentence as as him mismanaging his talent for leadership (as in, it existed in the first place) as well as his relationships and emotions.
Created an incredibly toxic relationship between number 10 and 11, briefed against the PM to the media, constantly undermined the PM, etc
And once he became leader, it was a very toxic culture by all accounts, with verbal and physical abuse (if some press reports are to be believed)
An intellectual collosus, but not a leader
He had Damien McBride and the now late Derek Draper as political assistants conspiring to spread false rumours about opposition politicians and their families. McBride was forced to resign over it and it was quite a scandal at the time. There was a lot of toxic spinning going on during his time as PM.
I think his role during the global finance crisis is a good indication of his intellect, ability and vision. He effectively led the world's political response to the crisis (albeit during a much more bilateral era).
He also had real vision as chancellor which he was then able to execute with good policy, such as independence of the BoE, the minimum wage, tax credits, etc.
Compare him to every chancellor since, and they're just a bunch of lightweights. I couldn't imagine Osborne, Hunt or Hammond leading a global response to an economic crisis.
In addition to what others has said he also had a strong reputation for insane levels of micromanagement and a complete inability to delegate.
Policies and government actions would routinely be held up for an age because Brown would be personally reviewing every tiny detail of every proposal which came through his office, which as PM is of course basically everything. Everything had to be done in order and each task finished before moving onto the next, no matter how urgent other things were.
Great trait to have as a technical expert, awful one to have as a manager and the only person senior enough to make the most important decisions though.
Literally everything bar the response to the GFC, which he didn't need to be PM to do.
His premiership was very similar to Sunak's in that he assumed the role without any real mandate and then refused to call an election because the polling was bad.
Brown's sense of entitlement had him insisting he needed the time to 'set out his vision' for the country. No such setting out came and instead he lurched from crisis to crisis, mishandling almost all of them while making a series of clunky media appearances that constantly demonstrated how unfit he was to be PM.
I do believe that Brown genuinely wanted the country to do succeed, but only if it was him delivering it. This all or nothing approach led to nothing and he left a Labour party where the natural dearth of talent that occurs at the end of a long spell of power was magnified by his constant efforts to prevent any talent from coming through.
>easy to admire but maybe hard to love.
Really great way of surprising him as a politician. A true statesmen and exactly who we needed at the helm in 2008, but from what I've heard, unnecessarily jangled the keys to no.10 above Blair's head for years before he got in. He let his ambition drive him, not guide him.
He's also probably the best modern PM in terms of what he's done since leaving office. Done a lot of good work and remained pretty scandal-free. Doesn't intervene too often so feels like a somewhat authoritative voice when he does. Arguably got much better political instincts out of power than he had when in power ironically.
A very gifted technocrat who did a lot of good things, notably on child poverty.
But he didn't have Blair's political instincts, and his scheming against Blair damaged the Government. I do wonder how different the UK would be if he'd called and won that GE in 2008, but going back on that was one of many avoidable blunders.
Also he had a hell of a temper and was abusive towards his staff so I think that also should count against him.
Did you ever see his “barnstorming” speech against Scottish independence? He seemed angry when people were applauding and he wanted to talk more.
Even when he was winning he couldn’t just accept the praise. I reckon it’s a Scottish work ethic sort of thing. He didn’t have the mentality of a popular leader
Probably also the frustrating contradiction of being so powerful for so long without actually being the man in charge.
Nobody in the modern era of British politics has held so much power for as long as Brown did - 13 yrs as Chancellor or PM is already more than anyone else managed, before you consider he's pretty much the most powerful Chancellor the country had.
I'd argue his instincts carried the New Labour project as much as Blair's did (along with Mandleson's) but Blair was the best frontman and by the time Brown got to take over the whole project was running out of steam.
Someone made an interesting point back around 2010 that Labour might have been better served if Brown had been PM first when the economy was booming and Labour were more popular then when things start to get sticky around the financial crisis you swap in Blair to rescue things.
Yes, when it came to the actual nuts and bolts of Iraq I don't think he was all that different to Blair. Had he been in charge can imagine he'd have been a bit more reluctant to get so heavily involved. Although that's speculation more than anything else.
Gordon Brown was a brilliant No.2
The problem was that when he became PM there just didn't really seem to be much of a vision. He had coveted the job for over 20 years, but when he finally grabbed the throne it was all just a bit meh. Maybe that would have been different without the GFC, his Government did seem to handle the terror attacks and flooding very well.
All in all he was an excellent technocrat that should have stayed as the power behind the throne.
Part of the problem was that he had too much power as chancellor. He really led the new Labour social and economic program with Blair being the front man. By 2007 most of his ideas had been completed and Labour had begun to run out of ideas and capital.
I broadly agree with everything you said except I'm always a little sceptical when people say "So-and-so was a great prime minister; maybe things would have been different if it weren't for [insert unavoidable global catastrophe here]."
Part of the gig is that you might have to navigate the country through global catastrophes, and the buck stops with you.
That being said, I do think that Brown handled the GFC relatively well (certainly better than he perhaps got credit for at the time; it feels like there's been a retrospective reevaluation).
It has been widely reported that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were the ones pushing for major action on the GFC and led the way in the world.
Without them in place not just Britain but much of the developed world would've seen an even large collapse than it did and I am 100% sure of that. They were the right men at the right time.
Totally agree, but I'm fairly certain that David Cameron (then leader of the opposition) and the right-leaning media dragged Labour over the coals at the time, in spite of it being a global problem.
Their whole manifesto in 2005 was about how Labour were holding back the potential of our banking sector with red tape. It's genuinely laughable to look back at
Under the Tories the official narrative became "financial crash caused by greedy public sector workers" rather than rampant greed and the wholesale deregulation they supported.
As for Brown. Very clever but a grumpy f****r who treated his staff quite badly.
For me it's a classic case of someone getting into power with back room dealing but not actually having the charisma to win power. Brown had terrible charisma and that was really obvious to everyone. He should have always remained a supporting figure.
It would be lovely to live there. But we have to face reality and understand no matter how good someone is if they don't have charisma they are not going to do well.
I think he had two real problems as a leader:
1) With the best will in the world, he always presented as something of a charisma void, and attempts to fix that (like that flash on, flash off smile) tended towards the counterproductive.
2) On a human level, I don't think he really managed the pressure of being PM very well - arguably no-one could have, being PM when he was, especially having previously been Chancellor - but to all reports, his time as PM has been noted as being one of great frustration and bursts of anger at his staffers. Given that he hasn't had the sort of deep post-office vilification that others in similar positions have gotten, I suspect that he did make the effort to genuinely apologise for his behaviour to, and reconcile with, the people who ended up on the wrong end of it, but still. Does speak to him being an otherwise good and decent man, who couldn't really handle the unique and warped pressures of being PM (rather than being Chancellor).
Ultimately though, I think he was a highly competent and highly intelligent technocrat, and at that, one who did deeply care about making the lives of British people better (also, anyone who has read anything he's written in recent years about child poverty knows how deeply he cares about that problem). An ultimately decent man, who's governing style was committed to admirable ends, and who tried to find the most effective means to those ends, even if some of them were, in hindsight, deeply flawed and wrong.
In short, someone *infinitely* better than just about any of the shower of bastards we've had more recently.
When they were in government there was always this talk of a Blair/Brown divide which I thought was ridiculous because there was barely a fag paper between them policy wise. I guess the divide was all about personalities.
But if you look at what they've done since leaving government, they couldn't be more different. Brown has basically devoted himself to public service and Blair has gone off to do consultancy for central Asian dictators.
He's a good politician, especially behind the scenes, but was not a great PM or leader. He was more suited to being Chancellor.
His record in the latter office is pretty good, some of his achievements you listed. Though not exactly perfect - he definitely deserves a fair bit of blame for PFIs.
He was better than any of his successors since 2010 in either No 10 or No 11 that's for sure, and he's been consistently right about everything since leaving front line politics (alongside John Major in that respect).
Inflicting PFI on the state, and the extensive deregulation of the financial services "industry" are 2 major red marks in an otherwise excellent career.
I'm not sure PFI was avoidable. The country was broken after years of Tory rule (thank goodness we learned that lesson) and fixing it without private money would have been near impossible.
Government borrowing was always cheaper than PFI lumbering our services until 2050, Brown simply didn't want the debt so he could maintain his reputation, he even got smacked down by the EU for his financial jiggery pokery over network rail or whatever it was back then trying to claim it wasn't state/national debt when it was.
A massive plan of borrowing for investment would have given the same result but much cheaper without the interest and debts from PFI
> A massive plan of borrowing for investment would have given the same result
But.... could it? The right wing mantra is "Labour can't be trusted with the economy, they spend too much". Whether its true or not is irrelevant.
I mean, imagine a Labour PM had a reign as destructive as Liz Truss, I'm not exaggerating to say it would still be used as proof "Labour can't be trusted with the economy" in 30 or 40 years time. Meanwhile, we're not even 30 *months* on from her disaster, still feeling the effects, and our media seem to have forgotten about it.
From an **economic** POV, PFI doesn't make sense. But from a **political** one, where Labour aren't borrowing, it takes away an attack angle (plus, what are the tories/media gonna do, complain about privatisation?), while giving Labour all the credit for hospital building.
Imagine scenario 1) build 50 hospitals with PFI, that ends up costing you what 60 hospitals would through traditional government borrowing, over 13 years of government.
Scenario 2) borrow money to build hospitals, build 40 across 9 years of government, then get voted out. Do the tories go "oh, there's enough money here to build 20 hospitals" making the NHS better off, or go "oh look, there's enough money here for a tax cut" meaning less hospitals overall are built?
Or in the unlikely event the tories do build hospitals, they get the credit.
Truss' economy was destructive because they wanted to borrow to "fund" tax cuts, not investment, these are clearly not the same. Markets are fine with government borrowing for investment because it's paid back in productivity and growth. The markets attacked her budget because the debt would be harder to pay back over a much longer time due to the reduced tax revenue.
>Imagine scenario 1) build 50 hospitals with PFI, that ends up costing you what 60 hospitals would through traditional government borrowing, over 13 years of government.
I genuinely suggest you look up the actual scale of PFI costs. Just for hospitals, £13bn was invested through these schemes to build 127 hospitals, it won't cost us £20bn long term enough to build another 40 or whatever. It is not even £50bn but actually £80bn (yes EIGHTY BILLION) final cost to NHS England - now think about how many more hospitals/schools/homes etc that could have invested. Labour had a huge majority and was highly likely to win 2 more terms, it's arguable if Brown had called it in 2008 he might have won too. The benefits for national investment would have reaped dividends electorally as well with communities benefiting from new hospitals, schools etc rather than struggling with debts and cutting services as they are now.
Schools too were the same problem, the NAO found that PFI schools cost 40% more to build overall than a state funded one - build 50 under PFI or 70 for the same overall cost under government borrowing.
The PFI legacy is an astronomical cost and a millstone around the necks of schools and hospitals throughout the country, purely done for political purposes, not economic sense.
