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Yes,whatever else you think of Brown,many will welcome the LACK of
self-assurance .
The "smarm" ,the
hubristic "whiter thasn white" claims that Blair spouted ,made him look ridiculous from the start for me...

Nick... Not having a good day!? Perhaps you have prejudged things this go round and fallen victim to your propensity to read too much into things. I prefer fact to conjecture myself and that is what reporting, critical or otherwise is all about. If that becomes part of how you and your colleagues do your jobs in the media, the Country will be better off for it I expect, whomever we have at the helm. Calm Down... It's Only Politics. If he is misguided and wrong spirited as it appears you presume he is, it will out in the wash good man. Be patient and just report the facts, you'll come off looking a heck of alot better Me thinks. Regards Neil

Isn't it great that he isn't a new media whore. I feel very positive about Brown taking control. It is not theatre after all. Complaints are made at Blairs media pandering and now you complain about Browns back to work attitude. Make the news from changes that are made not suppositions from his media outings.

A good choice Mr. Brown! Alastair Darling is an intelligent no nonsense fellow, a man the Amerikans could use... desperately.

Old Coyote Knose that Mr. Brown and Mr. Darling will serve well both the people and House of Windsor. Hopefully they shall replicate the recent economic $uccesses of the Irish in England.

I'm getting confused by all this talk of so and so doing such and such a job when it hasn't been announced, when what you really mean is that Fred from the Guardian has reported that Bob from Sky has sources who tell him that Jerry will be Minister for Tiddlywinks. Just put the list up when it's been announced and find some other parlour game to play in meantime. No doubt when the real list does come out you'll go off air before you've finished reading through it!

> many will welcome the LACK of
> self-assurance

Dave may have as much difficulty dealing with the Blair legacy as will Big Gordy.

If the GBP have had enough of self-assured smarminess Cameron is hardly a refuge.

Nick, do you think that now Tony Blaire in no longer an MP, he will be "kicked up stairs"?

The "change" seems to be that GB wants to be seen in the Commons, not on tv. Which is a great answer to the democratic mandate folks. He's actually being a democrat, and spending time in the commons, with our elected representatives.

I think I'd like it if he stayed 3 years and promised to keep governing properly, like this. More democratic than electing another 'president'...

He's not being in the commons. He's hiding from the media, like he has done for the past ten years.

You have to remember that he only does set pieces.

The issue, here, is whether you're happy or not, Nick. Life is about order and harmony, or methods and desires. This change in method by Gordon Brown is putting the new minister first, getting them in position, before they are presented to the world on their terms. That you're uncertain and left out of the loop is change, and with that comes hurt, fear, hate, and bitterness.

This is a masterstroke by Prime Minister Brown and the first of many, I suspect. Better to stay calm and relaxed, look for what this means and communicate it effectively. In a nutshell, nobody cares about Nick Robinson Esquire. They want to see the facts and what it means to them. You did a great job this week. Don't ruin it with the ragged end of vanity.

The Thatcher generation of greed and the Blair generation of spin is coming to an end. This is a practical and social sentiment that is in tune, I suspect, with many in politics, the media, and the public who want to get the job done and see the social fabric restored. While illusory opportunity shuts down, others will emerge. Being calm and patient helps.

"The strong manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience. Patience means restraining one's inclinations. There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, love, grief, fear, and hate, and if a man does not give way to these he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience. And if my descendants wish to be as I am, they must study patience."

--Ieyasu Tokugawa.

Ieyasu Tokugawa is one of my personal heroes. He was a brilliant man who made his share of mistakes and had his share of blind luck. His awkward childhood, routine military career, and later rise to be the most powerful and enduring of the Shoguns is an inspiration. While he could be ruthless and cold, he put achievement and social harmony at the heart of Japan, and laid the foundation for a 300 year renaissance.

I couldn't be happier that a man of similar mould has taken charge. The exactitude and discipline that people like Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Robert Stephenson, and other great engineers, scientists, factory workers, and apprentices brought to this country has been lost with the decline of manufacturing. I see Gordon Brown's leadership as being an opportunity to restore Britain's heart and mind.

Rome wasn't built in a day, my friend.

So Mr Brown will try his utmost - to do what? I find it quite chilling. As for his proposal to have a government of all the talents. Is he not trying to poach talent from other parties to maybe ensure we will never have a defined political party government again. No need for elections because we have a government of all the talents! I commend Paddy Ashdown for turning down the post of Northern Ireland Secretary. I just hope that other "talents" of non labour flavour will not succumb to the temptation of a "ministerial" post with labour.

I had previously understand that there is a statutory limit on the size of the Cabinet. With all these new posts being created, it looks like it will be bigger than ever. Anyone know the detail?

If ever there were an opportunity to signal a new start it was today, through this reshuffle. But Brown has shown what we all know - that he is as imaginative as a block of wood, and straightjacketed by a political sense that ensures that the impetus for creative change would always be overridden by the need to cement Blairites to the cause until at least the other side of an election.

Look past the headlines (First woman Home Secretary? So what? A good person in a top line job; David Miliband [who still looks to me like a sixth form schoolboy at Westminster to receive a debating trophy everytime I see him] is as good a choice as any as Foreign Secretary) and what you have is, broadly, a display of boring predictability.

The Foreign Office will fend off foreign trade - again - as if the old Board of Trade still took care of it. The DTI, however framed and named, will still stand at arms length from industry and pontificate without doing very much to aid either trade or industry.

I suppose the Schools minister will now include children is his brief, and there's a minister for innovation and universities, admittedly both long overdue changes. But those two comprehend, frankly, the entire extent of this 'radical' reshuffle.

