If Gordon Brown has shown little enthusiasm for keeping in touch with his former Cabinet colleagues, it may be because they neglected the tradition of having a whip round for him when he stepped down as prime minister. "I think that is a private matter, don't you?"I was told by an irritable John Denham. Brown's communities secretary then put the telephone down. When I asked Pat McFadden, the former business minister, who attended Cabinet meetings, if he knew of any gift, he said: "I have never heard it mentioned. No, there hasn't been a whip round." Even if Brown had been minded to accept a leaving gift in a characteristically low-key way – in the manner, for instance, that he signed the Lisbon Treaty – it wouldn't have made any difference. His former Cabinet colleagues appear to have made a conscious decision to give him nothing. "Part of it was because of the circumstances of his departure," one tells me on condition I do not name him. "For a while, we didn't know if he was going or not." By contrast, when Tony Blair left office, Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, had asked each member of his cabinet to chip in £80 to buy him a print of Chequers. It was presented to him at their last meeting. Even now, it is not too late for Brown's comrades to make amends, but it seems a forlorn hope. So many of the candidates for the Labour leadership are in the business of distancing themselves from the former prime minister that the last thing they would want is a picture of them to be taken presenting him with a belated bauble. For all that, I reckon Brown should have a gift. Suggestions on a postcard, please.Gordon Brown is still waiting for
a leaving gift from Cabinet colleagues
Gordon Brown's 'messy' departure from Downing Street is blamed.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
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