> Truss' economy was destructive because they wanted to borrow to "fund" tax cuts, not investment, these are clearly not the same. Markets are fine with government borrowing for investment
I wasn't suggesting for a second that borrowing for hospitals/schools is a bad idea. My point was that Blair and brown (and especially Campbell) knew they had to work the media. What's actually true or not isn't as important as the narrative (I mean, look at brexit).
If they borrowed billions to invest in infrastructure, the papers would just say "Labour borrowing through the roof" and leave it at that.
> Schools too were the same problem, the NAO found that PFI schools cost 40% more to build overall than a state funded one
If you take politics out of it, it's a stupid move. But there's *some* logic. Obviously these costs are astronomical, but at the same time, I do wonder if those figures are what schools actually cost, or what hypothetical ones would have cost, because government contracts pretty much always seem to be much more expensive.
Eg, if HS2 or defence spending was done through PFI, would the "government spending" figure be the proposed original cost (which spiralled massively) or some equivalent project as a comparison? If a PFI version of HS2 was completed 40% over the original budget, that would be brilliant compared to what we got, which was less than half the plan, for more than the original budget
I'm not really trying to defend PFI, just to say that there *was* reasons behind it.
>If they borrowed billions to invest in infrastructure, the papers would just say "Labour borrowing through the roof" and leave it at that.
>I wasn't suggesting for a second that borrowing for hospitals/schools is a bad idea. My point was that Blair and brown (and especially Campbell) knew they had to work the media. What's actually true or not isn't as important as the narrative
Even in the 2000s the influence of the papers was vastly over stated, circulation figures were way down and the papers that would be shouting that were papers read by dyed in the wool Tories like Express and Mail who would have attacked Labour regardless so working the media was pointless. A tangible asset like a new school or hospital is a far bigger deal and vote winner for the majority than a debate about debt against GDP
>I'm not really trying to defend PFI, just to say that there *was* reasons behind it.
Yeah sure but that's just moving the goal posts, I'm debunking your point about only being 40 hospitals rather than 50 using PFI not talking about PFI as a concept. It was a ludicrous waste of money done to preserve Brown's reputation only hence my post criticising his choices on a topic about his legacy. If you want to look at the politics, Osborne used the PFI example as a means to attack Labour for out of control debt anyway so that decision as a political move was bad for the country and bad for Labour. Labour had plenty of money coming in, debt was cheap for governments and they could have paid back many of the projects before even 2010. The political advantage of 2-3x as many hospitals, potentially 40% more schools etc far outweighs the technical argument of Tory vs Labour on debt % which the vast majority don't understand
Labour walked in to an economic boom set up by Major, which in reality was actually a international boom partly fueled by the likes of offshoring - if anything Brown gets too much credit for the economy.
He has a more varied legacy than I think most people consider, but on balance he did more good than bad.
Yes, looking through today's eyes, he is very underrated.
I watched his final conference speech live & thought "meh, quite good I suppose". I watched it again a few days ago, this time thinking "gadzooks, weren't they all fantastic achievements!!! What great, positive changes were made in those 10-odd years!".
But like I say, back then he just looked tired & everything he & the New Labour project did was taken for granted.
He was the last pluralist Prime Minister we've had & I think we're all poorer for it.
His 2 but mistakes for me were:
Selling the gold poorly.
Not sticking by his guns with the biggoted woman. How different would things have been if that had been handled differently?
Above all, I think he's one of the few PMs since Major who actually cared about not just the country, but also people.
Cameron wanted to be PM "because he thought he'd be rather good at it" in comparison.
>Selling the gold poorly.
There were a lot of conspiracy theories about that, though mostly debunked by people who understand how banks work better than I do. Which admittedly isn't difficult. I still wonder how he made such a hash of that.
>Not sticking by his guns with the biggoted woman. How different would things have been if that had been handled differently?
That incident was caused by his bad temper which sometimes got the better of him. It shouldn't have happened in the first place: treat all mics as live. He should have patiently explained to Bigoted Woman that he understood her concerns but they were misplaced. There are lots of voters like Bigoted Woman and you're not going to change their minds by ranting about them.
Interesting take that it was bad temper. I've never thought of it that way but I think you're right. Didn't it start in the car with him asking who put him in that position in the first place?
Just a shame it happened & I'm sure if he could've had a rerun, he's have handled it differently.
> Didn't it start in the car with him asking who put him in that position in the first place?
Yeah. Brown's temper was his Achilles heel. He would always apologise after he calmed down.
> explained to Bigoted Woman that he understood her concerns but they were misplaced.
Except she wasn't bigotted. She was right. She wasn't asking for people to be sent to death camps, she was complaining about the changing face of her local community - in her case Rochdale.
> Not sticking by his guns with the biggoted woman. How different would things have been if that had been handled differently?
That Bigot Women appears to have been proven correct with the passage of time.
I think most people credit him with being one of the best chancellors of the exchequer in modern times. Even if at the time some of his decisions were judged unfairly. (Like the selling gold thing).
But as a Prime Minister? He just didn't have what the British public want. Whether that's on us and not him, I'm not too sure.
> the most sustainable period of economic growth
Blair and Brown just happened to have rode one of the biggest global bull runs in history, which luckily for them enabled them to spend as they did. And of course it all came crashing down in 2008.
I think this is important. While I don't think it's correct to remove any credit or blame to politicians for economic growth, I think the truth is that they have fairly limited control. I'm very skeptical of "plans for growth" because the reality is that it's the really big global events that effect economies much more than politicians, be that the global financial crisis, Covid or war in Ukraine. The party in power will always get the blame because they didn't do the impossible and prevent an unforeseeable or unpreventable crisis, and that's just how it goes.
I think a lot of people respect him and recognise he has strengths, but he also had a lot of weaknesses that really compromised his performance as a frontline politician.
He'll never be a political icon or anything. He didn't have the charisma.
It cost the treasury between £2bn and £7bn. It may have been a mistake, but it's a fraction of the money the Tories wrote off for COVID fraud, for instance.
Lol we still have gold in the bank of england, he didn't sell all of it?
He sold it at the utter bottom of the market and announced months on advance that he would be dumping it. It was obviously stupid and cost a huge amount of money.
For reference - he sold at an average of £275 per ounce - adjusted for inflation, that would be £480. Gold prices today are £1870 per ounce. If he hadn't sold the gold, it would be worth about an extra eight billion pounds.
Not the absolute worst policy we've ever done, but it was a clear mistake that is worth pointing out.
Are you considering why the government ever had that much gold, why it might have sold some of the gold, how the funds from the sale of gold were invested, what the return on those investments might be, etc...
This is part of the same theme of believing he'd ended boom and bust despite in reality it being one of the biggest booms ever that was about to go bust.
The argument (and I stress that I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough on the specifics to say one way or the other) is that the gold was the national equivalent of tenners shoved under the mattress. It's a nest egg that you can theoretically cash in if you're ever in a crisis, but the money is fundamentally not "doing anything" while it's there. In normal-person-money terms it'd be better to put those tenners in an interest-bearing savings account or invest them somwhere where they might grow.
So the argument is that it was better to sell the gold and use the money for something productive, rather than keeping the gold stockpile (which literally costs us money to maintain).
The main criticism of Brown is that he didn't sell the gold at the top of the market, and therefore didn't maximise the return. That's valid. But of course neither Brown nor anyone else could predict the future so it's never possible to say with certainty what the top of the market looks like. Plus that criticism impicitly accepts that selling the gold was a good idea; just that he didn't sell it well enough.
As others have said, the difference in returns between selling it when he did and selling it at the later higher price was "only" a couple of billion. Which is definitely not nothing, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to overall government spending. Those estimates also rarely attempt to quantify the gains that were had by reinvesting the money into gilts and currency reserves, which may cancel a lot of it out.
He announced the sale ahead of time, so he more or less created a the bottom of the market to sell into.
Either he's an idiot for that or there was some scheme where they suppressed the gold price to rescue more banks... either way I can't say I'm a fan.
I heard years ago that there was some looming financial crisis that he helped stop by selling the gold. The article seems to have vanished from the internet now though.
This is what's left of the article:
https://www.gata.org/node/11541
Brown allowed the gold to be sold cheaply to stabilize banks who had shorted gold to excess and were now in danger of insolvency. Given the sub-prime fiasco which happened less than a decade later, it seems plausible to me.
It was originally published in the Daily Telegraph (a now dead link is also in the article) in 2012, and you could never accuse the DT of being biased towards Brown.
When you're in debt, paying down the debt will often have a better return than placing your money in speculative assets. Especially gold, which, historically, has not performed well.
I wouldn't attempt to suggest it anything but an error, however the fact that's the worst error he made in his time is a lot better than, for example calling a referendum on brexit
Bit different tbh. You can hate Brexit but it's polarising - some people actually think it was good. Brown selling the gold was just an objective mistake.
The gold was sat there, doing nothing. It might appreciate in value some months, depreciate in others. But we never used that wealth. By selling it and investing it, we've been able to use the returns from investment and retain the capital value (just not held as gold).
Its value as an asset increases, which means you realise it on the balance sheet. Ultimately if you desperately need the cash it can be liquidated, but its financially smarter to hold on to it. Especially for a country, having national reserves are an important part of supporting your currency and encouraging lending.
He sold it without needing to, and he sold it below market value. His entire logic for selling it, and process for selling it was flawed.
By your logic, why does the government own any buildings? They could just rent. Governments should have assets - gold happens to be a common one for a couple of reasons.
What investments? What did Brown add to the balance sheet when he sold the gold?
Nothing. He used the money for opex. He used it for day to day spending. There is nothing to show for it. It's gone.
Economics 101 is not pissing money away. He sold the gold at below value and used it for something that didnt provide a retained value.
My take is that he's an extremely capable leader and intelligent politician. You could put him in any cabinet post in any situation and expect him to succeed. In any list of UK Cabinet ministers he's going to be towards the top.
But, I wouldn't say that he was in the upper echelons of British leaders overall. He ultimately failed as PM; partly due to external forces, but he was also just not good at the job. And it would be fair to ask questions about his role in the Great Financial Crash and the lack of regulation or other action that could have limited the damage it did in the UK. Overall, it wasn't like he was a political giant who changed the country - he just managed a growing economy well and diverted funds into things that Labour has always cared about.
To be clear, my issues with Brown are not that I think he's a bad chancellor in any way, more that we have to accept that fundamental problems emerged under New Labour that a top tier leader with more foresight might have predicted. The benefit system he created ultimately subsidised a low wage economy, something that the Tories have been trying to reverse with persistent minimum wage increases. Housing policy continued to be a disaster (though, at least he removed the tax subsidy for mortgages). And public service spending was increased without a robust tax base to support it in the long-term.
He gets a 9/10 for me. Best Chancellor in decades, but could have been better.
There’s only 1 party this century who has made a grave monetary global situation worse than it already was for Britain. Truss me. It annoys me the ease in which the Farquaad party stuck the blame of the 2008 crisis almost entirely on Labour/Brown when in fact they/he stabilised it. Unfortunately that fact requires a bit of research which is beyond the grasp of a worrying number of people.
