UK > History > 2010 > Politics (I)

Royal car attack:

Cameron calls for 'full force of law'

• Student leaders claim protesters suffered police brutality
• PM condemns 'mob' who attacked Charles and Camilla's car

Guardian.co.uk
Friday 10 December 2010
17.28 GMT
James Meikle, Vikram Dodd and agencies
This article was published on guardian.co.uk
at 17.28 GMT
on Friday 10 December 2010.
It was last modified at 17.28 GMT
on Friday 10 December 2010.
It was first published at 10.51 GMT
on Friday 10 December 2010.

David Cameron today promised the full force of the law would be used on the "mob" who attacked a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, and smashed property in central London last night, while student leaders hit back, claiming protesters had suffered police brutality.

Mark Bergfeld, of the Education Activist Network, claimed demonstrators had suffered "horrendous" conditions as they were kettled for up to 10 hours and said the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were just in "the wrong place at the wrong time".

"There was police brutality," he said. "I saw 14-year-olds carry out their friends with cracked heads and things like that.

"I saw that people were being kettled until 1am on Westminster bridge. They were held there without toilet facilities, without water or food for 10 hours. We don't live in that kind of regime."

Cameron and the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said more than a small number of people were involved in violence during and after a Commons vote paving the way for a trebling of university tuition fees.

The prime minister admitted concerns over royal security must be addressed, but said the responsibility for violence lay with the protesters.

"We want to learn the lessons from that but, above all, we want to make sure that the people who behaved in these appalling ways feel the full force of the law of the land … There were quite a number of people who clearly were there wanting to pursue violence and to destroy property."

Attacks on the Treasury, supreme court and other buildings in central London left the Met facing questions about again losing control of the streets during a demonstration. It also faced questions about some officers being heavy handed, and the kettling of peaceful protesters. A total of 33 arrests were made.

An awful 24 hours for the police continued this morning with the announcement of an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation into the case of a 20-year-old student who was apparently struck by a truncheon and left unconscious with bleeding on the brain.

Alfie Meadows, a philosophy student at Middlesex University, has undergone a three-hour operation. His mother said he was hit by police as he tried to leave the area outside Westminster Abbey and lost consciousness on the way to hospital.

Susan Meadows, 55, an English literature lecturer at Roehampton University, said: "He was hit on the head by a police truncheon … he's got tubes coming out of him everywhere. He will be in hospital for quite a while, it was a very major thing."

Speaking outside No 10, Cameron condemned the "completely unacceptable" behaviour of protesters. "It is no good saying this was a very small minority. It was not. There were quite a number of people who clearly were there wanting to pursue violence and to destroy property.

"I know that the Metropolitan police commissioner is going to be working hard to report on this. I also know, quite rightly, he will look into the regrettable incident where the Prince of Wales and his wife were nearly attacked by this mob. We want to learn the lessons from that."

The attack on the royal car was not the fault of the police, he said. "This was the fault of people who tried to smash up that car."

His remarks came after Stephenson said that armed officers protecting the royal couple showed enormous restraint and condemned the "thugs" involved in violence.

The commissioner said the attack on the royal car was a "hugely shocking incident and there will be a full criminal investigation" but added that "short of locking everything down" police had to try to find a balance between allowing protest and stopping violence.

He praised his officers and the royal protection officers for their actions in coping with a "very unpredictable demonstration … and very difficult night" and said they showed enormous restraint in the most difficult of circumstances.

"The route was thoroughly recced in advance, including up to several minutes beforehand when the route was still clear.

"The unpredictability of thugs and how they moved about the capital meant the protection officers were placed in a very difficult position."

He said kettling and other police tactics did not contribute to the violence. "It is an excuse people are hiding behind … People need to be responsible for their own behaviour," he said, adding that a significant number of protesters had behaved reprehensibly.

He denied the police operation had been "undercooked" and said it had involved nearly 3,000 officers.

Dozens of protesters and a number of officers were injured. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, blamed a "large number of agitators who were determined to cause the maximum possible trouble and provocation and they succeeded".

He said a balance had to be struck between allowing protest and proportionate policing, saying the country could have a "different system", using watercannon and harsher police tactics that would have left "more broken heads this morning".

Charles and Camilla's car was surrounded by a mob as it drove down Regent Street on the way to a Royal Variety performance, with protesters kicking at the doors and shattering a rear window.

The protesters had spilled into the West End after an initially peaceful demonstration outside parliament deteriorated and spread.

Witnesses described how about 400 to 500 protesters were on Regent Street when the royal car was attacked. Charles and Camilla were visibly shaken but unharmed after demonstrators set upon the vehicle with fists, boots and bottles, chanting "Off with their heads" and "Tory scum".

Video footage posted on YouTube suggested the rear window was lowered as protestors surrounded the car but it was unclear whether Camilla, Charles or the driver was responsible.

Media reports that Camilla was prodded in the chest by a stick could not be confirmed. Today Charles and Camilla praised the efforts of police. A Clarence House spokesman said they understood the difficulties the police faced and were grateful for the job they did in "very challenging circumstances".

In other developments today, Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist David, apologised for climbing the Cenotaph during the protests, saying he "would like to express his deepest apologies for the terrible insult to the thousands of people who died bravely for our country".

The National Union of Students distanced itself from at least part of its London membership, pointing out that London University's student union had organised the demonstration in Parliament Square while the NUS held a rally on Victoria Embankment. The NUS president, Aaron Porter, said violent action was deplorable but it would continue to organise peaceful protest.

Clare Solomon, president of London University's student union, called the NUS leadership a disgrace. "They should have backed this demonstration. They are clearly out of touch," she said.

The NUS had paid thousands of pounds for "a glow-stick vigil", attracting 200 people, she said, when her union had spent hundreds on a protest that involved 35,000.

Solomon said it was hypocritical for people in the Tory party and others who voted for the war in Iraq to say that "this is violence when people are breaking windows as opposed to killing people".

The police should also take some responsibility, she said. "They were the ones beating us up and putting us in hospital when we were attempting to peacefully protest."

