Gordon Brown is on the airwaves following the Holyrood elections, offering advice on how to save the union after shying away from it himself when in power. Bizarrely Brown has told ITV that “sticking Union Jacks on things and basing ministers in Scotland is just a gimmick.” This is a violent volte face from Brown, given when he was PM he personally ordered the Union Jack to be flown from Whitehall building to “promote a renewed sense of Britishness in every citizen.” He believed in the move so much he spoke about lifting the flag flying restrictions in his first ever Commons statement as Prime Minister…

It also appears to be the same Gordon Brown who, when Prime Minister, commissioned an independent review that recommended a further 15,000 civil service jobs being moved out of the capital by 2015, with Brown saying in 2013 that “public-sector jobs transferred to regions and nations could exceed 20,000, to the benefit of the whole economy,” It sounds like party politics may be getting in the way of Brown’s claimed desire to save the UK…