What he should have done is:

(i) create a new ministry from the appropriate bits of DTI, Work and Pensions, Treasury and others focused on economic regeneration and growth;

(ii) create a ministry for the learning society, comprising thye former DfES (shorn of some of the more ludicrous schemes) plus some elements of Work and Pensions, and DTI.

(iii) recrafted the ministry for communities as a ministry for social cohesion and public order, with policing taken from the HO and placed alongside responsibility for positive actions and programmes in community and social development;

(iv) broken up the monolith of the FCO and created two ministries - one (in Cabinet) for diplomacy, representation and the EU, and one (outside) for development, inward investment and trade promotion and international commerce.

(v) created a ministry for health shorn of everything but public health and NHS responsibilities: the rest of the DoH monolith could go into agencies

Now that would be the beginning of a radical rethink...

What baffles me is that so far we've seen pretty much all the deputy leadership contenders get jobs ... except Jon Cruddas.

If Brown really wants a government of all the talents, surely he's got to find something for one of the stronger performers from the mildly pointless 'vote for me' circus both party and country had to endure.

It's clear that his backing was crucial in getting Harman her job. So where is he? In a junior, non-cabinet role? Or out of government altogether?

I'm not a Labour supporter or a leftwinger by instinct, but this seems a bit of a clanger - how is this going to play with the unions? Does he care? Should he?

Nick, you don't get it, do you?

It's this endless trivial speculation that helps turn people off politics and wastes ministers' time because they feel they have to get news out before they actually announce it.

I see Nick has made no mention in his blog of Blair's third questioning by police in 'cash for honours'. Is this, I wonder, a 'good day to bury bad news'? Surely not? I thought Mr Brown was all about change. Apparently nobody told the New Labour spin machine. Same old, same old!

Defence has always been seen as one of the big four jobs- alongside the Home Office, the Foreign Office and the Treasury. To lump Scotland in with Defence is an admission that, since devolution, Scotland is a part-time job (true, but not easy for Mr Brown to admit to) and that Defence is no longer a full-time job (very strange given the current deployments).

I'm a Brown fan, but I think Nick R has a point. News famine is not a good idea- if well-informed people don't brief the journalists with what is really going on, they will just fill in with ill-informed people pretending they know what's going on. I think the Brown camp does need to sort this out- as well as getting on with the job, they need to communicate something of what they're doing to the media hounds- as I hope the more media-savvy cabinet members will point out. It really isn't a good idea to piss off journalists! (Unless you really have to, of course.)

You'll have to watch it, Nick - if this is a foretaste of the way GB is going to run his government, redundancy beckons...

Perhaps we have to get used to this new style (or rather lack of it). I have to say that I found myself cringing as I watched Gordon get out of his car and look so indicisive - after all, if getting out of the car caused such indicision, what's going to happen when there's a real crisis.

I think he's going to be spoiling our fun quite a lot in the future, so we'd better get used to it...

Nick, you and your colleagues are there to report the facts. Typically you do a good job but I don't read your column to get kicks or salacious gossip: I read it to get facts. Politicians are not there to make you and your colleagues happy: they are there to serve all of us to the best of their ability. One of GB's first acts was to take away the ability of 'special advisers' to order civil servants about. Perhaps he is also taking away your ability to report trivia too. The country is tired of spin and hyperbole reporting. Just the facts will do nicely thankyou.

Nick

Is this some sort of group hallucination? Brown is shy and introverted according to his people, that is why he conducts events behind doors! He will not take questions off the cuff as he needs to prepare for even the simplest of replies. Brown is trying to deny the British people choice by creating a cross party coalition, he has no mandate and not once have I heard him talk like a PM. No word on the floods, no word on the Iraq war etc, he just focuses on supranational issues and big business. I want him out and now.

It looks as if the Hangers-on, Out-riders and Media Baggage are finally going to get their come-uppance, and be jettisoned in favour of objective reporting that concentrates on what the Government is really doing, not the glossy tittle-tattle of gossip magazines that fogs the whole purpose and function of Political activity. Roll on obscurity until you really have something to offer or contribute!

Is Charles E Hardwidge on Brown's staff?

Come on Nick! You already knew that Gordon Brown does not like parades and photo shoots for propaganda. Remember Churchill? He did not like to be in the limelight and hated cameras, but he got the job at hand done and worked hard under the candle light, for Britain.

Gordon is a man of substance and hard work not to be gordy!

Unfortunately, if certain people of the media like Ben Macintyre of the times, do not like what they see during the Brown era, I suggest he goes after Cameron and all the back stabbing that has already started in the tory party to eventually get rid of cameron!

Nick, you know that, so far I have been spot on!

"Is Charles E Hardwidge on Brown's staff?"

If not, can I have whatever it is that he is on?

I think Nick's piece above was some tongue in cheek fun and he generously ended with Ben Macintyre's compliment to the smart Mr Brown.

I can't help but think that the Conservatives have a problem; they have the fresh-faced PR-savvy "young David" at the helm to follow the Labour lead on having a fresh faced PR-savvy leader. The trouble is that Labour did that in 1997 with "young Tony", and now the country would prefer a bit less PR and a bit more no-frills governmental graft!

So what can the Conservatives do now that the style of politics and Government has once again been re-invented by Labour?

The public may cheer this grown up attitude to politics but I have a warning for Team Brown - the "Association of Commentators, Speculators, Time Fillers and Allied Trades" will be in touch - and we're not happy.

Stop it Nick. All this particular member of the public wants is for you to tell me the news. You can keep your silly battles to yourself.