What is the chancellor up to?
The Treasury have just released the chancellor's schedule for tomorrow.
At breakfast Gordon Brown will chair a seminar on the teaching of British values and history in schools. At lunchtime he'll host a seminar on climate change with the former US Vice President Al Gore (Britain's "next prime minister" meeting the man who some believe will be America's next president and should have been the current one).
Then, just before dinner he'll speak to war veterans about National Veterans Day. It may have caught your attention that none of these things relates to his job as - well - chancellor.
This comes after his visit yesterday to meet his party's Euro MPs, his trip to Northern Ireland to meet the province's political leaders and his meeting in Berlin with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Tonight he makes the Chancellor's traditional speech at the Mansion House. I wonder if he'll stick to economic policy?
Is it just possible that we are seeing the much talked of "stable and orderly transition" taking place unannounced before our very eyes?
I'm 
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The situation of Blair and Brown is akin to Churchill and Eden.
Eden was "the man who would be king" and virtually had to force Churchill out after waiting patiently for years. And a fat lot of good it did him. He lasted 18 months. The difference between Eden and Brown however is that Eden had real charisma, and Churchill v Blair is no contest. (Churchill by KO first round)
It's doesn't make much difference. We will be voting Labour out at the next election, so he had better enjoy playing PM while he can!
This has been going on for a bit now though Nick- Brown has been on interviews on TV talking about issues not at all related to his job- I think we have been seeing this so called orderly transition for a while- only it hasn't been at all orderly yet!!
Perhaps Brown has decided to take matters into his own hands!!
The more Gordon Brown tells us about how to be British the more certain I become that he has completely run out of ideas and will never be Prime Minister. He's painted himself into a corner.
The Mansion House speech is always great entertainment. We see New Labour in all its sham glory as a Stalinist lectures us on the free market and enterprise economy.
You haven't mentioned the item I've just heard you talking about on the news Nick.
He is planning to spend 25 billion updating our nuclear defence and he has announced it to take the heat off Blair.
For christ's sake are this bunch straight out the Kremlin or something. The papers this morning were full of BA (Blairs Airways that is) this morning now this.
Or are they just a load of despots like those leading some banana replublic.
I was just wandering who is running the treasury whilst Brown is away acting all presidental? Could it give us an indication as to who the next Chancellor is going to be under a Brown premiership?
Since when has a job description ever kept politicians in line or on the right track? Tony Blair is a rather effective Foreign Secretary - anyone heard anything about Beckett recently?
The Chancellor is desperately trying to make himself popular and electable as a PM in his own right. He has never had to worry about the media image so far because Blair has done it for him, and Brown has been able to cream off the core Labour votes.
Like Major tried to establish himself in the 1990's with a series of campaigns - such as his visit to Brixton to prove he was a 'man of the street' Brown now appears to be doing the same thing; going to World Cup matches, meeting political leaders. Yet, unlike Major he isn't PM yet.
Brown may win the next election - but for a Government in a third term that has echoed Major's administration; the sleaze, 91Èȱ¬ Office Scandals, Cabinet Rifts, the question of the PM's leadership, the possible damage to the party etc, Brown may wish to consult his history books a bit more closely - Major won the 1992 election, but at a terrible cost: he split the Conservatives and very quickly went from being popular to unpopular overnight.
We've heard stories of 'Labour's Black Wednesday' so far, but perhaps that card is yet to be played. Be careful Mr Brown and remember - 'The best laid plans of mice and men...'
I believe you may be right Nick. Labour Central Office have probably thought; 'right, lets start getting Brown to go and mingle a bit more. He can start smoozing his way to the top.'
Only of course, Brown is most probably not going to be the next Prime Minister... Cameron is. And I say that with regret, because I'm a Lib Dem! But its going to be like Nixon vs. Kennedy all over again.
I thought it was obvious that this sort of grooming was underway. Whether it started too late or not is the thing! I believe that the electorate has developed a taste for vengeance, that won't be sated by a change of face and that thirsts for positive change backed up by results. I'm angered by the fact that the Labour party seems happy to allow the governance of the nation to suffer simply to appease the ego of one man! I'm certain that I'm not alone in my anger. Tony Blair should have been replaced prior to the last election and that was supposed to have been the gentlemans agreement, sadly it lacked the required gentleman.