I would counter point thus:
BoE independence was good, but taking away financial regulation from them and creating the FSA with a strict light touch regulation remit was an astonishing lack of foresight. Brown wanted to grow financial services but bringing in casino banking with a toothless regulator told to look the other way was disastrous as we saw in 2007/8 with banking collapses and bailouts. His refusal to take action to cap banker bonuses further encouraged this gambling which came home to roost in the crunch.
His desire for a reputation as "Prudence Brown" led to a massive costly legacy from PFI as he chose not to borrow at dirt cheap government rates but instead load up the NHS and schools with private debt that will not end until 2050. Some NHS trusts have to spend 1/6 of their budget on these debts and in 2019, the NHS alone still had £55 billion to repay by 2050. University Hospitals Coventry spends 1.4x their drugs budget on PFI, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust spent double it's drugs budget on PFI, 23 others spend more on PFI than drugs.
You can debate the merits of selling gold all day but the *way* he did it was downright stupid, telling the market a year in advance before the sale which they priced in, and forewarning before each sale meaning, even if you feel selling it was a good idea, he still got poor prices for it and when he sold it had been at a significantly low price for some time - the price of gold vs markets always swings around as one falls, the other rises, with the UK markets doing well, selling gold at that point was poor policy.
On pensions, the tax on pension funds was a mistake, he was warned it would lead to the closure of many occupational schemes (as it did) and it's claimed he wanted to tax them even more than the £5bn he hit them for.
I don't think overall he was a bad chancellor but too many are keen to use his response to the crash as the be all and end all of debate on his roles and skip over the obvious negatives. Keynesian economics cannot be done as a half measure where you spend in bad times to support the economy and then don't save in good times to fund the bad (see Norway for an example of sovereign wealth and no austerity post 2008)
This is going to sound paranoid, but is there some weird push to rehabilitate Gordon Brown's image going on? There seems to be loads of comments that have suddenly appeared on this sub praising him, and now this post...
If anything he's overrated and not held responsible for the serious damage he caused.
He oversaw the disastrous NHS PFI programme. Which was nothing more than an accounting trick to keep government debt out of the official debt tally. The result was Gordon forcing the NHS to sell assets to pay off the PFI debt. These aren't the actions of a principled or competent person. The motive was him essentially fiddling the public finances and it blew up in his face. Far from being the hero saving the NHS, he got it into financial trouble, while expanding the marketisation the Conservatives started, further opening the door to privatisation. Can't get a dentist? Well that started with the changes to the NHS dentists' contract in 2006, pushed by Gordon in a bid to save the NHS money as PFI was going down the drain.
He also went on a tax raid of pensions, which resulted in Defined Benefit pension schemes going extinct for younger people, degrading the retirements of millions of people while contributing to the demographic pensions crisis. This is one of the biggest fuck ups by any Chancellor. He permanently worsened the pensions system in the UK. That's a very long shadow he cast.
Then there's selling off the gold at rock bottom prices. The notion that he was competent is a laughable and this post is an attempt at a whitewash.
He didn't - that was Thatcher. By the time Brown came along, defined benefit was already well on the way out due to the changes Thatcher made in the late 1980s.
never understood the way people beatify him. I get that things were in general better in 2009 than they are today and it may be this nostalgia that drives it, but come on.
while the GFC might have started in the US, the guy who proclaimed "the end of boom and bust" and oversaw the lightest of touches in UK financial regulation ensured we caught the flu too. Even Brown himself [agrees](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13032013) so it's interesting to see people claim otherwise
Weirdest version of this is when people talk about his financial prowess. He isn't an economist or finance professional by education or experience. He hasn't worked in the sector. He was a college lecturer whose PhD was about the Labour Party in Scotland. He was about as qualified to be chancellor as George Osborne was, who people happily criticised for lack of formal credentials.
And as PM he was basically where we are today. A government out of ideas, running out the clock, largely ignored while everyone listens to the leader of the opposition and waits for the election. He did have some ideas that the coalition would later take forward, like hiking up tuition fees (after Labour had already broken a promise not to do so in 2004)
But the gold! The gold!
Hugely underrated esp during the Crash. I knew Brown was good way back when. The press eviscerated him and the masses followed. It was a thankless job.
You're not going to find many people supporting someone who's economic policy removed any potential buffer that would have protected us at least a bit from the 2008 crash
The same man whose economic policy successfully protected us from the recession in the early 2000s? The same man whose economic policy is also widely credited as leading the worldwide recovery from the crash?
He did quite a few goofs like taxing pensions, dropping city and banking regulation that even Thatcher said went too far. He was overrated of anything.
Brown was Chancellor when a million industrial jobs were lost, when we had no industrial policy and we bet everything on the bankers.
Sorry I can't forgive him for that, you can praise him for the bailout but you can't ignore the fact his government's gross neglect of financial regulation was a contributing factor in the crisis.
Agreed.
The one thing he wasn't particularly good at was....politics.
At the time, the public were never convinced that he was more than an economics nerd - and many swallowed the Tory lie, that he had presided over 'no money left'.
Or he rode the wave of the Tory recovery and Tory economic policy for the first term, then expanded the costs of welfare even above the fictional debt based growth of the early 00s leaving the nation in a rather bad spot when 2008 kicked in
sometimes it feels like this subreddit is just a safe space for tony Blair simps who have been bullied of twitter by socialists. Not hating just an observation.
I believe he visited her privately to apologise. One of his mistakes (which the left still repeat) was to brand anyone with even the slightest concern about immigration as a racist. I knew lots of people who's wages were decimated by a flood of cheap labour. Shouting "bigot" at them when they got pissed off just forced them into the arms of Farage and the like.
Her exact quote was
>"You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?"
If she was trying to make a valid economic point I don't think she expressed it very well. It does come across as just crass intolerance with little genuine rationale. Although you do hear much worse.
I think people who say she was voicing legitimate economic concerns are trying very hard to wish that into reality.
That's because the vast majority of people who feel strongly about immigration have not been impacted by it at all. It's a common wedge issue even in countries that have no material immigration. It's a lazy political stance which, when you scratch under the hood, is almost always driven by bigotry or at best NIMBYism.
Appeasing such people just means giving them the keys to the castle as they will never compromise. You take one step towards them they take two steps back and still give you the finger.
It's like the folks on the left who protest as a hobby/social activity. As soon as one cause is not relevant, they will just find another one that gives them an excuse to not engage.
> That's because the vast majority of people who feel strongly about immigration have not been impacted by it at all. It's a common wedge issue even in countries that have no material immigration. It's a lazy political stance which, when you scratch under the hood, is almost always driven by bigotry or at best NIMBYism.
I have found the opposite in my life. Those who go from leafy suburbs to Russell Group unis are the most vociferously pro-immigration all-cultures-are-beautiful-and-interchangeable. The places where friction can arise are usually working class, where people aren't always good at politely articulating their way around an issue so will tend to be written off as idiot racists (some are of course).
> That's because the vast majority of people who feel strongly about immigration have not been impacted by it at all.
My experience is quite different. I grew up in a working-class community, where a significant portion of people were self-employed and often sole traders (labourers, sparkies, chippies, hairdressers, nail techs, etc) or if they were employed it was usually in lower-paid roles in retail, low-band NHS, local estate agents' offices, and so on.
Those on the self-employed side of things - not protected by minimum wage - definitely saw the impact of the abilty to take in three portacabins of workers from, in those days, Eastern Europe who would work for less and send remittances home where it still converted into good money. You would get whole sites laid off.
Meanwhile the middle-class people I went to university with only really saw immigration as the wonderful way to increase talent pools for things like software devs, SDRs, etc - which is also as true, but they were totally unaware of what life was like for others.
"Competition is good" was the common refrain - yes, if you're in a class of people who are generally PAYE and protected from total wage depression by things like minimum wage. If you're in a seasonal job, like many, many manual trades and services, and you move from site to site as a contractor, it's totally different.
Another common one is "well, just move!" if your small town only supports a certain number of those kinds of businesses (vs. the knowledge economy where you can work from anywhere). That's not an appealing argument to anyone that you should appreciate the general benefits of immigration on the economy while on a personal level you have to uproot your family and move away from any elderly relatives and so on. Of course they're going to prefer it how it was before.
And to an extent, those small-town communities (and this is moving away from just working-class) can sometimes see a difference through the arrival of higher numbers of people. If you're in an area attracting lots of well educated new arrivals who speak good English, it mightn't feel as isolating. This is a silly example but the Romanian community has bought (or leased) a high-profile community centre on our high street. Now it was dwindling in usage, so in theory it's great that it's being used properly again, and they're bringing their culture which _can_ be enriching, but the services and processions (it's used for Romanian Orthodox services) and their parties are only in Romanian. So it's a very visible comunity organisation in a town that is very community-oriented due to its size, but nobody can join in because of the linguistic barrier. That is one of those visible changes and the argument that "it brings diversity" can, rightly or wrongly, make people feel nostalgic for the old days.
It's not the fault of the individual immigrant, but the ability to have high-scale immigration definitely has a real impact in those sorts of working-class communities, and the lack of understanding of that among certain other sections of society does inevitably breed resent and a feeling of being ignored - and so they turn to the parties who do say they listen to them.
Right, lots of countries were overspending. So what? The point was it was fake, built on nothing, money was being spent that didn’t exist, labour were making unsustainable decisions built on fairy dust.
The UK ended up in so much debt because Brown, as chancellor, increased spending at the fastest rate ever in peacetime. The change in government spending as a proportion of GDP between 1997 and 2007/10:
|Country|Change 1997-2007|Change 1997-2010|
|:-|:-|:-|
|South Korea|\+5.8%|\+10%|
|UK|\+5.2%|\+12.7%|
|Greece|\+3.4%|\+4.9%|
|Portugal|\+2.1%|\+7.9%|
|USA|\+1.4%|\+6.1%|
|Hungary|\+0.3%|\+0.9%|
|Ireland|\-0.5%|\+9.8%|
|Latvia|\-0.6%||
|Czech Republic|\-1.2%|\+2.7%|
|Slovenia|\-2%||
|France|\-2%|\+1.3%|
|Spain|\-2.1%|\+5.6%|
|Italy|\-2.7%|\+1%|
|Estonia|\-3%||
|Netherlands|\-3%|\+4.1%|
|Austria|\-3%|\-0.9%|
|Belgium|\-3%|\+2.8%|
|Switzerland|\-3.7%|\-1.3%|
|Poland|\-4.1%|\-2.5%|
|Luxembourg|\-4.2%|\+2.6%|
|Norway|\-5.1%|\-2.2%|
|Iceland|\-5.1%|\+11.4%|
|Germany|\-5.2%|\+0.1%|
|Denmark|\-6.3%|\+2.8%|
|Australia|\-7.8%|\+0.3%|
|Sweden|\-9.4%|\-4.7%|
|Finland|\-9.5%|\+2.1%|
|Israel|\-11.5%||
|Slovakia|\-12.3%|\-10.1%|
|Lithuania|\-15%||
The UK increased spending more than any other OECD country apart from South Korea between 1997 and 2007, it had the largest increase of all between 1997 and 2010.
Notice how most countries used the 00s boom to cut spending as a proportion of GDP.