Royal car attack: Cameron calls for 'full force of law', NYT, 10.12.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/10/royal-car-attack-cameron-charles

Student fees protest:

'This is just the beginning'

• Tory HQ attacked as demonstration spirals out of control
• 35 arrested and 14 injured in violent clashes at Millbank
• Police admit being caught out by scale of student action

Wednesday 10 November 2010
21.38 GMT
Guardian.co.uk
Jeevan Vasagar, Paul Lewis and Nicholas Watt
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 21.38 GMT on Wednesday 10 November 2010.
A version appeared on p1 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Thursday 11 November 2010.
It was last modified at 23.15 GMT on Wednesday 10 November 2010.

Tens of thousands of students took to the streets of London today in a demonstration that spiralled out of control when a fringe group of protesters hurled missiles at police and occupied the building housing Conservative party headquarters.

Tonight both ministers and protesters acknowledged that the demonstration – by far the largest and most dramatic yet in response to the government's austerity measures – was "just the beginning" of public anger over cuts. Police, meanwhile, were criticised for failing to anticipate the scale of the disorder.

An estimated 52,000 people, according to the National Union of Students, marched through central London to display their anger over government plans to increase tuition fees while cutting state funding for university teaching. A wing of the protest turned violent as around 200 people stormed 30 Millbank, the central London building that is home to Tory HQ, where police wielding batons clashed with a crowd hurling placard sticks, eggs and some bottles. Demonstrators shattered windows and waved anarchist flags from the roof of the building, while masked activists traded punches with police to chants of "Tory scum".

Police conceded that they had failed to anticipate the level of violence from protesters who trashed the lobby of the Millbank building. Missiles including a fire extinguisher were thrown from the roof and clashes saw 14 people – a mix of officers and protesters – taken to hospital and 35 arrests. Sir Paul Stephenson, Met police commissioner, said the force should have anticipated the level ofviolence better. He said: "It's not acceptable. It's an embarrassment for London and for us."

While Tory headquarters suffered the brunt of the violence, Liberal Democrat headquarters in nearby Cowley Street were not targeted. "This is not what we pay the Met commissioner to do," one senior Conservative told the Guardian. "It looks like they put heavy security around Lib Dem HQ but completely forgot about our party HQ."

Lady Warsi, the Tory party chair, was in her office when protesters broke in. She initially had no police protection as the protesters made their way up the fire stairs to the roof. Police who eventually made it to Tory HQ decided not to evacuate staff from the building but to concentrate on removing the demonstrators.

The NUS president, Aaron Porter, condemned the actions of "a minority of idiots" but hailed the turnout as the biggest student demonstration in generations. The largely good-natured protest was organised by the NUS and the lecturers' union the UCU, who have attacked coalition plans to raise tuition fees as high as £9,000 while making 40% cuts to university teaching budgets. The higher fees will be introduced for undergraduates starting in 2012, if the proposals are sanctioned by the Commons in a vote due before Christmas. The NUS president told protesters: "We're in the fight of our lives. We face an unprecedented attack on our future before it has even begun. They're proposing barbaric cuts that would brutalise our colleges and universities."

Inside parliament the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg – the focus of much anger among protesters for his now abandoned pledge to scrap all tuition fees – came under sustained attack, facing 10 questions on tuition fees during his stand-in performance during prime minister's questions. He said there was consensus across the parties about the need to reform the system.

Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman, said the rise in fees was not part of the effort to tackle the deficit but about Clegg "going along with Tory plans to shove the cost of higher education on to students and their families". She said: "We all know what it's like: you are at freshers' week, you meet up with a dodgy bloke and you do things that you regret. Isn't it true he has been led astray by the Tories, isn't that the truth of it?"

Meanwhile one student won an unexpected concession from the coalition yesterday. In answer to a question from a Chinese student during his trip to China, David Cameron said: "Raising tuition fees will do two things. It will make sure our universities are well funded and we won't go on increasing so fast the fees for overseas students … We have done the difficult thing. We have put up contributions for British students. Yes, foreign students will still pay a significant amount of money, but we should now be able to keep that growth under control."

Additional reporting by Rachel Williams and Matthew Taylor

    Student fees protest: 'This is just the beginning', G, 11.11.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/10/student-fees-protest-conservative-hq

Ed Miliband elected new Labour leader

Ed Miliband benefits from union backing to defeat his older brother David Miliband in a knife-edge victory

Saturday 25 September 2010
18.29 BST
Guardian.co.uk
Toby Helm and Anushka Asthana
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 18.29 BST on Saturday 25 September 2010.
It was last modified at 21.19 BST on Saturday 25 September 2010.

Ed Miliband has seized the Labour leadership in a dramatic, knife-edge victory that left his elder brother David's political dreams in tatters.

The younger Miliband, who ran a left-leaning campaign and only emerged as favourite in the last 24 hours, declared himself proud and elated as he pledged to reunite the party and put it back on the road to power.

But his victory was not without controversy as he won by a narrow margin – 50.65% of the vote to 49.35% for his brother – and thanks in large part to a strong vote from the unions. David Miliband received stronger backing from MPs and MEPs and from party members.

MPs who supported David Miliband warned that Ed Miliband's reliance on the union vote was a "disaster" for the party – leaving it open to charges that its leader would be in the pocket of its leftwing paymasters, and wide open to attack from the Tories and rightwing elements in the media.

Amid emotional scenes, the two brothers, whose battle had at times become fraught and bitter, hugged after the result was finally called in Ed's favour.

After 10 nail-biting minutes during which details of the votes were read out in stages with no single candidate reaching the required 50% until the fourth and final round, Ed Miliband was declared the winner.

The Ed Miliband camp erupted with joy as David, who smiled and applauded warmly, was left to contemplate how his lifelong ambition to lead his party and enter Number 10 as prime minister had been thwarted by his younger brother.

Struggling to maintain his composure, Ed, the 40-year-old former energy secretary, made a short, dignified acceptance speech in which he heaped praise on his brother and the other defeated candidates, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott. To David Miliband, he expressed his "extraordinary respect" and praised his campaign.

