The Daily Novel

Brown has lost no time since the Queen handed him the reins of power on Wednesday. We now know his full cabinet and a few new policies he is pushing hard for. My preliminary impression is that this lot might do better than the Tony Blair’s accolades have done over the last half of Blair’s decade in Downing Street. But it is far too early to be certain that Brownism is going to be something really different, or whether it is Blairism with a gloss of brown and slightly pinkish paint. At least the new Foreign Secretary has red blood in his veins and studied Marxism on his father’s knee.  As did his brother, Ed Miliband, who has been catapulted into the cabinet after only two years as an MP. He is to be Secretary for the cabinet office and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. He will not spend much time in Lancaster but he will not have a department to run. But this delightfully archaic title gives him the opportunity to be a key influence on the new cabinet, as was Willie Whitelaw on the Thatcher government. But he can only do this if he has the ear of the Prime Minister and the ability to sway the views of his colleagues around the cabinet table.

 Brother David has an easier chance to make his mark. He has a Prime Minister, who unlike Blair, so far not betrayed any signs of wanting to help run the world, as if running this small island were not enough to satisfy his longing to get into the history books. Also, he is said to have been one of the few ministers who expressed serious reservations about the decision to go to the war at the command of George Bush, rather than waiting for the backing of the United Nations. He will still have to deal with the realities of American power. Though he may not want to be George Bush’s poodle, but he cannot tell him, or any other American President what to do. But at least But he will be dealing with a Rottweiler who has three lame legs for the next six months. In 2008 there will be a new American President, who seems likely to be Hilary Clinton (a female Labrador?) or Barak Obama (an all black Border Collie?). Either of them are much less likely to send the dogs of war into Iran and more ready to listen to the views, of the Brits, the Europeans, and the people of Iraq and Palestine.

 Alan Johnson sounds like good news for the health service. He is the only member of the cabinet who did not go to university. He tramped the streets delivering the posts and joins the cabinet on a day when his former colleagues have gone on strike. The level of discontent amongst workers in the national health service is even greater than that of he postmen, and that applies to the consultants almost as much as the nurses. Johnson at least will be ready to listen to them. But whether he will be able to turn back the tide on the Blairite commitment to a curiously old-fashioned form of managerialism remains to be seen.

 Same question in education. But that is best dealt with in a separate blog. Meanwhile it must be noted that Brown has recruited to his cabinet even more colleagues who themselves benefited from an elite education. Nine of them went to private schools. No less than  thirteen went to Oxbridge.