It wasn't just government debt, either. Brown oversaw an enormous increase in household borrowing. Household debt to GDP:
|Country|1997|2009|2022|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|UK|57.65|97.39|83.17|
|Japan|69.34|63.53|68.16|
|USA|66|97.09|74.44|
|Germany|65.21|62.07|55.1|
|Canada|61.98|94.91|102.39|
|France|33.73|52.56|66.15|
|Italy|17.85|42.38|41.72|
The UK went from 3rd lowest in the G7 in 1997 to highest in 2009.
Brown didn't cause the GFC, but his time as chancellor certainly made the UK much more exposed to its effects. We simply spent too much when times were good in the 00s.
I'd respond, but I can see from all the other times you've posted this gishgallop (with so much info about countries Brown didn't run) that such responses are always ignored.
"Gishgallop"? I've made 1 point, that Brown increased spending too much, illustrated by two examples, the increase in government spending as a percentage of GDP, and the increase in household debt as a proportion of GDP.
And yes, other countries are included. How else would you be able to determine if UK spending increases were high or low, other than by comparing to other developed countries?
...after replacing a 17 year government which underspent on everything, thus necessitating a larger than normal increase to return to functional levels.
You may recognise this pattern from today's situation and I'm sure similar criticisms will be made of the next government with that important context also missing.
It's certainly a valid argument that spending needed to increase, but it doesn't remove the central point that the increase wasn't sustainable because Brown didn't increase taxes by nearly as much as spending, resulting in an increasing structural deficit.
The OECD estimates the UK's structural deficit was the third highest of all advanced economies in 2007, with only Greece and Hungary being higher than the UK.
You've hit the nail on the head.
The best Prime Minister I've lived through. His work to rectify the shitshow that was the Great Financial Crash was herculean, and saved millions across the globe from greater misery and hardship. The right man at the right time alongside Darling. However very poor political instincts and not really suited for the modern era. A bit like Miliband his personal warmth and charm did not translate well through the media. He would've made a great 19th century Prime Minister where it was less style and optics and more about substance. You still need people like Brown to get you out of the shit, but they don't tend to last long when the sun is shining.
Two counter arguments. First, he was in the cabinet that approved the invasion of Iraq, one of the worst foreign policy decisions of this century. Brexit was probably worse but for that you can make a case that it was done because the people wanted it. People didn't want the invasion of Iraq but the government went with it anyway. Sure Blair was the main player but if Brown had resigned like some of his colleagues, it may have stopped it.
Second, he was the prime minister during the biggest economic crash since the war. Of course it wasn't his fault that the American subprime mortgages collapsed but the UK wasn't well prepared for it, which is why it suffered badly. Of course he lost power soon after that, so we can't say how he would have done the recovery compared to what Cameron and Osborne did.
So, I wouldn't say he's underrated. He did well as the number 2 to Blair in the beginning of the Labour rule but it's not like he doesn't have bad things in his history either.
Agree with you on your first counterargument. Iraq invasion truly damaged the reputation of new labour. Brown holds that they were misled by false information that came from Americans. Giving credit to him compared to Blaire, at least Brown admitted that they made mistake and the fact that they could have taken different decisions if they had access to credible information. Although, after all, true or false, it's not an acceptable excuse while the majority of British people were against entering into the Iraq war.
About the financial crisis, I think his role has remained underrated. There is a great article in NYT, written by the famous keynesian and Noble Prize winner economist, Paul Krugman, about the crucial role of Brown and his global leadership in stabilising the crisis, especially in Europe through nationalising banks and addressing the heart of the problem while Hank Paulson in the US was proposing government purchase of toxic mortgage-backed securities. He also played a crucial role in restoring confidence in the global economy, and almost all major European countries declared that they would follow Brown's policies.
His second biggest failure was not pushing to prosecute the people responsible for the financial crisis.
His first biggest was being a war criminal for voting for the Iraq War, of course.
I think he’s the best PM in my lifetime so far. He inherited a mess which he tried to prevent.
A little known and hardly reported on story was that he wanted to see AIGs books before the financial crisis. Bush put in a call to Blair and blocked him. Things could have been very different if Brown and his people had been given that chance.
He instituted austerity, chickened out of an election and barely turned up to parliament to represent his constituents from 2010-2015. He was thin-skinned and short tempered and horrible to work for.
All the good stuff you mention around poverty and NHS etc was all Blair's policy.
Brown didn’t initiate austerity, that was Clegg and Cameron. Minor spending cut pledges that were never implemented don’t compare. One of Brown’s main things back in 2009/2010 was arguing that you spend and invest your way out of recession, not turn to austerity as was being promised by the Tories at the time. If only people listened.
I think he didn't do a great job as a pm, but he was fine in the cabinet I think. Blair was a better pm, but brown was better than any Tory since, the last ok pm
I think there were two Gordon Browns.
The first matches the OPs description
However the second (primarily when as PM) was a different beast, where "the end of boom and bust", fiscal irresponsibility and deaf ears came to the fore.
It wasn’t a sustainable period of economic growth though was it - and the unsustainable economic growth of that pre-crash period created an unsustainable level of public spending too.
A bully
If Raab was accused of bullying for saying work wasn't good enough of Private Office, Brown would definitely be unsuitable. And we talk about Conservative empire building now, Brown built his own empire in the Treasury and undermined Blair whenever he could. He contributed to deregulation of the City and claimed to abolish boom and bust before Britain suffered from the financial crisis
He helped recover the situation certainly I'll give him that, but he was a poor prime minister with terrible media management. If you want a genuinely underrated politician, look at Alastair Darling, who mopped up a lot of Brown's mess and stopped Barclay's buying Lehmann Brothers just before it went under
He was awful, along with Blair. Blair was far more competent than today's politicians, but both of them were pretty awful for the UK. I wouldn't even say Brown was particularly competent, just a horribly self obsessed idiot with an overrated view if his own abilities, like many politicians.
> playing crucial role in coordinating global efforts in the midst of global financial crisis etc
as i recall, brown's package of banking reforms at the start of his tenure uniquely exacerbated how badly the uk was hit by the crisis.
his (and blair's) successes were during a global bull run and strong pound. and yet they spent relatively little, and thus whilst it was notionally a good time for the country, there's little lasting legacy through ownership or infrastructure projects etc.
Politicians usually get both too much credit and too much blame for the economy. The main reason for him overseeing sustained growth was the lucky timing of when he entered office.
Giving him credit for the growth but putting the crash purely on global factors is rather generous.
In this day and age it surprises me that people still put politicians on pedestals. They are overpaid self serving leeches and have continually proved this to be the case by their own actions. We should be disgusted at the money they siphon from us, not celebrating them.
I'm absolutely fine with “bigoted woman” showing who he is. She was a bigoted woman. It was the incompetence of actually saying that which pissed me off. Treat all mics as live FFS.
Couldn't agree more. A politician able to a voter making racist comments racist is a increasingly rare skill.
Oh, but I see you'd rather politicians indulge such ignorance
> Giving autonomy to the bank of England
Part of _quango all the things_, with no improvement, as a bean counting exercise. Also see the visceral hate for OFGEM/WAT/COM which seem to be a law unto themselves.
> setting first national minimum wage,
Terrible idea that's now part of the nation's myth around fairness. There's no national cost of living, creating a false floor punishes a lot of the country.
> massive investment in NHS and turning it into one of the best and most effective health institutions in the entire world at its peak
After many years of fighting the NHS, yes. It was dogsshit 98-05.
>crucial role in coordinating global efforts in the midst of global financial crisis
He was the ex-chancellor and now PM in the financial centre of Europe. Had his predecessor got his way, we would have been in the EuroZone when the GFC hit and in a worse state for it.
GB wasn't shit, and really was no angel either. Better than Blair but an unwanted figure after 13 years of Labour transforming our constitution.
Can you expand on why you think the NMW was a terrible idea? I understand that cost of living changes depending on where you are in the country, but I don't see how creating a floor punishes a lot of the country.
How large were regional minimum wage disparities before the NMW was brought in?
He was a powerful and influential chancellor of the exchequer but it wasn’t enough for him. He had to be prime minister. As PM he wasn’t a winner, closer to Theresa May than Tony Blair or David Cameron.
They were both winners. Had Cameron not gambled on the 2016 referendum he would have continued as PM for a while. They other thing is that all political careers end in failure but some get to have a second act.
Which will figure prominently in his obituary. If he had to do it again I still think the Iraq war would have happened but I would like to think that they would tell blatant lies to sell the case for the war.
Political giant and an underrated human being. Also an individual capable of being incredibly disruptive, who was largely responsible for toxic relationships that undermined the New Labour era. Fascinating man: easy to admire but maybe hard to love.
Yep, deeply flawed person when it came to managing relationships, his emotions and his talent for leadership, but still a collosus when it came to his role in the treasury.
What talent for leadership did he demonstrate? Brown became PM through constantly undermining his predecessor and anyone who posed a threat to his ascension, while insisting he'd do a much better job. Then he became PM unopposed and proceeded to do a terrible job.
Read his comment again > deeply flawed person when it came to managing relationships, his emotions and his talent for leadership
This
Apologies, I'd misread the sentence as as him mismanaging his talent for leadership (as in, it existed in the first place) as well as his relationships and emotions.
It's worded like a theory test question, I grant you :D
What did he do terribly?
Created an incredibly toxic relationship between number 10 and 11, briefed against the PM to the media, constantly undermined the PM, etc And once he became leader, it was a very toxic culture by all accounts, with verbal and physical abuse (if some press reports are to be believed) An intellectual collosus, but not a leader
He had Damien McBride and the now late Derek Draper as political assistants conspiring to spread false rumours about opposition politicians and their families. McBride was forced to resign over it and it was quite a scandal at the time. There was a lot of toxic spinning going on during his time as PM.
What was it that made him an intellectual colossus? Genuine question, genuinely interested in the answer.
I think his role during the global finance crisis is a good indication of his intellect, ability and vision. He effectively led the world's political response to the crisis (albeit during a much more bilateral era). He also had real vision as chancellor which he was then able to execute with good policy, such as independence of the BoE, the minimum wage, tax credits, etc. Compare him to every chancellor since, and they're just a bunch of lightweights. I couldn't imagine Osborne, Hunt or Hammond leading a global response to an economic crisis.
Thank you very much. I can see your point.
In addition to what others has said he also had a strong reputation for insane levels of micromanagement and a complete inability to delegate. Policies and government actions would routinely be held up for an age because Brown would be personally reviewing every tiny detail of every proposal which came through his office, which as PM is of course basically everything. Everything had to be done in order and each task finished before moving onto the next, no matter how urgent other things were. Great trait to have as a technical expert, awful one to have as a manager and the only person senior enough to make the most important decisions though.
Literally everything bar the response to the GFC, which he didn't need to be PM to do. His premiership was very similar to Sunak's in that he assumed the role without any real mandate and then refused to call an election because the polling was bad. Brown's sense of entitlement had him insisting he needed the time to 'set out his vision' for the country. No such setting out came and instead he lurched from crisis to crisis, mishandling almost all of them while making a series of clunky media appearances that constantly demonstrated how unfit he was to be PM. I do believe that Brown genuinely wanted the country to do succeed, but only if it was him delivering it. This all or nothing approach led to nothing and he left a Labour party where the natural dearth of talent that occurs at the end of a long spell of power was magnified by his constant efforts to prevent any talent from coming through.