Ed Miliband said he had not imagined "in my wildest dreams" that he would lead the party when he joined aged 17.

He declared he would fight every minute of leadership for a "more prosperous, more equal, more fair society" as Labour seeks a route back to government. "Today," he declared, "the work of a new generation begins."

Most of the younger Miliband's campaign message had been directed towards those on the left of the party, declaring New Labour to be "dead" and attacking the drift to what he described as "brutish US-style capitalism".

By contrast David Miliband, who for years had been seen as a natural successor to Tony Blair, stuck resolutely to a position more on the centre ground, refusing to abandon the New Labour approach of appealing both to middle class and core Labour voters.

After the result was announced, former home secretary David Blunkett said: "We've never seen anything quite like what we've had, with two brothers neck and neck. These are brothers. They're blood brothers. They can't afford to fall out in the way we had with Tony and Gordon, and neither can we."

He said he believed Ed Miliband had won the election in the last few weeks. "If the election had been at the end of July, I think David would have won," Blunkett added. "That takes courage and it takes tenacity."

Leaders of the major unions welcomed the outcome. Tony Woodley of the Unite union said: "This is a fantastic achievement for him and for the policies he has been promoting.

"His victory, coming from nowhere a few months ago, is a clear sign that the party wants change."

But one senior MP said it was bleak day. "I think this will trigger a constitutional crisis in the party. It is complete madness that we can be seen to have a leader who was put there by the unions," the MP said.

Burnham said: "This election has been good for the Labour party – it has been conducted in a constructive spirit and thousands of members have been able to take an active part of the debate. Ed Miliband is a worthy winner."

Diane Abbott, the candidate of the hard left, was the first to drop out of the contest, followed by Andy Burnham and Ed Balls. Then it was down to a head-to-head between the two brothers. Attention will now turn to the leader's speech to the conference on Tuesday.

Then in two weeks' time the new leader will announce the composition of his shadow cabinet. Top jobs are certain to be given to David, if he agrees to serve, and Ed Balls, currently the shadow schools secretary.

As he left his London home to travel to Manchester for the declaration, David Miliband said speculation that his brother had won should be taken with "a very large skip of salt". But he insisted he could have work under Ed's leadership, joking that they would enjoy "more than a pint" whatever the result.

    Ed Miliband elected new Labour leader, G, 25.9.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/25/ed-miliband-wins-labour-leadership

David Cameron and Nick Clegg lead coalition into power

• Tory–Lib Dem coalition takes power after Labour talks fail
• Conservative leader becomes PM after five days of negotiation
• Clegg to be deputy PM with four more Lib Dems in cabinet

Wednesday 12 May 2010
The Guardian
Patrick Wintour, political editor

David Cameron arrives at Downing Street with his wife, Samantha, and says he wants to form a full coalition with the Liberal Democrats Link to this video
Britain took a leap into the political unknown last night when the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed the first full coalition government in Britain since 1945, with David Cameron serving as the country's 52nd prime minister and Nick Clegg becoming his deputy.

The ending of Gordon Brown's premiership and 13 years of Labour rule followed the collapse of last-ditch efforts to forge a progressive government of Labour and the Lib Dems, provoking bitter recriminations on both sides over how Clegg's party arrived at the decision to decide to prop up a Tory government on what will be a five year fixed term .

Cameron finally entered Downing Street after seeing the Queen at Buckingham Palace last night – concluding a remarkable five-day political tug of war.

On the steps of Downing Street, Cameron, Britain's youngest prime minister since 1812, said: "This is going to be hard and difficult work. A coalition will throw up all sorts of challenges. But I believe that together we can provide that strong and stable government that our country needs."

The deal with the Lib Dems, ensuring a 77-seat majority, was finally agreed after Clegg decided he could not create a stable coalition with Labour, partly due to a revolt inside the parliamentary Labour party at the concept of a deal, as well as its likely terms.

If the deal works, it will change the shape of the Conservative party – and if it fails, the Lib Dems could find themselves rubbed out as a progressive force.

The Lib Dems secured five cabinet posts and a commitment to 15 other ministerial jobs across Whitehall. On the Conservative side, George Osborne will be chancellor of the exchequer and William Hague foreign secretary.

Arriving in Downing Street at 8.40pm as prime minister, Cameron looked overawed as he admitted that his new government had "some deep and pressing problems – a huge deficit, deep social problems and a political system in need of reform". He said he and Clegg wanted "to put aside party differences and work hard for the national interest".

With echoes of the US president John Kennedy, he said he wanted to build a society in Britain "in which we do not just ask what are my entitlements, but what are my responsibilities, one where we don't ask just what am I just owed, but more what can I give".

Clegg admitted there may be glitches ahead, promising "we are going to form a new kind of government", adding "it represented the start of the new politics I have always believed in".

In the intense negotiations with the Lib Dems, the Tories agreed to drop their plans to raise the threshold for inheritance tax, but the Lib Dems accepted that spending cuts will start this year as part of an accelerated deficit reduction plan.

Civil liberties laws will be reviewed, including abolition of ID cards and a referendum will be held on the alternative vote electoral system in which Tories could oppose the change. The Tory annual immigration cap will be kept, and extra money for disadvantaged pupils has been agreed. The Tories have insisted that their plans to recognise marriage in the tax system remain, but the Lib Dems will be entitled to abstain on the issue.

Lib Dem MPs and the party's federal executive endorsed at midnight the detailed coalition deal, due to be published today, but after Cameron was installed in Downing Street.

Once the Lib Dem-Con deal was secured, Gordon Brown went to the Queen to tender his resignation.

In a graceful and moving statement, accompanied by his wife and two sons, John and Fraser, Brown told the nation he was leaving a job that was the most important after being a father and husband.

"Only those who have held the office of prime minister can understand the full weight of its responsibilities and its great capacity for good," he said. "I've been privileged to learn much about the very best in human nature, and a fair amount, too, about its frailties, including my own."

Later he told party workers he was resigning immediately as party leader, leaving Harriet Harman in charge.

