Tag: “Gordon Brown”

The Labour pledge card has been an important part of every campaign since 1997. The cards help set out priorities. In addition to attracting widespread media coverage, they are, more importantly, a useful basis for doorstep communications and further campaign materials. Thirteen years on from the first one, they are also a reminder of what Labour [...]

If I say ‘Gordon Brown/Piers Morgan interview’ the chances are it will trigger some kind of response, that a memory either of the event or of the coverage will come to mind. It showed a more human side to GB than is normally on display, and therefore came as something of a surprise to people. [...]

Interesting moment at BBC London – I was there to be interviewed by Robert Elms about my book and my views on matters London – when the ‘news’ was announced that David Cameron had ‘called for an inquiry’ into GB and bullying. Interesting because of the rolling eyes and the ‘inquiry into what?’ shouts from [...]

As expected, fairly mixed reviews for the GB interview with Piers Morgan. Some can’t get beyond their loathing of Piers. Others can’t get beyond their negativity about GB. But it is always important to differentiate between media opinion and public opinion. Based on nothing more than instinct, a few conversations and a trawl online, I would say [...]

Some commentators are already suggesting GB must have gone into his interview with Piers Morgan with his express purpose of crying over the loss of his daughter. I have not seen the interview but I have seen Gordon in the past get very emotional indeed about losing his first child, and about the fact that one of [...]

Leadership is in large part about how you react under pressure. Pressure does not come much greater than that which faced Gordon Brown when an economic whirlwind struck, and the world feared a plunge into a 30s style depression. This morning I look at a Financial Times front page headline which says ‘Manufacturing surges back’ [...]

When the Tories were slowly imploding in the run up to our first landslide victory in 1997, former minister Alan Clark called me to bemoan his party’s fate. As my diaries show, this fellow diarist phoned me rather a lot, more than his party whips and apparatchiks appreciated. He loved ‘the game,’ as he called [...]

The Tories put a lot of planning into the launch of their New Year campaigning. Big setpiece speeches by the leader, press ads, posters with what look like an airbrushed David Cameron. The slogan ‘things can’t go on like this’  reminded me of their not so successful ‘are you thinking what we’re thinking?’ from the [...]

A surprisingly impactful front page of The Guardian today, given that the headline is a non-screaming quote from their own editorial and the only picture an unrelated head and shoulders shot of Helen Mirren advertising Christmas wrapping paper.  Back in my day (writes a middle-aged old fart) front pages were hidden away till as late [...]