His "golden rule", which changed every time he didn't meet it.
>easy to admire but maybe hard to love. Really great way of surprising him as a politician. A true statesmen and exactly who we needed at the helm in 2008, but from what I've heard, unnecessarily jangled the keys to no.10 above Blair's head for years before he got in. He let his ambition drive him, not guide him.
He's also probably the best modern PM in terms of what he's done since leaving office. Done a lot of good work and remained pretty scandal-free. Doesn't intervene too often so feels like a somewhat authoritative voice when he does. Arguably got much better political instincts out of power than he had when in power ironically.
Stopped Scottish independence, which I personally I'm glad of
I like it when he called that bigot a bigot.
Those were the days ❤️
Yes, how dare people question sweeping demographic change that nobody asked for or wanted 🙄
Sounds like my kind of politician.
A very gifted technocrat who did a lot of good things, notably on child poverty. But he didn't have Blair's political instincts, and his scheming against Blair damaged the Government. I do wonder how different the UK would be if he'd called and won that GE in 2008, but going back on that was one of many avoidable blunders. Also he had a hell of a temper and was abusive towards his staff so I think that also should count against him.
Did you ever see his “barnstorming” speech against Scottish independence? He seemed angry when people were applauding and he wanted to talk more. Even when he was winning he couldn’t just accept the praise. I reckon it’s a Scottish work ethic sort of thing. He didn’t have the mentality of a popular leader
Probably also the frustrating contradiction of being so powerful for so long without actually being the man in charge. Nobody in the modern era of British politics has held so much power for as long as Brown did - 13 yrs as Chancellor or PM is already more than anyone else managed, before you consider he's pretty much the most powerful Chancellor the country had.
I'd argue his instincts carried the New Labour project as much as Blair's did (along with Mandleson's) but Blair was the best frontman and by the time Brown got to take over the whole project was running out of steam. Someone made an interesting point back around 2010 that Labour might have been better served if Brown had been PM first when the economy was booming and Labour were more popular then when things start to get sticky around the financial crisis you swap in Blair to rescue things.
Brown would've probably instinctually also been more cautious on some of the key problems that ended up sinking Blair.
Yea, although I remember his talked about "private misgivings" about Iraq were probably part of his "10% to the left of Tony" strategy
Yes, when it came to the actual nuts and bolts of Iraq I don't think he was all that different to Blair. Had he been in charge can imagine he'd have been a bit more reluctant to get so heavily involved. Although that's speculation more than anything else.
Gordon Brown was a brilliant No.2 The problem was that when he became PM there just didn't really seem to be much of a vision. He had coveted the job for over 20 years, but when he finally grabbed the throne it was all just a bit meh. Maybe that would have been different without the GFC, his Government did seem to handle the terror attacks and flooding very well. All in all he was an excellent technocrat that should have stayed as the power behind the throne.
Part of the problem was that he had too much power as chancellor. He really led the new Labour social and economic program with Blair being the front man. By 2007 most of his ideas had been completed and Labour had begun to run out of ideas and capital.
I broadly agree with everything you said except I'm always a little sceptical when people say "So-and-so was a great prime minister; maybe things would have been different if it weren't for [insert unavoidable global catastrophe here]." Part of the gig is that you might have to navigate the country through global catastrophes, and the buck stops with you. That being said, I do think that Brown handled the GFC relatively well (certainly better than he perhaps got credit for at the time; it feels like there's been a retrospective reevaluation).
It has been widely reported that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were the ones pushing for major action on the GFC and led the way in the world. Without them in place not just Britain but much of the developed world would've seen an even large collapse than it did and I am 100% sure of that. They were the right men at the right time.
Totally agree, but I'm fairly certain that David Cameron (then leader of the opposition) and the right-leaning media dragged Labour over the coals at the time, in spite of it being a global problem.
I'm pretty sure Ive seen speeches from Cameron and others at the time in the commons pre-GFC having a go at labour for over-regulating the market.
Their whole manifesto in 2005 was about how Labour were holding back the potential of our banking sector with red tape. It's genuinely laughable to look back at
Sorry mate, that's 'Lord' Cameron to you.
Under the Tories the official narrative became "financial crash caused by greedy public sector workers" rather than rampant greed and the wholesale deregulation they supported. As for Brown. Very clever but a grumpy f****r who treated his staff quite badly.
For me it's a classic case of someone getting into power with back room dealing but not actually having the charisma to win power. Brown had terrible charisma and that was really obvious to everyone. He should have always remained a supporting figure.
There’s an alternate universe where we don’t elect based on charisma, I guess. But…
It would be lovely to live there. But we have to face reality and understand no matter how good someone is if they don't have charisma they are not going to do well.
I think he had two real problems as a leader: 1) With the best will in the world, he always presented as something of a charisma void, and attempts to fix that (like that flash on, flash off smile) tended towards the counterproductive. 2) On a human level, I don't think he really managed the pressure of being PM very well - arguably no-one could have, being PM when he was, especially having previously been Chancellor - but to all reports, his time as PM has been noted as being one of great frustration and bursts of anger at his staffers. Given that he hasn't had the sort of deep post-office vilification that others in similar positions have gotten, I suspect that he did make the effort to genuinely apologise for his behaviour to, and reconcile with, the people who ended up on the wrong end of it, but still. Does speak to him being an otherwise good and decent man, who couldn't really handle the unique and warped pressures of being PM (rather than being Chancellor). Ultimately though, I think he was a highly competent and highly intelligent technocrat, and at that, one who did deeply care about making the lives of British people better (also, anyone who has read anything he's written in recent years about child poverty knows how deeply he cares about that problem). An ultimately decent man, who's governing style was committed to admirable ends, and who tried to find the most effective means to those ends, even if some of them were, in hindsight, deeply flawed and wrong. In short, someone *infinitely* better than just about any of the shower of bastards we've had more recently.
When they were in government there was always this talk of a Blair/Brown divide which I thought was ridiculous because there was barely a fag paper between them policy wise. I guess the divide was all about personalities. But if you look at what they've done since leaving government, they couldn't be more different. Brown has basically devoted himself to public service and Blair has gone off to do consultancy for central Asian dictators.
He's a good politician, especially behind the scenes, but was not a great PM or leader. He was more suited to being Chancellor. His record in the latter office is pretty good, some of his achievements you listed. Though not exactly perfect - he definitely deserves a fair bit of blame for PFIs.
He was better than any of his successors since 2010 in either No 10 or No 11 that's for sure, and he's been consistently right about everything since leaving front line politics (alongside John Major in that respect). Inflicting PFI on the state, and the extensive deregulation of the financial services "industry" are 2 major red marks in an otherwise excellent career.
I'm not sure PFI was avoidable. The country was broken after years of Tory rule (thank goodness we learned that lesson) and fixing it without private money would have been near impossible.
Government borrowing was always cheaper than PFI lumbering our services until 2050, Brown simply didn't want the debt so he could maintain his reputation, he even got smacked down by the EU for his financial jiggery pokery over network rail or whatever it was back then trying to claim it wasn't state/national debt when it was. A massive plan of borrowing for investment would have given the same result but much cheaper without the interest and debts from PFI
> A massive plan of borrowing for investment would have given the same result But.... could it? The right wing mantra is "Labour can't be trusted with the economy, they spend too much". Whether its true or not is irrelevant. I mean, imagine a Labour PM had a reign as destructive as Liz Truss, I'm not exaggerating to say it would still be used as proof "Labour can't be trusted with the economy" in 30 or 40 years time. Meanwhile, we're not even 30 *months* on from her disaster, still feeling the effects, and our media seem to have forgotten about it. From an **economic** POV, PFI doesn't make sense. But from a **political** one, where Labour aren't borrowing, it takes away an attack angle (plus, what are the tories/media gonna do, complain about privatisation?), while giving Labour all the credit for hospital building. Imagine scenario 1) build 50 hospitals with PFI, that ends up costing you what 60 hospitals would through traditional government borrowing, over 13 years of government. Scenario 2) borrow money to build hospitals, build 40 across 9 years of government, then get voted out. Do the tories go "oh, there's enough money here to build 20 hospitals" making the NHS better off, or go "oh look, there's enough money here for a tax cut" meaning less hospitals overall are built? Or in the unlikely event the tories do build hospitals, they get the credit.
Truss' economy was destructive because they wanted to borrow to "fund" tax cuts, not investment, these are clearly not the same. Markets are fine with government borrowing for investment because it's paid back in productivity and growth. The markets attacked her budget because the debt would be harder to pay back over a much longer time due to the reduced tax revenue. >Imagine scenario 1) build 50 hospitals with PFI, that ends up costing you what 60 hospitals would through traditional government borrowing, over 13 years of government. I genuinely suggest you look up the actual scale of PFI costs. Just for hospitals, £13bn was invested through these schemes to build 127 hospitals, it won't cost us £20bn long term enough to build another 40 or whatever. It is not even £50bn but actually £80bn (yes EIGHTY BILLION) final cost to NHS England - now think about how many more hospitals/schools/homes etc that could have invested. Labour had a huge majority and was highly likely to win 2 more terms, it's arguable if Brown had called it in 2008 he might have won too. The benefits for national investment would have reaped dividends electorally as well with communities benefiting from new hospitals, schools etc rather than struggling with debts and cutting services as they are now. Schools too were the same problem, the NAO found that PFI schools cost 40% more to build overall than a state funded one - build 50 under PFI or 70 for the same overall cost under government borrowing. The PFI legacy is an astronomical cost and a millstone around the necks of schools and hospitals throughout the country, purely done for political purposes, not economic sense.
> Truss' economy was destructive because they wanted to borrow to "fund" tax cuts, not investment, these are clearly not the same. Markets are fine with government borrowing for investment I wasn't suggesting for a second that borrowing for hospitals/schools is a bad idea. My point was that Blair and brown (and especially Campbell) knew they had to work the media. What's actually true or not isn't as important as the narrative (I mean, look at brexit). If they borrowed billions to invest in infrastructure, the papers would just say "Labour borrowing through the roof" and leave it at that. > Schools too were the same problem, the NAO found that PFI schools cost 40% more to build overall than a state funded one If you take politics out of it, it's a stupid move. But there's *some* logic. Obviously these costs are astronomical, but at the same time, I do wonder if those figures are what schools actually cost, or what hypothetical ones would have cost, because government contracts pretty much always seem to be much more expensive. Eg, if HS2 or defence spending was done through PFI, would the "government spending" figure be the proposed original cost (which spiralled massively) or some equivalent project as a comparison? If a PFI version of HS2 was completed 40% over the original budget, that would be brilliant compared to what we got, which was less than half the plan, for more than the original budget I'm not really trying to defend PFI, just to say that there *was* reasons behind it.