He told his party: "We know more certainly than ever before that there is a strong progressive majority in Britain, I wish more than I can possibly say that I could mobilise that majority, but I could not – I have to accept and to assert personal responsibility the fault is mine, and I will carry that alone.

"One thing that will not change is that I am Labour and Labour I will always be."

Even before Brown announced he was resigning, the recriminations had started. The Lib Dems rounded on Labour negotiators, accusing them of not being serious in the talks, and preferring opposition as more attractive than the challenges of creating a coalition.

Lord Adonis, the cabinet member most supportive of a deal with the Lib Dems, launched a blistering attack on Clegg. "It is clear from their conduct in recent days that the Lib Dem leadership was dead set on a coalition with the Tories," he said. "They should have been straight about this fact rather than playing silly games with myself, Gordon Brown and others. Nick Clegg's deal with the Conservatives is a matter of choice not necessity."

Barack Obama was among the first of the world leaders to call Cameron after the Tory leader had entered Downing Street.

In a statement, Obama said he looked forward to meeting the new UK prime minister: "As I told the prime minister, the United States has no closer friend and ally than the United Kingdom, and I reiterated my deep and personal commitment to the special relationship between our two countries."

    David Cameron and Nick Clegg lead coalition into power, G, 12.5.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/12/david-cameron-nick-clegg-coalition

Embracing change: Cameron forges historic coalition


May 12, 2010
The Times
Roland Watson, Political Editor

David Cameron will begin today to forge the first peacetime coalition for more than 80 years after becoming Britain’s 53rd Prime Minister.

The Conservative leader opened a new political era by cautioning that “hard and difficult work” lay ahead for the new Government that will include five Liberal Democrats in Cabinet and some 15 others in ministerial jobs. Nick Clegg was last night confirmed by the Queen as Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr Cameron struck a businesslike tone devoid of triumphalism as he arrived in Downing Street to end five days of post-election uncertainty and become the first Tory for 31 years to depose a Labour prime minister.

He and Mr Clegg would “put political differences aside” as they moved to tackle the deficit, ease deep social problems, rebuild public trust in politics and bring about a more responsible society. The maxim of his Government would be: “Those who can, should, those who cannot, we will always help.” He promised that the elderly, frail and poorest would not be forgotten.

The scale of the political revolution underway — and the extent of the two leaders’ collaboration — was underlined with the unprecedented announcement that the next election will take place on the first Thursday in May 2015. Even before taking office, Mr Cameron gave up the Prime Minister’s freedom to go the country when he chooses, with both sides instead committing to a full five-year term.

Last night Clegg won the backing of his party for the deal.

The hiatus since polling closed last Thursday had seemed interminable, and at times fatal, to Tory hopes, but shortly before 9pm the waiting ended as Mr Cameron swept into Downing Street in a silver Jaguar amid deafening cheers and jeers from a crowd of many hundreds gathered in Whitehall.

He went round the car to open the door for his wife, Samantha. Together they walked to the same spot outside No 10 where, 90 minutes earlier, Gordon Brown had bid an emotional farewell to his home of the past 1,048 days. He wished his successor well, said that it had been a privilege to serve, paid a glowing tribute to the Armed Forces — “all that is best in our country” — and , his voice cracking, to his wife, Sarah.

In a moment of poignant self-awareness, he said the job had taught him about the best in human nature and about its frailties, “including my own”.

Mr Cameron, with his visibly pregnant wife looking on nervously, paid tribute to Mr Brown and promised to “face up to our really big challenges, to confront our problems . . . so that together we can reach better times”.

He walked through the front door and straight into the realities of his new job: his first security briefing and telephone calls from President Obama and Chancellor Merkel of Germany. Mr Obama invited him to Washington in July and spoke of his “deep personal commitment to the special relationship” between Britain and the United States. Mr Cameron’s first appointments were George Osborne as Chancellor and William Hague as Foreign Secretary.

The choreography of an unwritten constitution that was severely tested by the indecisive election results began to take form in the late afternoon after the late attempt by Labour to stitch together a rainbow coalition with the Liberal Democrats and minority parties unravelled comprehensively.

Mr Brown pre-empted the final agreement of policy details between his two rivals and resigned, marking the end of his political career and an era that began when Tony Blair was cheered into Downing Street in 1997. He not only stepped down as Prime Minister but also as leader of the Labour Party and has signalled his intention to quit as an MP.

After tendering his resignation to the Queen, he returned to a defeated hero’s welcome at Labour headquarters.

Within minutes Mr and Mrs Cameron arrived at a Buckingham Palace bathed in brilliant late evening sun, a rainbow hanging in the sky. The Queen asked him to become her 12th Prime Minister. Mr Cameron is the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. He is a few months younger than Mr Blair was when he took up office, also aged 43.

The moment completed another remarkable day at Westminster, where senior Tories had woken up believing that their chances of taking power for the first time in 13 years had gone, thanks to the coalition talks that began late on Monday night between Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Those pushing the deal on Labour’s side as the possible beginning of a “progressive era”, including Lord Mandelson, had underestimated the strength of internal opposition. Ministers and MPs warned against trying to forge a “coalition of losers” that they feared would do Labour huge damage.

Although negotiators from both sides met in the morning, there was little goodwill. The Liberal Democrat team accused Labour of playing politics; Labour accused their counterparts of making unrealistic demands.

The break-up of the talks marked the pivotal moment in the day, when Mr Clegg turned to Mr Cameron once again. Even while the talks had been going on, many Liberal Democrats had woken up to the merits of Mr Cameron’s offer — that a Tory-Lib Dem coalition would be better placed to deliver a referendum on voting reform than a Lab-Lib one that could barely muster a Commons majority.

Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg sent their negotiators to work to thrash out policy details on tax, education and green issues. The two leaders talked personnel. The Tory team, led by William Hague, and the Lib Dem team, led by Danny Alexander, spent six hours locked in talks. They were still inside when Mr Brown, stung by accusations that he had overstayed his welcome in Downing Street and realising that Mr Cameron was on the brink of power, decided to wait no longer.

