Two insights into what happens outside the tiny circle - presided over by that EU-employee, Mandelson - clustered in the bunker around Brown. Our government is disintegrating and we have no means of getting rid of it till next June. You don’t have to love Cameron to know that we have one duty then - to remove New Labour well away from any immediate prospect of power.
Austin Mitchell testifies to the total exhaustion that has overtaken Brown, Then Lord Malloch-Brown says the whole system of government is chaotic and flying by the seat of its pants. The noble Lord is not my favourite politician by a long chalk but on these specifics his testimony is helpful , if depressing!
Christina
BBC Online
11.7.09
Brown 'knackered' says Labour MP
Mr Brown has just concluded the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy
Gordon Brown is a "knackered" prime minister and should take a month's holiday, a Labour backbencher has said.
Austin Mitchell, MP for Great Grimsby, wrote in the Parliamentary House Magazine: "He should go away for a month and come back reinvigorated."
Mr Mitchell, who said he also made the comments directly to Mr Brown, added: "A knackered PM makes bad decisions."
In the same magazine, former deputy prime minister John Prescott said Mr Brown was "the best man for the job".
In the article, Mr Mitchell said the prime minister needed a gifted press secretary to turn around his image.
He wrote: "Gordon needs a press secretary of genius.
"Bernard Ingham created Margaret Thatcher and Alastair Campbell made Tony Blair.
"They did it by joining the dots, filling in the blanks, building the image and turning fragile humans into decisive Supermen."
He added: "Gordon has no one like that. So his frailties are not concealed and his indecisiveness gets out."
But in his article, Mr Prescott attacked Labour MPs accused of hoping to replace Mr Brown.
He wrote: "Some of those others seeking to be prime minister? Excuse me if I laugh.
"Stop complaining, start campaigning."
In a comment directed at the former Europe minister Caroline Flint, who resigned criticising Mr Brown's attitude to women, Mr Prescott added: "People resigning and saying, 'I'm only window dressing'.
"Is that what politics has got to? It is unforgivable." [Certainly it is just that - but that’s this governmenrt for you! -cs]
SUNDAY TIMES
12.7.09
Gordon Brown's regime is ‘chaotic’, says minister
Jonathan Oliver, Political Editor
Gordon Brown's government is more “chaotic” than many regimes in the developing world, according to one of his Foreign Office ministers.
Lord Malloch-Brown, who quits his ministerial post this month, told colleagues he had seen better “strategic thinking” in Latin America and southeast Asia than at No 10.
Malloch-Brown, who worked as a political consultant and United Nations deputy secretary-general before he was offered a peerage and ministerial job by Brown, told colleagues he found Westminster politics “disappointingly shortsighted”.
It has also emerged that the minister, who was an outspoken critic of the Iraq war until he joined the government, “threw a wobbly” when he discovered the prime minister wanted to hold the official inquiry into the conflict in secret.
Malloch-Brown announced last week he was planning to quit the government for “personal and family reasons”.
The 55-year-old, who moved from New York to the UK when he was made a minister two years ago, had struggled to balance his work and family life. “I have always said that I would not do this job forever,” he said last week.
However, according to colleagues, Malloch-Brown had become increasingly frustrated with ministerial life. “Mark said that the goldfish bowl nature of Westminster and the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle meant there wasa lack of strategic thinking in British politics – on both sides of the political divide,” one colleague said.
“Mark had never worked in Whitehall before, and it is fair to say he was shocked at how everything was cobbled together at the last minute and no one took the time to plan ahead. It was not uniquely a problem with Brown, but a feature of the British political culture.”
During the 1980s Malloch-Brown worked as consultant for the Sawyer Miller Group,a US firm that advised politicians fighting elections in the developing world. He worked on campaigns in the Philippines, helping Corazon Aquino defeat the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, and the opposition in Chile which overthrew the Pinochet regime.
“Mark felt there was a contrast between the professionalism and long-term planning that happened in the countries where he acted as a consultant and the chaotic nature of Whitehall,” said the colleague.
His private remarks will strike a chord with many others working in the Brown government who feel frustrated at the prime minister’s failure to articulate simple, clear and plausible “narratives”.
Behind the scenes Malloch-Brown tried to lobby Brown to uphold his promise to hold a “comprehensive” inquiry into the Iraq war. However, when last month Brown announced the investigation was to be carried out in secret, Malloch-Brown was furious.
“Mark was incandescent. This was not what why he signed up to being a minister,” said a colleague.
“He tried to contact the prime minister, but he was away travelling. In the end he spoke to Gus O’Donnell [the cabinet secretary] and told him what he thought.”
Within days of the prime minister’s original statement, the government executed a U-turn and said that some hearings would after all be held in public.
“Mark was satisfied with the final outcome,” said a colleague. “But I think the incident left a sour taste.”
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