Is Brown really going to become the next PM with no public mandate (never mind charisma or charm)?
We voted for a Labour government to be led by Blair for a "full third term", I don't think Brown should be given the biggest job in the country based on a gentleman's agreement from over a decade ago.
Why should we have this Scottish MP foisted upon us as Prime Minister merely on the basis of some self-serving deal hatched between Blair and Brown in May 1994?
The meaning of the word democracy seems to be missing from New Labour's vocabulary as far as the position of first minister is concerned.
I chuckled when I read again in one of the Sunday papers Michael Hesiltine's quote: "If Gordon Brown is the answer, what's the question?"
Then I thought again.
Gordon Brown has had 9 years as CFO of the UK during which time he created the pensions crisis, introduced complex systems of taxation which has spurred costly bureaucracy and incompetence (take over payment of tax credits is just one example).
He celebrates "record investment" as if it is an end in itself not the means.
The goverment spins that he is the most successful Chancellor this country has known. I profoundly disagree. He is a one trick pony - and not very good at that.
Whatever 'agreement' he has with Tony Blair he has no right to become PM without a new mandate from the country.
I'm not a massive fan of John Reid but at least he has charisma and a wealth of experience at the coal face across many departments.
Well John Reid certainly isn't the answer. He may be a bruiser capable of injecting some dynamism into a flagging department but I wouldn't like him to be the figurehead for Britain around the world.
The problem with pinpointing a viable successor to Tony is that the cabinet has been a closed shop for a long time, too little new blood has been injected by a cautious PM and those that have been in and around Blair are almost all tainted by his mistakes.
New Labour needs someone who can distance them-self from Blair in order to win back disaffected Labour supporters. How likely someone of that ilk is to come to the fore when they would face, by definition, opposition from the incumbent, I don't know.
Al Gore and Gordon Brown talking about climate change, now that should be interesting. At least the Chancellor must be forward-thinking in some aspects.
Nick, the smooth and orderly transition/handover of power began on Tuesday 6th June, when Brown and Blair made coordinated statements on the public services; the same day that David Cameron began the Tory campaign to win the public sector over. The bloggers noticed it.
I pointed out at the time that with these statements, Blair and Brown were singing from the same hymn sheet, both of them were on-message, and yet there wasn't an election in sight for years to come. That had to be a first. It was. And that's when it became apparent the handover had begun and a date had been set by the inner circle for it to take place.
Now it's over to you and your team at the 91Èȱ¬, with its unlimited resources, to find out what the date is. We're relying on you, Nick.
Also, you made an interesting comment yesterday after PMQ's on the Daily Politics Show when you said PMQ's had felt almost like a pre-election question time. Maybe they know something you don't. We're relying on you, Nick.
Why Don't Labour just stick to having Gordon Brown as the Chancellor and not allowing him so much political freedom, Labour are almost in a postion of having the most successful chancellor not being taken seriously in terms of economic policy because he is always outlining what he is doing in No.10
Post 16 mentioned Al Gore.
The other GB has made AG's election as President of the USA a virtual certainty. AG's USA will be a very different animal from the one we see and wince at now.
The media keep telling us that DC is simply aping TB's 'project' but this is not so. Take a look at what DC & AG are saying; not much room for a cigarette paper is there?
In many ways the world would seem to be a very much more dangerous place than it was in 1997, the electorate of the USA and the UK know that. AG & DC offer hope and that is a very powerful persuader.
Darren, if you're planning voting for that moron Cameron you should watch PMQ every once in a while. He's content simply making cheap shots direct from the papers. Blair embarrasses him week in week out.
James,
I note you aver that TB embarrases DC easily at the despatch box. I disagree, but...
William Hague used to make TB look a chump; look how well Hague did.
I think the West Lothian question will come back, and I think New Labour's 3rd term... might not *be* their last, but the bell is tolling.
It is time we removed the clique of Scotsmen running the country and sent them back to the Scottish parliament - Clarke, a Norfolk man, was sacked to put another Scotsman in a powerful position. Either close the Scottish parliament or let England be run by the English.
This is not 1952. American political parties do not nominate standard bearers for a second try. There are more than enough challengers on the Democratic side (not least of which the junior senator for the State of New York) that any attempt for Vice President Gore to make a come back will come to a short end.