Seven weeks out of 10 Downing Street and still getting used to life without power, Gordon Brown is at least getting a good response from pupils at schools in his constiutuency
ONCE THE DOMINANT figure in British politics, Gordon Brown has become the Invisible Man since his departure from Downing Street shortly after 7pm on May 11th to tender his resignation to Queen Elizabeth. His low profile has been noticed, and been the subject of some barbs, most pointedly from his successor as prime minister, David Cameron, during exchanges with the Labour Party’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, in the House of Commons earlier this week.
During a debate on the outcome of the recent Toronto meeting of the G8 – a stage so enjoyed by Brown – Harman sought a tribute from Cameron about Brown’s work on development aid. “I’d be delighted to, if he could be bothered to turn up to this House,” said Cameron.
Since his departure Brown has been seen only twice in the Houses of Parliament and only once in the Commons chamber, firstly to take the oath of allegiance required from MPs when they take up their seats, and then to sit for two minutes during questions to the secretary of state for the environment, before he upped and left.
Instead he is spending all bar one day a week in his North Queensferry home, near Edinburgh, or close by in his Kirkcaldy constituency. He has been visiting the 20 or so schools in the surrounding districts and dealing with constituents, though the meat and drink of an MP’s life – letters to health and local authorities, and such – is still left to his two constituency staff.
“He’s enjoying , you can see that from the photographs,” said a local at one of the two schools Brown visited on Thursday. “Today he was questioned about Third World poverty, the banking crisis. He was very open about all of it.”
Both he and his wife, Sarah, who has remained an enthusiastic tweeter since leaving Number 10, are writing books. His is on the banking crisis, while she has a book deal for a softer reminiscence of life in power.
The couple’s sons, six-year-old John, who is at primary school, and three-year-old Fraser, who is at nursery, have remained in London, staying with close friends of the Browns, where they are joined for several days a week by their mother before all three return to Scotland at weekends. The boys will be heading back to Scotland permanently once the school term ends, and they will go to schools in North Queensferry once the new school terms starts in late August, say sources close to the family.
The Browns' summer may not be the most peaceful, however. Peter Mandelson, the architect of New Labour alongside Brown and Tony Blair, is rushing out his memoirs, with extraordinary speed, this month. Given Mandelson's love of the limelight, the book, The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour,is likely to prove an uncomfortable read for Brown, who has never taken criticism well.
Come September he will be faced with Blair's own account of life in office, The Journey, though this, unless Blair gives up a near 20-year habit of trying to avoid conflict with Brown, may prove an easier experience.
So far Brown has shown no enthusiasm for writing his own version of history, though his book on the banking crisis, currently in preparation, will place him at the heart of the efforts to save the global financial system in 2007.
For now speculation mounts about his next steps. He has offered, it is understood, to campaign for Labour in the next Scottish-parliament elections, but so far the offer has not been taken up, according to political sources in Edinburgh.
Back in London his former colleagues are either trying to recover from the pain of losing power or are obsessed with the party leadership race. So obsessed, in fact, that no one has yet organised a parting gift.
The Browns have given gifts to others, however, surprising the Bethany Christian Trust shop in Kirkcaldy earlier this month when three of Brown’s security officers arrived with three boxes of items, including cookery books and an “I Love GB” T-shirt worn by one of his sons.
Though besieged by locals seeking a souvenir of the Brown years, the shop is still mulling over whether to sell them in the ordinary way or mark them as Brown memorabilia. “We haven’t decided anything yet,” said one of the shop’s staff.
Back in London the waters are already beginning to close over Brown’s time in power. Samantha Cameron visited Madame Tussauds to witness the unveiling of a waxwork of her husband, which has been worked on speedily since he won office.
Brown will not be commemorated in the same way. Madame Tussauds’ general manager, Edward Fuller, is blunt. “We make waxworks of all our prime ministers who are elected, and Gordon Brown wasn’t elected,” he says.
Sitting in his back garden in North Queensferry, as he so often does now, Brown is only too aware that Fuller’s verdict may well be the verdict of history, too.