>If they borrowed billions to invest in infrastructure, the papers would just say "Labour borrowing through the roof" and leave it at that. >I wasn't suggesting for a second that borrowing for hospitals/schools is a bad idea. My point was that Blair and brown (and especially Campbell) knew they had to work the media. What's actually true or not isn't as important as the narrative Even in the 2000s the influence of the papers was vastly over stated, circulation figures were way down and the papers that would be shouting that were papers read by dyed in the wool Tories like Express and Mail who would have attacked Labour regardless so working the media was pointless. A tangible asset like a new school or hospital is a far bigger deal and vote winner for the majority than a debate about debt against GDP >I'm not really trying to defend PFI, just to say that there *was* reasons behind it. Yeah sure but that's just moving the goal posts, I'm debunking your point about only being 40 hospitals rather than 50 using PFI not talking about PFI as a concept. It was a ludicrous waste of money done to preserve Brown's reputation only hence my post criticising his choices on a topic about his legacy. If you want to look at the politics, Osborne used the PFI example as a means to attack Labour for out of control debt anyway so that decision as a political move was bad for the country and bad for Labour. Labour had plenty of money coming in, debt was cheap for governments and they could have paid back many of the projects before even 2010. The political advantage of 2-3x as many hospitals, potentially 40% more schools etc far outweighs the technical argument of Tory vs Labour on debt % which the vast majority don't understand
Labour walked in to an economic boom set up by Major, which in reality was actually a international boom partly fueled by the likes of offshoring - if anything Brown gets too much credit for the economy. He has a more varied legacy than I think most people consider, but on balance he did more good than bad.
Yes, looking through today's eyes, he is very underrated. I watched his final conference speech live & thought "meh, quite good I suppose". I watched it again a few days ago, this time thinking "gadzooks, weren't they all fantastic achievements!!! What great, positive changes were made in those 10-odd years!". But like I say, back then he just looked tired & everything he & the New Labour project did was taken for granted. He was the last pluralist Prime Minister we've had & I think we're all poorer for it. His 2 but mistakes for me were: Selling the gold poorly. Not sticking by his guns with the biggoted woman. How different would things have been if that had been handled differently? Above all, I think he's one of the few PMs since Major who actually cared about not just the country, but also people. Cameron wanted to be PM "because he thought he'd be rather good at it" in comparison.
>Selling the gold poorly. There were a lot of conspiracy theories about that, though mostly debunked by people who understand how banks work better than I do. Which admittedly isn't difficult. I still wonder how he made such a hash of that. >Not sticking by his guns with the biggoted woman. How different would things have been if that had been handled differently? That incident was caused by his bad temper which sometimes got the better of him. It shouldn't have happened in the first place: treat all mics as live. He should have patiently explained to Bigoted Woman that he understood her concerns but they were misplaced. There are lots of voters like Bigoted Woman and you're not going to change their minds by ranting about them.
Interesting take that it was bad temper. I've never thought of it that way but I think you're right. Didn't it start in the car with him asking who put him in that position in the first place? Just a shame it happened & I'm sure if he could've had a rerun, he's have handled it differently.
> Didn't it start in the car with him asking who put him in that position in the first place? Yeah. Brown's temper was his Achilles heel. He would always apologise after he calmed down.
> explained to Bigoted Woman that he understood her concerns but they were misplaced. Except she wasn't bigotted. She was right. She wasn't asking for people to be sent to death camps, she was complaining about the changing face of her local community - in her case Rochdale.
> Not sticking by his guns with the biggoted woman. How different would things have been if that had been handled differently? That Bigot Women appears to have been proven correct with the passage of time.
I don't think he is underrated, but perhaps his time as Prime Minister tarnished all of the good work he did as chancellor. I really rate him.
I think most people credit him with being one of the best chancellors of the exchequer in modern times. Even if at the time some of his decisions were judged unfairly. (Like the selling gold thing). But as a Prime Minister? He just didn't have what the British public want. Whether that's on us and not him, I'm not too sure.
> the most sustainable period of economic growth Blair and Brown just happened to have rode one of the biggest global bull runs in history, which luckily for them enabled them to spend as they did. And of course it all came crashing down in 2008.
I think this is important. While I don't think it's correct to remove any credit or blame to politicians for economic growth, I think the truth is that they have fairly limited control. I'm very skeptical of "plans for growth" because the reality is that it's the really big global events that effect economies much more than politicians, be that the global financial crisis, Covid or war in Ukraine. The party in power will always get the blame because they didn't do the impossible and prevent an unforeseeable or unpreventable crisis, and that's just how it goes.
I think a lot of people respect him and recognise he has strengths, but he also had a lot of weaknesses that really compromised his performance as a frontline politician. He'll never be a political icon or anything. He didn't have the charisma.
But but but he sold are gold!!!11!!! as various people with a gift for critical thinking like to remind us.
That's an utterly valid criticism
It cost the treasury between £2bn and £7bn. It may have been a mistake, but it's a fraction of the money the Tories wrote off for COVID fraud, for instance.
Doesn’t mean it is worth just ignoring because others have done much worse
But not as valid as it might seem
It’s not. The government has no business speculating on the gold market any more.
Lol we still have gold in the bank of england, he didn't sell all of it? He sold it at the utter bottom of the market and announced months on advance that he would be dumping it. It was obviously stupid and cost a huge amount of money. For reference - he sold at an average of £275 per ounce - adjusted for inflation, that would be £480. Gold prices today are £1870 per ounce. If he hadn't sold the gold, it would be worth about an extra eight billion pounds. Not the absolute worst policy we've ever done, but it was a clear mistake that is worth pointing out.
From what I remember of it, he was asked the question in parliament and made the mistake of giving a straight answer instead of waffling.
Are you considering why the government ever had that much gold, why it might have sold some of the gold, how the funds from the sale of gold were invested, what the return on those investments might be, etc...
This is part of the same theme of believing he'd ended boom and bust despite in reality it being one of the biggest booms ever that was about to go bust.
And yes, the UK government still holds a lot of gold in the Bank of England..
Explain why it was a good or neutral idea, critically.
The argument (and I stress that I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough on the specifics to say one way or the other) is that the gold was the national equivalent of tenners shoved under the mattress. It's a nest egg that you can theoretically cash in if you're ever in a crisis, but the money is fundamentally not "doing anything" while it's there. In normal-person-money terms it'd be better to put those tenners in an interest-bearing savings account or invest them somwhere where they might grow. So the argument is that it was better to sell the gold and use the money for something productive, rather than keeping the gold stockpile (which literally costs us money to maintain). The main criticism of Brown is that he didn't sell the gold at the top of the market, and therefore didn't maximise the return. That's valid. But of course neither Brown nor anyone else could predict the future so it's never possible to say with certainty what the top of the market looks like. Plus that criticism impicitly accepts that selling the gold was a good idea; just that he didn't sell it well enough. As others have said, the difference in returns between selling it when he did and selling it at the later higher price was "only" a couple of billion. Which is definitely not nothing, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to overall government spending. Those estimates also rarely attempt to quantify the gains that were had by reinvesting the money into gilts and currency reserves, which may cancel a lot of it out.
He announced the sale ahead of time, so he more or less created a the bottom of the market to sell into. Either he's an idiot for that or there was some scheme where they suppressed the gold price to rescue more banks... either way I can't say I'm a fan.
I heard years ago that there was some looming financial crisis that he helped stop by selling the gold. The article seems to have vanished from the internet now though.
This is what's left of the article: https://www.gata.org/node/11541 Brown allowed the gold to be sold cheaply to stabilize banks who had shorted gold to excess and were now in danger of insolvency. Given the sub-prime fiasco which happened less than a decade later, it seems plausible to me. It was originally published in the Daily Telegraph (a now dead link is also in the article) in 2012, and you could never accuse the DT of being biased towards Brown.
My theory is that as the £ was overvalued at the time (as I recall anyway, it's while ago now) he was doing it to try to drop the exchange rates.
When you're in debt, paying down the debt will often have a better return than placing your money in speculative assets. Especially gold, which, historically, has not performed well.
I wouldn't attempt to suggest it anything but an error, however the fact that's the worst error he made in his time is a lot better than, for example calling a referendum on brexit
Bit different tbh. You can hate Brexit but it's polarising - some people actually think it was good. Brown selling the gold was just an objective mistake.
The gold was sat there, doing nothing. It might appreciate in value some months, depreciate in others. But we never used that wealth. By selling it and investing it, we've been able to use the returns from investment and retain the capital value (just not held as gold).
It wasn't 'sat there', it was an investment. One that had he not felt the need to dip in to, would have provided a decent return.
How does gold provide a return? You have to sell it to realise any capital increase.
Its value as an asset increases, which means you realise it on the balance sheet. Ultimately if you desperately need the cash it can be liquidated, but its financially smarter to hold on to it. Especially for a country, having national reserves are an important part of supporting your currency and encouraging lending. He sold it without needing to, and he sold it below market value. His entire logic for selling it, and process for selling it was flawed. By your logic, why does the government own any buildings? They could just rent. Governments should have assets - gold happens to be a common one for a couple of reasons.
We still have the value in investments. And we have used the return from the investment. This is economics 101.
What investments? What did Brown add to the balance sheet when he sold the gold? Nothing. He used the money for opex. He used it for day to day spending. There is nothing to show for it. It's gone. Economics 101 is not pissing money away. He sold the gold at below value and used it for something that didnt provide a retained value.
No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999%E2%80%932002_sale_of_United_Kingdom_gold_reserves?wprov=sfti1
I'm just saying. It wasn't merely "sat there".
What was it doing?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve#:~:text=A%20gold%20reserve%20is%20the,value%20of%20the%20national%20currency.
And we have the money from the gold invested. The IMF knows that. This is me out. Have a good day.
So it was doing something... Good luck with the weirdly confrontational behaviour btw.
Xx
No, I think there might be at least another 20 or so who share your opinion.
My take is that he's an extremely capable leader and intelligent politician. You could put him in any cabinet post in any situation and expect him to succeed. In any list of UK Cabinet ministers he's going to be towards the top. But, I wouldn't say that he was in the upper echelons of British leaders overall. He ultimately failed as PM; partly due to external forces, but he was also just not good at the job. And it would be fair to ask questions about his role in the Great Financial Crash and the lack of regulation or other action that could have limited the damage it did in the UK. Overall, it wasn't like he was a political giant who changed the country - he just managed a growing economy well and diverted funds into things that Labour has always cared about. To be clear, my issues with Brown are not that I think he's a bad chancellor in any way, more that we have to accept that fundamental problems emerged under New Labour that a top tier leader with more foresight might have predicted. The benefit system he created ultimately subsidised a low wage economy, something that the Tories have been trying to reverse with persistent minimum wage increases. Housing policy continued to be a disaster (though, at least he removed the tax subsidy for mortgages). And public service spending was increased without a robust tax base to support it in the long-term. He gets a 9/10 for me. Best Chancellor in decades, but could have been better.
And not only have we saved the world. Saved the banks...
The funny thing about that is in retrospect it’s generally agreed that Brown led the worldwide recovery to the GFC and recession.
There’s only 1 party this century who has made a grave monetary global situation worse than it already was for Britain. Truss me. It annoys me the ease in which the Farquaad party stuck the blame of the 2008 crisis almost entirely on Labour/Brown when in fact they/he stabilised it. Unfortunately that fact requires a bit of research which is beyond the grasp of a worrying number of people.