Only 24 hours after saying that he would stay at Labour’s helm to oversee an orderly transition, he announced that instead he was quitting with immediate effect, leaving Harriet Harman as caretaker leader.

Mr Brown signed off, “Thank you and goodbye”, before turning back to the front door of No 10 one last time and ushering out his sons. The family walked together towards Whitehall before Mr Brown got into his government car and went to meet the Queen.

The new Prime Minister was greeted at the Commons last night with unrestrained jubilation by Tory MPs.

In his first address as Prime Minister, Mr Cameron had anticipated the tests ahead. “The coalition will throw up all sorts of challenges, but I believe together we can provide that strong and stable government that our country needs.”

The cacophony outside Downing Street offered a taste of the task he will face as he tries simultaneously to unite the country and impose a new era of austerity. Hundreds of opponents waved placards proclaiming “Stop the cuts” and “Fight for every job”. “Gordon, Gordon, Gordon,” they chanted, to which equally large numbers of Tory supporters retorted with chants of “Gordon’s gone, Gordon’s gone!”

    Embracing change: Cameron forges historic coalition, Ts, 12.5.2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7123472.ece

Election 2010: You can't ignore the verdict: nobody won

And you would have thought Brown's resignation would be trending on Twitter.
But no, Adam Boulton changed all that

Tuesday 11 May 2010
14.03 BST
Guardian.co.uk
Alastair Campbell
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 14.03 BST on Tuesday 11 May 2010.
It was last modified at 18.04 BST on Tuesday 11 May 2010.

After all the drama and excitement of yesterday, some things have changed and some haven't. Gordon Brown signalling his departure as Labour leader is a change, though one that should not have been hugely unexpected given the election result which was, in its own way, a rejection of all three leaders – Brown who as PM could not secure a majority, David Cameron as the man who blew a huge lead, Nick Clegg who looked to be on for big gains that never materialised.

So that change means a new Labour leader by the autumn, though none of us know whether that will be in or out of office.

The other change is the establishment of formal talks between the Liberal Democrats and Labour. These began last night.

The thing which has not changed is the range of options still available – a minority Tory government, some kind of coalition or arrangement between Tories and Lib Dems, some kind of coalition or arrangement between Labour and Lib Dems. I have no idea which of those three is currently likeliest to emerge.

It is less than a week since many were telling pollsters that they wanted the outcome of the election to be a hung parliament. Many are now wondering, it would seem, whether in reality that is what they want now they see what it means. But the politicians do have to respond to the verdict the electorate has given, and that is what is happening.

I thought Gordon Brown did well yesterday. As Nick Clegg said immediately afterwards, it cannot have been an easy statement to make, but he made it well. The way many in the media and public talk of politicians, all they see are self-serving plotters and schemers interested only in status, power and advancement. I think Gordon has genuinely been driven in politics by a deep belief in social justice, and in recent days by a clear commitment to seeking to make sense of the result in a way that serves the national interest.

None of that means he cannot be difficult or that there were not times when, in my time with Tony Blair, he made life more difficult than it should have been. But I think he conducted himself with real dignity and a rather inspiring nobility yesterday.

It was very odd for me to be back in Downing Street for a few days, once it was clear he wanted to keep some of the election team for political and strategic advice in the aftermath of the results. But when he came back into the office after delivering his statement, his staff applauded him – and he responded, in a way that was really moving.

As you may have seen, I went from there to do a number of interviews. Most posed this question about the process Gordon Brown had started leading to a second "unelected prime minister" if the Lib-Lab coalition materialises, and Brown makes way for a successor.

It is worth remembering that this is a parliamentary democracy not a presidential system. There are many precedents – most recently, of course, Gordon Brown, but not long before that John Major, and before that Jim Callaghan – of prime ministers who became PM as the result of being elected leader by their parties, not the public.

Of course, in an ideal world, any PM would first be elected by the public. That sense has perhaps been exacerbated by the television debates. But for all the attention they got, people voted for candidates, and our system says the PM comes from the grouping of candidates which forms a majority in government. So that is the other thing which has not changed – it will be either David Cameron or Gordon Brown, though Brown will be gone by the autumn come what may, and before that of course if Cameron becomes PM any time soon on his own or with the Liberal Democrats.

But I go back to the central point – nobody won. That was the public verdict.

It is entirely possible we will still have a Cameron premiership, but he did not win it on the results alone. And part of the reason for the Lib Dems also wanting to talk to Labour is the genuine anger many Lib Dem voters feel that they voted to stop Cameron, not help him in.

I accept that many people voted against Labour. But many voted for progressive parties, not conservative ones, and it is worth a shot to see if they can build that progressive majority.

I was somewhat taken aback to be the only Labour figure trending on Twitter an hour or so after the announcement and the reason – Adam Boulton – was trending all night. Justin Bieber eat your heart out.

Adam Boulton gets very touchy at any suggestion that he is anything other than an independent, hugely respected, totally impartial and very important journalist whose personal views never see the light of day, and who works for an organisation that is a superior form of public service than anything the BBC can deliver.

I leave you to make your own judgment what our interview yesterday says about that. I did not have time last night to read the hundreds of comments online – the kindest seemed to suggest he needs a rest (we all do); but the bulk seemed to feel his ranting and raving might suggest I had a point, which I made – for me – rather calmly.

    Election 2010: You can't ignore the verdict: nobody won, G, 11.5.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/11/alastair-campbell-adam-boulton-election

Gordon Brown: a gifted man, ground down by the success of a rival

In an assessment of Gordon Brown's political career,

Michael White finds a man with extraordinary skills who was cursed with self-doubt and the success of his rival and nemesis Tony Blair

Monday 10 May 2010
18.44 BST
Guardian.co.uk
Michael White
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 18.44 BST on Monday 10 May 2010.
It was last modified at 19.30 BST on Monday 10 May 2010.

Few of Gordon Brown's friends and admirers would have predicted during his dominant decade as chancellor that his life's journey from the Presbyterian manse in Kirkcaldy to No 10 would end in such a painful exit. Many of his enemies in Labour's ranks and beyond predicted it long ago. Both camps will regret it.

