The latest transparency data shows Gordon Brown met four ministers across two departments in the space of just 48 hours in December. He met David Lammy in the MoJ to discuss “devolution“, and then had a chat with prisons minister James Timpson. At the Cabinet Office, he met Darren Jones and Nick Thomas-Symonds, the latter logged as a “general discussion on current UK politics“. His old friend and / or nemesis Tony Blair still gets his kicks in too. Pat McFadden met him in December for “a discussion about current affairs”. Yvette Cooper even had a private chat with him about “the Middle East” just before Christmas. As if he’s the man you want the Foreign Secretary listening to…
As Guido has previously reported, the New Labour old guard is embedded across Whitehall. Michael Ellam, Brown’s former director of communications, sits as Second Permanent Secretary for EU and international economic affairs in the Cabinet Office. Steve Field, another Brown-era Treasury comms director, was moved over as a Director General beneath him, leading on US trade and the G20. Justin Forsyth, a longtime Blair-Brown SpAd, has also been spotted hanging around Jonathan Powell in the Cabinet Office. When’s the last time bringing in a New Labour alumnus ever went wrong…
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Mandelson would never have been in a position to forward market sensitive information to sick paedo friend Jeffrey Epstein without the patronage of certain former Prime Minister. Gordon Brown brought Mandelson back to Cabinet in one of his major ‘comebacks’…
Now Brown is trying to get the scandal off him as quickly as possible. His office issued an odd statement yesterday calling for a police inquiry into Mandelson’s leaks. He doth protest too much…?
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI. This is just one thread exposed by the files that is bringing Labour crashing down…
The Epstein files show that Mandelson was leaking internal No10 documents and briefings to Epstein while Mandelson was working inside during Brown’s administration. The ex-PM now says:
“I have today asked the Cabinet Secretary to investigate the disclosure of confidential and market sensitive information from the then Business Department during the global financial crisis.
On September 10 last year, I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary to ask him to investigate the veracity of information contained in the Epstein papers about the sale of assets arising from the banking collapse and communications about them between Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
That enquiry led to a response on November 19 that no departmental record could be found of any information or communication from Lord Mandelson to Mr Epstein on these issues.
Given the shocking new information that has come to light in the latest tranche of Epstein papers, including information about the transfer to Mr Epstein of at least one highly sensitive government document as well as other highly confidential information, I have now written to ask for a wider and more intensive enquiry to take place into the wholly unacceptable disclosure of government papers and information during the period when the country was battling the global financial crisis. Given the public interest in this, I have asked that the results of the enquiry be published and done so as soon as possible.”
Reminder: Mandelson was one of if not the key adviser to Labour during the Starmerite reconstruction…
The Mirror has printed an idiotic “exclusive” in which a little-known backbench Labour MP accused Nigel Farage “of peddling National Front-style discrimination” with the Reform Party slogan “British jobs for British workers.” Encompassing all manner of reforms including scrapping pointless extra ‘protections’ which generate tribunals…
Imran Hussain MP said of the policy:
“Saying employers should be allowed to pick and choose based on who is ‘British-born’ sounds like a political slogan from the National Front in the 1970s. This kind of thinking has no place in modern Britain, and we should call it out for exactly what it is.”
Gordon Brown will be shocked to discover he’s been a member of the ‘fash for 15 years. A self-own there…
More personnel changes to the dysfunctional Cabinet Office as a Blair/Brown era veteran is brought in to manage trade and bolster Michael Ellam’s operation. Ellam, formerly Brown’s director of communications, was brought in at the start of the year as Second Permanent Secretary, European Union and International Economic Affairs…
Now Steve Field, former director of communications at the Treasury during the Brown ministry, has moved over to the Cabinet Office to serve as a Director General in the European & Global Issues Secretariat supporting Ellam. Field is moving across from the Treasury – he was at the IMF prior to that…
The secretariat manages trade and European relations across government and has a line to the PM and top Downing Street officials.
Insider sources tell Guido that Field, who served briefly as Cameron’s spokesman, is leading on “all US trade issues and G20” along with “EU Implementation” and water regulation. Ellam is meanwhile focussing on trade with China – a priority for Labour…
Government sources tell Guido that Justin Forsyth – longtime Blair/Brown SpAd from the New Labour days – has been seen flitting to and from Jonathan Powell’s rooms in the Cabinet Office. In case of emergency pull the “bring back all the Blair/Brown people” lever…
The Office for Statistics Regulation – the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority – has spent the last few months tackling flagrant misuse of statistics by Gordon Brown and a kabal of leftist think tanks in their campaign to destroy the gambling industry. As always a sisyphean task…
Brown and his allies have spent the run up to the budget campaigning for a hike in gambling taxation. Namely more than doubling remote gaming duty, hiking the general betting duty on bookmakers from 15% to 25%, and doubling machine gaming duty. That’s your nan’s online bingo gone…
Brown’s justification for this is an Office for Health Improvement and Disparities report from January 2023 which he and others have misquoted by saying gambling’s “most addictive practices are responsible for social harm that costs the NHS and other public services more than £1 billion a year.” A sobering stat, if it were actually true…
OHID counted costs ‘associated’ with ‘problem gambling’ rather than attributed to it. The OSR says “this distinction does not appear to have been clearly understood by some users of the data.” It singles out subsequent reports by the leftist think tanks the IPPR and the Social Market Foundation for misusing the data in the same way…
According to correspondence released under FOI the statistics regulator said in light of the repeated misuse of figures “we have asked OHID to consider how this differentiation could be made more explicit in their publication to help guard against further misinterpretation or misuse.” In a letter to the original report authors at OHID the regulator wrote:
“We appreciate that your report does state that the links between problem gambling behaviours and fiscal costs are associative and do not demonstrate causality. However, given that we continue to receive concerns about the use of these figures, we would strongly encourage you to consider actions that you could take to support the appropriate use of these figures. For example, one option might be to include a prominent disclaimer or banner on the publication itself to clarify this point and help prevent misinterpretation.”
A big old banner for the Gordons out there…
Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked John Healey: “Just finally, I mean Andy Burnham has been very clear he wants Britain back in the European Union in his lifetime. Do you?”
The Chancellor replied: “I’m older than Andy Burnham. I don’t expect to see that.”