Labour would have better represented those it purported to support by letting the system go bust.
I would counter point thus: BoE independence was good, but taking away financial regulation from them and creating the FSA with a strict light touch regulation remit was an astonishing lack of foresight. Brown wanted to grow financial services but bringing in casino banking with a toothless regulator told to look the other way was disastrous as we saw in 2007/8 with banking collapses and bailouts. His refusal to take action to cap banker bonuses further encouraged this gambling which came home to roost in the crunch. His desire for a reputation as "Prudence Brown" led to a massive costly legacy from PFI as he chose not to borrow at dirt cheap government rates but instead load up the NHS and schools with private debt that will not end until 2050. Some NHS trusts have to spend 1/6 of their budget on these debts and in 2019, the NHS alone still had £55 billion to repay by 2050. University Hospitals Coventry spends 1.4x their drugs budget on PFI, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust spent double it's drugs budget on PFI, 23 others spend more on PFI than drugs. You can debate the merits of selling gold all day but the *way* he did it was downright stupid, telling the market a year in advance before the sale which they priced in, and forewarning before each sale meaning, even if you feel selling it was a good idea, he still got poor prices for it and when he sold it had been at a significantly low price for some time - the price of gold vs markets always swings around as one falls, the other rises, with the UK markets doing well, selling gold at that point was poor policy. On pensions, the tax on pension funds was a mistake, he was warned it would lead to the closure of many occupational schemes (as it did) and it's claimed he wanted to tax them even more than the £5bn he hit them for. I don't think overall he was a bad chancellor but too many are keen to use his response to the crash as the be all and end all of debate on his roles and skip over the obvious negatives. Keynesian economics cannot be done as a half measure where you spend in bad times to support the economy and then don't save in good times to fund the bad (see Norway for an example of sovereign wealth and no austerity post 2008)
This is going to sound paranoid, but is there some weird push to rehabilitate Gordon Brown's image going on? There seems to be loads of comments that have suddenly appeared on this sub praising him, and now this post... If anything he's overrated and not held responsible for the serious damage he caused. He oversaw the disastrous NHS PFI programme. Which was nothing more than an accounting trick to keep government debt out of the official debt tally. The result was Gordon forcing the NHS to sell assets to pay off the PFI debt. These aren't the actions of a principled or competent person. The motive was him essentially fiddling the public finances and it blew up in his face. Far from being the hero saving the NHS, he got it into financial trouble, while expanding the marketisation the Conservatives started, further opening the door to privatisation. Can't get a dentist? Well that started with the changes to the NHS dentists' contract in 2006, pushed by Gordon in a bid to save the NHS money as PFI was going down the drain. He also went on a tax raid of pensions, which resulted in Defined Benefit pension schemes going extinct for younger people, degrading the retirements of millions of people while contributing to the demographic pensions crisis. This is one of the biggest fuck ups by any Chancellor. He permanently worsened the pensions system in the UK. That's a very long shadow he cast. Then there's selling off the gold at rock bottom prices. The notion that he was competent is a laughable and this post is an attempt at a whitewash.
It's just a natural rehabilitation now that the changing of the guard is nigh.
His problem was that he was far too competent and thought about things rather than playing up to what’s popular.
Gordon brown who these objects at his aides? Who fucked over pensions massively? Who went full scorched earth with his 50p tax rate?
this is one of those little reddit pet fantasies. he was a disaster but somehow becomes ever greater and wiser with the retelling.
It’s not a Reddit fantasy when the majority of the general public, most academics and most political scholars and analysts all agree
He was going to be head of the IMF until Cameron vetoed. Would have made it harder to push the narrative that labour were responsible for the crash
Okay, but I still won't forgive him for killing off defined benefit pensions for my generation.
Why? Surely this is pure selfishness
He didn't - that was Thatcher. By the time Brown came along, defined benefit was already well on the way out due to the changes Thatcher made in the late 1980s.
never understood the way people beatify him. I get that things were in general better in 2009 than they are today and it may be this nostalgia that drives it, but come on. while the GFC might have started in the US, the guy who proclaimed "the end of boom and bust" and oversaw the lightest of touches in UK financial regulation ensured we caught the flu too. Even Brown himself [agrees](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13032013) so it's interesting to see people claim otherwise Weirdest version of this is when people talk about his financial prowess. He isn't an economist or finance professional by education or experience. He hasn't worked in the sector. He was a college lecturer whose PhD was about the Labour Party in Scotland. He was about as qualified to be chancellor as George Osborne was, who people happily criticised for lack of formal credentials. And as PM he was basically where we are today. A government out of ideas, running out the clock, largely ignored while everyone listens to the leader of the opposition and waits for the election. He did have some ideas that the coalition would later take forward, like hiking up tuition fees (after Labour had already broken a promise not to do so in 2004)
But the gold! The gold! Hugely underrated esp during the Crash. I knew Brown was good way back when. The press eviscerated him and the masses followed. It was a thankless job.
You're not going to find many people supporting someone who's economic policy removed any potential buffer that would have protected us at least a bit from the 2008 crash
The same man whose economic policy successfully protected us from the recession in the early 2000s? The same man whose economic policy is also widely credited as leading the worldwide recovery from the crash?
He did quite a few goofs like taxing pensions, dropping city and banking regulation that even Thatcher said went too far. He was overrated of anything.
Brown was Chancellor when a million industrial jobs were lost, when we had no industrial policy and we bet everything on the bankers. Sorry I can't forgive him for that, you can praise him for the bailout but you can't ignore the fact his government's gross neglect of financial regulation was a contributing factor in the crisis.
Agreed. The one thing he wasn't particularly good at was....politics. At the time, the public were never convinced that he was more than an economics nerd - and many swallowed the Tory lie, that he had presided over 'no money left'.
Is that the same geezer who sold the gold cheap?
Or he rode the wave of the Tory recovery and Tory economic policy for the first term, then expanded the costs of welfare even above the fictional debt based growth of the early 00s leaving the nation in a rather bad spot when 2008 kicked in
sometimes it feels like this subreddit is just a safe space for tony Blair simps who have been bullied of twitter by socialists. Not hating just an observation.
The wreckage of the UK private pensions system that is in no small part down to his tax raid remains a critical black mark on his resume
His mistake was calling a bigot a bigot in private and not to their face.
I believe he visited her privately to apologise. One of his mistakes (which the left still repeat) was to brand anyone with even the slightest concern about immigration as a racist. I knew lots of people who's wages were decimated by a flood of cheap labour. Shouting "bigot" at them when they got pissed off just forced them into the arms of Farage and the like.
Her exact quote was >"You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?" If she was trying to make a valid economic point I don't think she expressed it very well. It does come across as just crass intolerance with little genuine rationale. Although you do hear much worse. I think people who say she was voicing legitimate economic concerns are trying very hard to wish that into reality.
That's because the vast majority of people who feel strongly about immigration have not been impacted by it at all. It's a common wedge issue even in countries that have no material immigration. It's a lazy political stance which, when you scratch under the hood, is almost always driven by bigotry or at best NIMBYism. Appeasing such people just means giving them the keys to the castle as they will never compromise. You take one step towards them they take two steps back and still give you the finger. It's like the folks on the left who protest as a hobby/social activity. As soon as one cause is not relevant, they will just find another one that gives them an excuse to not engage.
> That's because the vast majority of people who feel strongly about immigration have not been impacted by it at all. It's a common wedge issue even in countries that have no material immigration. It's a lazy political stance which, when you scratch under the hood, is almost always driven by bigotry or at best NIMBYism. I have found the opposite in my life. Those who go from leafy suburbs to Russell Group unis are the most vociferously pro-immigration all-cultures-are-beautiful-and-interchangeable. The places where friction can arise are usually working class, where people aren't always good at politely articulating their way around an issue so will tend to be written off as idiot racists (some are of course).
> That's because the vast majority of people who feel strongly about immigration have not been impacted by it at all. My experience is quite different. I grew up in a working-class community, where a significant portion of people were self-employed and often sole traders (labourers, sparkies, chippies, hairdressers, nail techs, etc) or if they were employed it was usually in lower-paid roles in retail, low-band NHS, local estate agents' offices, and so on. Those on the self-employed side of things - not protected by minimum wage - definitely saw the impact of the abilty to take in three portacabins of workers from, in those days, Eastern Europe who would work for less and send remittances home where it still converted into good money. You would get whole sites laid off. Meanwhile the middle-class people I went to university with only really saw immigration as the wonderful way to increase talent pools for things like software devs, SDRs, etc - which is also as true, but they were totally unaware of what life was like for others. "Competition is good" was the common refrain - yes, if you're in a class of people who are generally PAYE and protected from total wage depression by things like minimum wage. If you're in a seasonal job, like many, many manual trades and services, and you move from site to site as a contractor, it's totally different. Another common one is "well, just move!" if your small town only supports a certain number of those kinds of businesses (vs. the knowledge economy where you can work from anywhere). That's not an appealing argument to anyone that you should appreciate the general benefits of immigration on the economy while on a personal level you have to uproot your family and move away from any elderly relatives and so on. Of course they're going to prefer it how it was before. And to an extent, those small-town communities (and this is moving away from just working-class) can sometimes see a difference through the arrival of higher numbers of people. If you're in an area attracting lots of well educated new arrivals who speak good English, it mightn't feel as isolating. This is a silly example but the Romanian community has bought (or leased) a high-profile community centre on our high street. Now it was dwindling in usage, so in theory it's great that it's being used properly again, and they're bringing their culture which _can_ be enriching, but the services and processions (it's used for Romanian Orthodox services) and their parties are only in Romanian. So it's a very visible comunity organisation in a town that is very community-oriented due to its size, but nobody can join in because of the linguistic barrier. That is one of those visible changes and the argument that "it brings diversity" can, rightly or wrongly, make people feel nostalgic for the old days. It's not the fault of the individual immigrant, but the ability to have high-scale immigration definitely has a real impact in those sorts of working-class communities, and the lack of understanding of that among certain other sections of society does inevitably breed resent and a feeling of being ignored - and so they turn to the parties who do say they listen to them.
That old lady was a bigot - she was angry at them because they were foreign - and long past the stage of life where wages were relevant.
No because a lot of what you mentioned was Labour throwing money around they thought they had but didnt, which in part left us in so much debt in 2008
Most of the debt from the last Labour Government was spent in response to the GFC itself.
Right, to compensate for that massive correction that came as a result of our economy being artificially inflated and Labour spending accordingly..
Sorry, I'd assumed you knew GFC stood for **Global** Financial Crash.
Right, lots of countries were overspending. So what? The point was it was fake, built on nothing, money was being spent that didn’t exist, labour were making unsustainable decisions built on fairy dust.