Both also knew a man who had been a gifted student politician who ran rings around the stuffy Edinburgh University establishment, rose almost effortlessly through Labour's ranks to be shadow chancellor, but saw the ultimate prize snatched away from him by a younger rival, less substantial but more confident: his friend and nemesis, Tony Blair. "You've ruined my life," became a taunt he would hurl at Blair. It gnawed away at him.

The paradox of Brown's career is that of a man blessed with intellectual gifts, drive and ambition who was simultaneously cursed with a debilitating self-doubt which easily turned to mistrust and suspicion of all but the most devoted allies. For every MP who spoke of his personal acts of kindness and his high-minded strivings to curb child poverty – not just in Britain – another would recall brusque, high-handed rudeness.

Blair, with whom Brown was yoked in a dysfunctional political marriage throughout the New Labour project, would count himself as a friend, one who feared rather than hoped that his unavoidable successor would rise to the challenge of leadership and reinvent himself, liberated after finally taking over in June 2007.

For a few months it looked as if it might prove so. Brown handled a series of crises – floods, Islamist bombs and a cattle cull – with quiet competence. He set out his plans to decentralise Britain and make good the more evident weaknesses of Blairism, not least its careless disregard for civil liberties and taste for celebrity.

But two developments quickly derailed the new prime minister's hopes. In August 2007 the first cracks appeared in the international banking system, cracks that would lead to the run on the Northern Rock bank – the first run on a bank in Britain for 150 years – and its eventual nationalisation by New Labour – an irony after years of pro-business rhetoric.

Almost in parallel, Brown allowed speculation to build towards a snap general election in late October of that year. In theory it would smash yet another new Conservative challenger in David Cameron as well as securing Brown his own mandate for five years; he would no longer be dependant on Blair's three-election magic.

But the Tories pulled a rabbit out of the hat – a thoroughly regressive promise to slash unpopular inheritance tax (IHT) – and bounced back in the polls.

Brown blinked and cancelled the election, foolishly denying that he had been influenced by the polls. The subsequent jibe about "bottler Brown" crystallised voters' doubts about his character and capacity to lead. Had not Blairites and officials muttered for years about his inability to take the rapid-fire decisions needed at No 10, but not No 11? Had they not complained about his temper, his instinctive secrecy, his bullying treatment of colleagues, Blair among them?

This fateful judgment meant that Brown would prove unable to regain lost ground via the substantial and serious success of his premiership: the decision to recapitalise ailing British banks after the catastrophic collapse of Lehman Brothers which the Bush administration allowed in September 2008.

As the western banking system tottered it was Brown, his underrated chancellor, Alistair Darling, and their officials who moved first on 8 October to pump billions into banks to prevent a wider collapse. Other beleaguered governments followed the British lead and the system survived. The following spring Brown chaired a crucial meeting of the G20 industrialised states to coordinate a global economic stimulus to fend off another Great Depression, to boost IMF lending, thwart protectionism and uphold the world trading system.

Again Brown's role was praised. But his enemies were already making a concerted effort to persuade voters that, whatever good calls Downing Street had made in the crisis – much better than the Tory opposition, economic analysts agreed – the former chancellor had taken crucial decisions which either caused or compounded Britain's unique vulnerability in the crisis. The result? A terrifying increase in public borrowing deficit – £163bn in the current year – which will roughly double the national debt to 79% of GDP by 2013-14.

Much of that sharp deterioration was attributable directly to the reckless profligacy of the banks in repackaging and selling on questionable debt in ways which – theoretically – spread the risk, but when the bubble burst proved to have contaminated all but the most prudent.

Gordon Brown's role in this cast a long shadow over a chancellorship that Blair had routinely praised as the greatest of modern times. During what became known as the "Great Moderation" – low interest rates, low inflation, a record decade of economic growth – Brown routinely boasted that he had put an end to "Tory boom and bust".

Now the sharpest recession since the 1930s had proved a hollow claim. Worse than that, Brown's critics were able to claim that in hiving off responsibility for regulating the banking system from the Bank of England to the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the then-chancellor's first, bold initiative of 1997 had fatally weakened it. The FSA was fretting about solvency when liquidity was the problem.

Other mistakes were levelled at him, the badly-timed sale of gold, the complex tax credit system that turned the Treasury into a spending department, to offset undoubted triumphs like the debt relief campaign for Africa and the huge increase in aid to poor countries.

But the wounding charge in 2010 has become Brown's creation of a structural hole in the budget, more serious than the cyclical hit which the recession made in tax receipts, at least 4% of GDP. "Brown used bankers' taxes to pay nurses and it was unsustainable," as one shadow minister warned. The failure to build up reserves during the boom years will make recovery that much harder.

How it all happened is intertwined with Brown's own character and experience. Early on, the assistant lecturer turned TV producer had shown signs of ducking challenges where the outcome could not be guaranteed, unwilling to take on the frontrunner for Labour's nomination in the Hamilton byelection, one George Robertson, as early as 1978.

Robin Cook, five years his senior, was an early Scots rival. But Blair, the callow young lawyer, elected with him in Margaret Thatcher's landslide year of 1983, was always a protégée. It was Brown who was promoted to be shadow trade secretary by Neil Kinnock in 1989, then to be shadow chancellor when John Smith took over in 1992. Blair trailed.

As such, Brown made himself unpopular by taking a tougher stance on public spending pledges to restore Labour's credibility – a reason for Blair's subsequent success, he persuaded himself. He was luckier over sterling's brief membership of the European monetary system, forerunner of the euro. Smith and Brown backed it, but when sterling was rudely ejected in September 1992 John Major took all the blame.

The crisis allowed sterling to regain its competitiveness, opening the road to the boom decade. Brown learned a lesson. Later when prime minister Blair became eager to take Britain into the new eurozone, his chancellor agreed in principle but announced "five economic tests" – dreamed up by his consigliere, Ed Balls, in a taxi – that would postpone it indefinitely. The Blair camp saw the euro dispute as yet another argument over tactics, not principle, though it has proved to be one of New Labour's best calls.

