Gordon Brown

For the Scottish rugby player, see Gordon Brown (rugby player).

The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP
File:Gordon Brown 2005 IMF close.jpg Gordon Brown in 2005
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Incumbent
Assumed office 27 June 2007
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Preceded by	Tony Blair
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 2 May 1997 – 27 June 2007
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Kenneth Clarke
Succeeded by	Alistair Darling
Member of Parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath Dunfermline East (1983-2005)
Incumbent
Assumed office 9 June 1983
Preceded by	New Constituency
Majority	18,216 (43.6%)
Personal details
Born	(1951-02-20) February 20, 1951 Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Sarah Macaulay
Children	John and James
Residence	10 Downing Street
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Occupation	Politician
Profession	Academic
Signature	File:Gordon Brown's signature.png
Website	10 Downing Street

James Gordon Brown MP (born 20 February 1951) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, the current Member of Parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and the Leader of the Labour Party.

Brown was the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007, making him Britain's longest serving Chancellor since Nicholas Vansittart (1812–1823).

Early life and career before parliament

Brown was born in Glasgow. His father, Rev. John Ebenezer Brown (1914-December 1998), was a Church of Scotland minister. His mother Elizabeth (b. 1918), died on 18 September 2004. Gordon Brown was educated firstly at Kirkcaldy West Primary School, and then, between 1961 and 1967, at Kirkcaldy High School, where he performed well and was placed in an academic fast stream. He was accepted by the University of Edinburgh to study history at the age of 16, making him one of only four university educated Prime Ministers who did not attend Oxford or Cambridge . As a student, he suffered a detached retina, after being kicked in the head during an end-of-term rugby match . He was left blind in his left eye, despite treatment including several operations and lying in a darkened room for weeks at a time. Later at Edinburgh, while playing tennis, he noticed the same symptoms in his right eye. After undergoing experimental surgery at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary the eye was saved, ensuring he did not go totally blind.

Brown graduated from Edinburgh with First Class Honours M.A. in 1972, and stayed on to complete his Ph.D. (which he gained in 1982), titled The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918-29. According to biographer Tom Bower, Brown originally intended his thesis to cover the development of the Labour movement from the seventeenth century onwards, but evolved to more modestly describe "Labour's struggle to establish itself as the alternative to the Conservatives [in the early part of the 20th century]".

In 1972, while still a student, Brown was elected Rector of the University of Edinburgh and Chairman of the University Court. Brown served as Rector until 1975, and he also edited The Red Paper on Scotland. Brown served as a temporary lecturer at Edinburgh, before working as a lecturer in Politics at Glasgow College of Technology from 1976 to 1980. He then worked as a journalist at Scottish Television, later serving as current affairs editor until his election to parliament in 1983.

In the 1979 general election, Brown stood for the Edinburgh South constituency, but lost to the Conservative candidate, Michael Ancram.

Election to parliament and opposition

He was elected to Parliament on his second attempt as a Labour MP for Dunfermline East in 1983 and became opposition spokesman on Trade and Industry in 1985. In 1986, he published a biography of the Independent Labour Party politician James Maxton, the subject of his Ph.D. thesis. Brown was Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1987 to 1989 and then Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, before becoming Shadow Chancellor in 1992.

After the sudden death of John Smith in May 1994, Brown was one of those tipped as a potential party leader. It has long been rumoured that a deal was struck between Blair and Brown at the Granita restaurant in Islington, in which Blair promised to give Brown control of economic policy in return for Brown not standing against him in the leadership election. Whether this is true or not, the relationship between Blair and Brown has been central to the fortunes of "New Labour", and they have mostly remained united in public, despite reported serious private rifts.

As Shadow Chancellor, Brown worked to present himself as a fiscally competent Chancellor-in-waiting, to reassure business and the middle class that Labour could be trusted to run the economy without fuelling inflation, increasing unemployment, or overspending – legacies of the 1970s. He publicly committed Labour to following the Conservatives' spending plans for the first two years after taking power.

