Scrapping super-casinos?
- 11 Jul 07, 12:30 PM
Wow. Gordon Brown has just signalled the scrapping of plans to build super-casinos. He announced a review of other ways to regenerate towns and cities. I understand that this review will include the decision to grant the first licence to Manchester.
Expect a rave review from the Daily Mail tomorrow despite another less than sure-footed clash with David Cameron.
UPDATE 1340: A Whitehall source has confirmed my instinct on hearing Gordon Brown by telling the 91热爆 that super-casinos are "dead in the water".
The only reason that many people in the Labour Party supported the idea of super-casinos in the first place was the prospect of money and jobs to inner-city Manchester, run-down Blackpool and other parts of the country. Gordon Brown knows that - and he is signalling that he will look for other ways to do the same job. This has brought an angry reaction from those who were banking on getting a casino. Graham Stringer - Labour MP and former leader of Manchester City Council has described the decision as "weak and bad" and said it's "insulting" and "risible" to suggest that the City hasn't looked at other ways to revive the city.
This is a victory for an alliance of some on the right (the aforementioned Daily Mail), some within the Labour Party, and a coalition in the House of Lords - remember, it was , not in the Commons, where the government suffered a defeat on this issue which forced them to reconsider the plans.
The puzzle is why he's done this and overshadowed his own "Not the Queen's Speech". My guess is that having seen David Cameron gain a lot of good publicity for his musings on the issue of a "Broken Society" Team Brown thought they'd trump him with an announcement to scrap super-casinos.