When Blair faced down Brown over which of them would run for the vacant Labour leadership after Smith's sudden death in 1994, he promised Brown unique sway over economic domestic policy. It allowed him to build a power base that would hamper Blair's (sometimes ill-considered) pro-market plans for reform, across the board from NHS hospital trusts and academy schools to student tuition fees and pensions.

Often there was merit in the case being made by both men and goodwill between them too. They spent billions to reverse, albeit only modestly, the Tory legacy of child poverty and inequality. They rebuilt schools and doubled the NHS budget – slashing waiting times – to better effect than the Daily Mail would concede. They introduced the national minimum wage.

What so often poisoned their dealings and repeatedly mangled New Labour's effectiveness in its early, popular years was the personal dimension. Blair rightly felt that his chancellor was willfully blocking him, not to mention keeping his budget and other plans secret. Brown felt with equal justice that Blair had promised to step aside as early as 2003 – and repeatedly changed his mind. Key witnesses confirm both points of view.

So it continued, with barely-coded sniping at annual Labour conferences. In 2004 Blair said he would not seek a fourth term: it did not heal the wound. In September 2006 when Blair, weakened by the Iraq war debacle and his reluctance that summer to condemn the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, he was forced to tell party activists it would be his last conference as leader.

Brown said he was eager for a contest (a mistake Blair felt he had made in not beating Brown openly in 1994) but did his best to organise a "coronation". Potential rivals were undermined and over 300 Labour MPs lined up to nominate him. Within six months some were regretting it. Despite his dogged election campaign this month, one which turned looming disaster into a manageable defeat – despite that telling, testy comment about "that bigoted woman" Gillian Duffy – more and more have abandoned him in recent days.

It will not have been easy for Brown to make today's decision; he believes he is the man to steer Britain out of recession. But he will have been persuaded to put party first. The tragedy is that Brown's many admirable qualities and instincts – his social conscience and moral compass – could have been more constructively and generously deployed in shaping Blair's instincts and salesman's skills: they showed at the G7's Africa summit in Gleneagles (2005) what they could do together. He would have got the leadership sooner too: cooperate with me more and I will step aside, Blair kept saying.

An introvert who, some say, could never live up to his father's high expectations, his gloomy side must have been enhanced by his traumatic experience of near-blindness in his teens. Blair's sunny disposition must have rankled, the loss of his first child, Jennifer Jane, a further cruel blow. Brown made his private comfort a low priority compared with his career, his love life as neglected as his chaotic flats.

Sarah Brown brought domestic happiness and a young family to his life relatively late, he is 59. It should provide a much-needed balm in his hour of defeat.

    Gordon Brown: a gifted man, ground down by the success of a rival, G, 10.5.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/10/general-election-2010-gordon-brown

Gordon Brown waits for Birnam Wood to advance on No 10

Gordon Brown's fate has been to resemble not just one but several Shakespearean tragic heroes

Jonathan Freedland
Guardian.co.uk
Sunday 9 May 2010 21.08
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 21.08 BST on Sunday 9 May 2010.
A version appeared on p1 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Monday 10 May 2010.
It was last modified at 21.20 BST on Sunday 9 May 2010

If Gordon Brown's fate has been to resemble not just one but several Shakespearean tragic heroes – cursed in his relationship with Tony Blair by a jealousy worthy of Othello, racked in the first months of his premiership by the indecision of Hamlet – then today he was Macbeth, seemingly playing out his final act. Like the embattled Scottish king holed up in his castle, watching Birnam Wood march on Dunsinane, Brown sat in No 10 knowing that, a few yards away, enemy forces were gathered, preparing to combine and seize his crown.

The cameras were trained on 70 Whitehall, where Lib Dem and Conservative negotiators were trying to make David Cameron prime minister. But on the other side of what's known as "the link door" sat the incumbent, surrounded in No 10 by advisers, ministers and former aides, including two of the founding fathers of New Labour, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell. The only man missing from that pioneering quartet was Blair – although perhaps, like Banquo, he sent his ghost.

What was the mood? Officially, Brown was doing no more than his constitutional duty: preparing for the eventuality that Con-Lib talks broke down and the task of forming a coalition fell to him. Others suspected a more dramatic scene.

The generous version cast Brown as a man who had at last accepted his destiny. One senior Labour official said Brown's efforts to woo Nick Clegg represented little more than going through the motions, a token effort, given that the PM knew the arithmetic made it near-impossible.

In this reading, Brown understood that his time as PM was coming to an end. The only question was the manner and timing of his departure. Should he stay on as leader of the opposition – or would it be slightly humiliating to face Cameron at prime minister's questions from the wrong side of the dispatch box? Would it be better to let Harriet Harman stay on as acting leader while a formal contest to replace him got under way?

None of this meant he was about to bow to the handful of backbenchers who over the weekend demanded his instant resignation. That would create a constitutional vacuum, leaving the country without a prime minister and forcing the Queen to name a replacement. It would not even make a Lib-Lab coalition more likely: it would simply replace one obstacle – Brown, whom Clegg is known to dislike – with another, by saddling a new, progressive government with a second, unelected prime minister.

But these were political considerations. As for personal ambition, the virus that brought down Macbeth, those looking kindly on Brown said he was cured of it. "I'm past caring," he mused privately on Friday, when asked about his own position. They point to his statement accepting that Clegg talk to Cameron first, all statesmanlike and above the fray, as if he had made the emotional shift from combatant to referee.

Others see the weekend's events rather differently. The less charitable version pictures Brown in the No 10 bunker, scheming to cling on. It cites the late-night calls to Clegg – although those who heard them insist they were calm and businesslike – imagining a fevered Brown stabbing jotting pads with his thick pen, totting up the assorted minor parties to see if he could somehow reach the magic number that spelled power.

That the PM saw Clegg again today, in a clandestine meeting at the Foreign Office, confirmed Brown was far from ready to surrender. Instead, this man of uncanny resilience was clearly planning one more resurrection.

