Brown snapped out of it
YOU probably don’t need me to remind you of this, but June 27, 2007, was a date of huge significance in Britain’s two most famous streets. In Coronation Street, Cilla went mad at Chesney when she caught him buying a kebab in Jerry’s takeaway.
And in Downing Street, Gordon Brown moved in to No.10.
Yes, as we recall tonight in the final episode of BLAIR & BROWN:THE NEW LABOUR REVOLUTION (BBC2, 9pm), that was when Tony Blair, after 10 years as PM, finally handed over the keys and let the other chap have his turn.As we also recall, Blair had taken some shifting. He really didn’t want to go. He felt sure he’d got the hang of this running-thecountry lark (“By then, I really did know how to make government work,” he insists) and he wasn’t convinced Brown would just carry on merrily down the same path.
Blair’s main problem, the programme points out, was he’d already ruled out running for a fourth term.
So from the moment he’d returned to power, in May 2005, with a slashed majority, everyone wanted to know when he’d be stepping aside.Again and again, he refused to say.
Whenever reporters pressed him, Blair would ignore the question, or change the subject, or stick a finger in each ear and go: “La-la, can’t hear you,” or point over the reporter’s shoulder and scream: “Watch out, there’s a stegosaurus behind you! Run for your life!”
Finally, though, he took the hint. By then, it was that or be forced out by his own party, rather like Maggie had been by hers.
In his first few weeks as Blair’s successor, Brown had to deal with a series of terrible events – the Glasgow Airport terror attack, foot-and-mouth, devastating flooding. But three months after taking the reins, he found himself 11 points ahead of the Tories. Voters seemed to trust him.
“We asked people, ‘If this politician was a car, what sort of car would they be?’ recalls his own former chief pollster Deborah Mattinson. “And he was a Volvo…”
Time for a snap election then, to secure his position?
It looked that way. But then, to widespread astonishment, Brown changed his mind.
“You’ve bottled it,” is how Andrew Marr bluntly puts it to him in one old clip.
Brown denied it then and he denies it still.
But others, such as Ed Balls, his former adviser, recall their shock at such a wasted opportunity – and feared they would pay dearly when the next election finally did come around.
In a response not unlike the one he must have given Katya when she told him they would be dancing the salsa to Gangnam Style, Ed recalls thinking: “This is going to be really hard.”