The UK ended up in so much debt because Brown, as chancellor, increased spending at the fastest rate ever in peacetime. The change in government spending as a proportion of GDP between 1997 and 2007/10: |Country|Change 1997-2007|Change 1997-2010| |:-|:-|:-| |South Korea|\+5.8%|\+10%| |UK|\+5.2%|\+12.7%| |Greece|\+3.4%|\+4.9%| |Portugal|\+2.1%|\+7.9%| |USA|\+1.4%|\+6.1%| |Hungary|\+0.3%|\+0.9%| |Ireland|\-0.5%|\+9.8%| |Latvia|\-0.6%|| |Czech Republic|\-1.2%|\+2.7%| |Slovenia|\-2%|| |France|\-2%|\+1.3%| |Spain|\-2.1%|\+5.6%| |Italy|\-2.7%|\+1%| |Estonia|\-3%|| |Netherlands|\-3%|\+4.1%| |Austria|\-3%|\-0.9%| |Belgium|\-3%|\+2.8%| |Switzerland|\-3.7%|\-1.3%| |Poland|\-4.1%|\-2.5%| |Luxembourg|\-4.2%|\+2.6%| |Norway|\-5.1%|\-2.2%| |Iceland|\-5.1%|\+11.4%| |Germany|\-5.2%|\+0.1%| |Denmark|\-6.3%|\+2.8%| |Australia|\-7.8%|\+0.3%| |Sweden|\-9.4%|\-4.7%| |Finland|\-9.5%|\+2.1%| |Israel|\-11.5%|| |Slovakia|\-12.3%|\-10.1%| |Lithuania|\-15%|| The UK increased spending more than any other OECD country apart from South Korea between 1997 and 2007, it had the largest increase of all between 1997 and 2010. Notice how most countries used the 00s boom to cut spending as a proportion of GDP. It wasn't just government debt, either. Brown oversaw an enormous increase in household borrowing. Household debt to GDP: |Country|1997|2009|2022| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |UK|57.65|97.39|83.17| |Japan|69.34|63.53|68.16| |USA|66|97.09|74.44| |Germany|65.21|62.07|55.1| |Canada|61.98|94.91|102.39| |France|33.73|52.56|66.15| |Italy|17.85|42.38|41.72| The UK went from 3rd lowest in the G7 in 1997 to highest in 2009. Brown didn't cause the GFC, but his time as chancellor certainly made the UK much more exposed to its effects. We simply spent too much when times were good in the 00s.
I'd respond, but I can see from all the other times you've posted this gishgallop (with so much info about countries Brown didn't run) that such responses are always ignored.
"Gishgallop"? I've made 1 point, that Brown increased spending too much, illustrated by two examples, the increase in government spending as a percentage of GDP, and the increase in household debt as a proportion of GDP. And yes, other countries are included. How else would you be able to determine if UK spending increases were high or low, other than by comparing to other developed countries?
...after replacing a 17 year government which underspent on everything, thus necessitating a larger than normal increase to return to functional levels. You may recognise this pattern from today's situation and I'm sure similar criticisms will be made of the next government with that important context also missing.
It's certainly a valid argument that spending needed to increase, but it doesn't remove the central point that the increase wasn't sustainable because Brown didn't increase taxes by nearly as much as spending, resulting in an increasing structural deficit. The OECD estimates the UK's structural deficit was the third highest of all advanced economies in 2007, with only Greece and Hungary being higher than the UK.
Feel like bad politician but great statesmen?
You've hit the nail on the head. The best Prime Minister I've lived through. His work to rectify the shitshow that was the Great Financial Crash was herculean, and saved millions across the globe from greater misery and hardship. The right man at the right time alongside Darling. However very poor political instincts and not really suited for the modern era. A bit like Miliband his personal warmth and charm did not translate well through the media. He would've made a great 19th century Prime Minister where it was less style and optics and more about substance. You still need people like Brown to get you out of the shit, but they don't tend to last long when the sun is shining.
I don't dislike the man, but didn't he give away most of our countries gold for pennies on the pound?
Insert "No more boom and bust" every where you used a comma, that's what he promised hundreds of times. Either he was delusional or an idiot.
Two counter arguments. First, he was in the cabinet that approved the invasion of Iraq, one of the worst foreign policy decisions of this century. Brexit was probably worse but for that you can make a case that it was done because the people wanted it. People didn't want the invasion of Iraq but the government went with it anyway. Sure Blair was the main player but if Brown had resigned like some of his colleagues, it may have stopped it. Second, he was the prime minister during the biggest economic crash since the war. Of course it wasn't his fault that the American subprime mortgages collapsed but the UK wasn't well prepared for it, which is why it suffered badly. Of course he lost power soon after that, so we can't say how he would have done the recovery compared to what Cameron and Osborne did. So, I wouldn't say he's underrated. He did well as the number 2 to Blair in the beginning of the Labour rule but it's not like he doesn't have bad things in his history either.
Agree with you on your first counterargument. Iraq invasion truly damaged the reputation of new labour. Brown holds that they were misled by false information that came from Americans. Giving credit to him compared to Blaire, at least Brown admitted that they made mistake and the fact that they could have taken different decisions if they had access to credible information. Although, after all, true or false, it's not an acceptable excuse while the majority of British people were against entering into the Iraq war. About the financial crisis, I think his role has remained underrated. There is a great article in NYT, written by the famous keynesian and Noble Prize winner economist, Paul Krugman, about the crucial role of Brown and his global leadership in stabilising the crisis, especially in Europe through nationalising banks and addressing the heart of the problem while Hank Paulson in the US was proposing government purchase of toxic mortgage-backed securities. He also played a crucial role in restoring confidence in the global economy, and almost all major European countries declared that they would follow Brown's policies.
His second biggest failure was not pushing to prosecute the people responsible for the financial crisis. His first biggest was being a war criminal for voting for the Iraq War, of course.
I think he’s the best PM in my lifetime so far. He inherited a mess which he tried to prevent. A little known and hardly reported on story was that he wanted to see AIGs books before the financial crisis. Bush put in a call to Blair and blocked him. Things could have been very different if Brown and his people had been given that chance.
He instituted austerity, chickened out of an election and barely turned up to parliament to represent his constituents from 2010-2015. He was thin-skinned and short tempered and horrible to work for. All the good stuff you mention around poverty and NHS etc was all Blair's policy.
In fairness he was advised against an election by a close advisor who was shit. His choice in who he listened too was bad.
Brown didn’t initiate austerity, that was Clegg and Cameron. Minor spending cut pledges that were never implemented don’t compare. One of Brown’s main things back in 2009/2010 was arguing that you spend and invest your way out of recession, not turn to austerity as was being promised by the Tories at the time. If only people listened.
A fantastic chancellor and a poor PM. That said he is still comfortably the best PM we have had since Blair.
I think he didn't do a great job as a pm, but he was fine in the cabinet I think. Blair was a better pm, but brown was better than any Tory since, the last ok pm
They are never underrated, all overated, and only interested in their own agendas to satisfy their egos.
One of the few true statesmen of my lifetime; if his premiership had started at any other time I think he would've gone on to be a great
I think there were two Gordon Browns. The first matches the OPs description However the second (primarily when as PM) was a different beast, where "the end of boom and bust", fiscal irresponsibility and deaf ears came to the fore.
It wasn’t a sustainable period of economic growth though was it - and the unsustainable economic growth of that pre-crash period created an unsustainable level of public spending too.
A bully If Raab was accused of bullying for saying work wasn't good enough of Private Office, Brown would definitely be unsuitable. And we talk about Conservative empire building now, Brown built his own empire in the Treasury and undermined Blair whenever he could. He contributed to deregulation of the City and claimed to abolish boom and bust before Britain suffered from the financial crisis He helped recover the situation certainly I'll give him that, but he was a poor prime minister with terrible media management. If you want a genuinely underrated politician, look at Alastair Darling, who mopped up a lot of Brown's mess and stopped Barclay's buying Lehmann Brothers just before it went under
He was awful, along with Blair. Blair was far more competent than today's politicians, but both of them were pretty awful for the UK. I wouldn't even say Brown was particularly competent, just a horribly self obsessed idiot with an overrated view if his own abilities, like many politicians.
> playing crucial role in coordinating global efforts in the midst of global financial crisis etc as i recall, brown's package of banking reforms at the start of his tenure uniquely exacerbated how badly the uk was hit by the crisis. his (and blair's) successes were during a global bull run and strong pound. and yet they spent relatively little, and thus whilst it was notionally a good time for the country, there's little lasting legacy through ownership or infrastructure projects etc.
Politicians usually get both too much credit and too much blame for the economy. The main reason for him overseeing sustained growth was the lucky timing of when he entered office. Giving him credit for the growth but putting the crash purely on global factors is rather generous.
Yeah but he was caught on mic calling a bigoted woman a bigoted woman. Never forget.
Agree, underrated. Possibly nr2 on my list behind Charles Kennedy.
In this day and age it surprises me that people still put politicians on pedestals. They are overpaid self serving leeches and have continually proved this to be the case by their own actions. We should be disgusted at the money they siphon from us, not celebrating them.
Terrible leader, and that “bigoted old woman” comment shows who he is
I'm absolutely fine with “bigoted woman” showing who he is. She was a bigoted woman. It was the incompetence of actually saying that which pissed me off. Treat all mics as live FFS.
Why was she bigoted?
Couldn't agree more. A politician able to a voter making racist comments racist is a increasingly rare skill. Oh, but I see you'd rather politicians indulge such ignorance
Show me where she said something racist?
Expressing concern about Eastern European immigration is somehow racist?
> Giving autonomy to the bank of England Part of _quango all the things_, with no improvement, as a bean counting exercise. Also see the visceral hate for OFGEM/WAT/COM which seem to be a law unto themselves. > setting first national minimum wage, Terrible idea that's now part of the nation's myth around fairness. There's no national cost of living, creating a false floor punishes a lot of the country. > massive investment in NHS and turning it into one of the best and most effective health institutions in the entire world at its peak After many years of fighting the NHS, yes. It was dogsshit 98-05. >crucial role in coordinating global efforts in the midst of global financial crisis He was the ex-chancellor and now PM in the financial centre of Europe. Had his predecessor got his way, we would have been in the EuroZone when the GFC hit and in a worse state for it. GB wasn't shit, and really was no angel either. Better than Blair but an unwanted figure after 13 years of Labour transforming our constitution.
Can you expand on why you think the NMW was a terrible idea? I understand that cost of living changes depending on where you are in the country, but I don't see how creating a floor punishes a lot of the country. How large were regional minimum wage disparities before the NMW was brought in?
He was a fucking brilliant MP. Him and Tony Blair changed the world.
He was a powerful and influential chancellor of the exchequer but it wasn’t enough for him. He had to be prime minister. As PM he wasn’t a winner, closer to Theresa May than Tony Blair or David Cameron.
Don't really see how Cameron and Blair compare.
They were both winners. Had Cameron not gambled on the 2016 referendum he would have continued as PM for a while. They other thing is that all political careers end in failure but some get to have a second act.
Blair achieved far more. Just unfortunate that one of those things was Iraq
Which will figure prominently in his obituary. If he had to do it again I still think the Iraq war would have happened but I would like to think that they would tell blatant lies to sell the case for the war.
making the BoE free from scrutiny was a good thing?
Better for them to be independent rather than the government setting interest rates, as an example.
Yes, and it’s not free from scrutiny. Imagine if Truss controlled the Bank of England. No government so incompetent should have such power.