Which version is true? Is Brown now the becalmed statesman, planning his exit, or the bloodied survivor, determined to fight on? The likelihood is that, when it comes to Brown – the most psychologically complex figure to inhabit Downing Street since Winston Churchill – the answer is both.

    Gordon Brown waits for Birnam Wood to advance on No 10, G, 9.5.2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/09/gordon-brown-labour-leadership

As Britain Votes, Economic Clouds Hover

May 5, 2010
The New York Times
By JOHN F. BURNS and LANDON THOMAS Jr.

LONDON — Even with rioters on the streets of Athens and the 16 countries using the euro threatened with mounting turmoil, the economy remained the most frequently — and least candidly — discussed topic here as the three main parties entered the last hours of a monthlong general election campaign.

Much of the wrangling centered on arguments about which party was hiding most from the voters on the true state of the economy and its plans for dealing with it. With government deficits in Britain second in Europe only to those of Greece, some analysts even suggested that this might be a good election to lose.

But one conclusion seemed clear: Whoever wins will be forced to make deep and unpopular cuts, a task made all the more difficult if the closely contested election produces, as many commentators have forecast, a hung Parliament or a fragile coalition arrangement that might delay important economic decisions.

“This is a ticking time bomb,” said Ruth Lea, an economic adviser at the Arbuthnot Banking Group who worked at the Treasury in London in 1976 when Britain, in its worst financial crisis since World War II, was forced to go to the International Monetary Fund for assistance. “If the next government does not come to grips with this, the I.M.F. will have to come in. I remember, it was very, very humiliating.”

If victory on Thursday could be a poisoned chalice, there has been little in the last-minute campaigning by the three main contenders for 10 Downing Street — Prime Minister Gordon Brown for Labour, the Conservative opposition leader David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats’ leader, Nick Clegg — to suggest it. On the contrary, veteran political reporters said they could not recall a campaign since at least 1992 that involved such a frantic dash to the finish line, above all by the man who is heavily favored to win the largest bloc in the 650-seat House of Commons, Mr. Cameron.

He campaigned through the night on Tuesday, racing from one encounter with night-shift workers to another.

Mr. Cameron, at least, is no stranger to financial crises. At 43, and like many of those likely to serve in a Conservative cabinet, he has limited experience in government. But he was an aide in the Treasury on what became known as “Black Wednesday” in 1992, when the pound sterling was withdrawn from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism at cost of more than $6 billion to British taxpayers.

While Mr. Cameron seems most likely to emerge from Thursday’s vote as prime minister, it is far from a done deal. Polls in recent days have shown the Conservatives pulling out a narrow lead of about 5 percentage points. The polls have shown Labour and the Liberal Democrats vying for second place, with their ratings one side or another of about 30 percent of the vote.

All three party leaders have centered their campaigns on vague pledges to cut government spending, which has caused deficits on a scale not seen since World War II, when Britain fought Germany and Japan largely on borrowed money.

The comparisons with Greece begin with the current year’s deficit, which at 11.5 percent of gross domestic product is not far off the 13.6 percent figure for Greece and considerably larger than the figures for Spain and Portugal, which some economists fear may be the next European countries bidding for international bailouts.

The immediate political liability for this lies with Mr. Brown and the Labour Party, which engaged in a spree of epic proportions after taking power in 1997, spending at a rate that has outstripped inflation by 41 percent. The current budget of about $1.1 trillion includes more than $150 billion on the state-run National Health Service, triple the amount when Labour came to power.

One in every four pounds the government spends is borrowed, a pattern that economists say will require the next government to make cuts on a scale not experienced since the Great Depression, as well as painful tax increases.

When these issues have been discussed at all in the campaign, it has usually been in the context of which of the parties could get away with being most evasive in setting out deficit-reduction plans that economists say fall far short of the cuts that will be needed.

One man who knows more than most about the scale of the problem is Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, Britain’s central bank. David Hale, a Chicago-based economist, said last week that Mr. King had told him that “whoever wins will be out of power for a whole generation because of how tough the fiscal austerity will have to be.” Mr. Hale, speaking on Australian television, met in off-the-record sessions with Lord King in London in March, according to a bank spokesmen, who did not deny the accuracy of the American’s account.

Still, few people here think that the austerity measures needed to right the country’s finances could lead to Greece-style chaos. One important measure, according to financial experts, is that interest rates on British treasury bonds have remained low at around 4 percent even as interest rates on Greek debt have at times soared well into double digits, reflecting market confidence that Britain’s leaders will find responsible ways of reducing the debt.

Yet, the measures that will be needed are likely to require deep cuts in the public services on which the vast majority of Britain’s 62 million people depend, as well as in the state-employed work force of more than six million. .

On the campaign trail, Mr. Brown has focused his fire on the Conservatives, saying their plans for sharp cuts immediately after the election would endanger the economic recovery in Britain.

But others say that delaying or restraining the cuts poses a greater risk. Kenneth Clarke, a former chancellor of the Exchequer and one of the few veterans of previous Conservative governments on Mr. Cameron’s team, has said that any postponement in attacking the deficit could lead to a run on the pound and to Britain having to go cap-in-hand to the I.M.F., as a Labour government did in 1976.

But even Mr. Cameron has had to trim his sails. Among other things, he has fenced himself in by promising to continue to increase the politically sensitive National Health Service budget, and to protect Britain’s “most vulnerable” people from cuts in social spending.

The Conservatives could emerge from the election short of a majority and dependent on the Liberal Democrats’ support to govern. That could lead to an impasse, because Mr. Clegg favors huge defense cuts that the Conservatives are likely to reject, and he agrees with Labour on delaying the deepest cuts until the economic recovery is secure.

British commentators have said that one option for the Conservatives would be to take office with a minority government and go to Parliament within a matter of weeks, saying that their new access to details of the public finances had convinced them that much deeper cuts were required than even they realized. The prospect then would be for a second election in the autumn, in which voters would be asked for a mandate supporting the Conservative cuts.

    As Britain Votes, Economic Clouds Hover, NYT, 5.5.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/world/europe/06britain.html