Following a reorganisation of parliamentary constituencies in Scotland, Brown became MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath at the 2005 election.

Chancellor of the Exchequer

Gordon Brown speaking at the annual World Bank/IMF meeting in 2002

Brown's lengthy period as Chancellor of the Exchequer has set several records. He is the longest-serving Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer (ahead of Denis Healey, who was Chancellor for 5 years and 2 months from 5 March 1974 to 4 May 1979). On 15 June 2004, he became the longest continuous serving Chancellor of the Exchequer since the Reform Act 1832, passing the figure of 7 years and 43 days set by David Lloyd George (1908–1915). However, William Gladstone was Chancellor for a total of 12 years and 4 months in the period from 1852 to 1882 (although not continuously). Brown has stated that his Chancellorship has seen the longest period of sustained economic growth in UK history, although part of this growth period started under the preceding Conservative government in 1993, and the details in Brown's growth figures have been challenged. Gordon Brown resigned as Chancellor on 27 June 2007 to become Prime Minister.

Bank of England Independence

On taking office as Chancellor, Brown gave the Bank of England operational independence in monetary policy and responsibility for setting interest rates. The Conservatives opposed this until 1999, as a prelude to the abolishment of sterling and entrance into the euro zone, while Bank of England independence had been a key platform of Liberal Democrat economic policy since the 1992 general election.

Taxation and spending

Brown adhered to Labour's 1997 election pledge of not increasing the basic or higher rates of income tax. He reduced the starting rate from 20% (pre-1997) to 10% (1999) before abolishing the starting rate in 2007, and reduced the basic rate from 23% (pre-1997) to 22% (2000) and then 20% (2007).

Brown has increased the tax thresholds in line with inflation, rather than earnings, which rise more quickly during periods of economic growth. This results in fiscal drag in which more taxpayers are drawn into the upper rates (e.g. in 2000-01 there were 2,880,000 higher-rate taxpayers, whereas in 2005-06 there were 3,160,000).

Corporation tax has fallen under Brown, from a main rate of 33% (pre-1997) to 30% (1999) and then 28% (2007), and from 24% to 19% for small businesses (although the lower rate is set to rise to 22% by 2010).

Once the two-year period of following the Conservative's spending plans was over, Brown's 2000 Spending Review outlined a major expansion of government spending, particularly on health and education. In his April 2002 budget, Brown raised national insurance to pay for health spending; this is a tax on income separate from personal income tax. Brown has changed tax policy in other ways, such as the working tax credits. This is one of several ideas borrowed from the US Clinton administration whereby welfare payments are accounted for as negative taxation. The separate means-testing process for tax credits has been criticised by some as bureaucratic, and in 2003-04 and 2004-05 problems in the system led to overpayments of £2.2bn and £1.8bn respectively. However, economic theory suggests that tax credits can strengthen work incentives for those at the margin between employment and unemployment, and the IFS has estimated that the reforms brought at least 50,000 single mothers into part-time work.

In practice Brown's policies have resulted in the poorest fifth of households comparatively paying more tax and receiving a lower share of benefits since Labour's election victory in 1997. The Centre for Policy Studies found that the poorest fifth of households, which accounted for 6.8% of all taxes in 1996-7, accounted for 6.9% of all taxes paid in 2004-5. Meanwhile, their share of state benefit payouts dropped from 28.1% to 27.1% over the same period.

According to the OECD UK taxation has increased from a 39.3% share of GDP in 1997 to 42.4% in 2006, going to a higher level than Germany. This increase has mainly been attributed to active government policy, and not simply to the growing economy. To have brought this about with only one explicit tax rise has led to accusations of Brown imposing stealth taxes. A commonly reported example resulted in 1997 from a technical change in the way that corporation tax is collected, the indirect effect of which was for the dividends on equity investments held within pensions to be taxed, thus lowering pension returns and directly contributing to the demise of some pension funds.

Growth development and employment

Brown has pointed to two main accomplishments: growth and employment. An OECD report shows UK economic growth has averaged 2.7% between 1997 and 2006, higher than the Eurozone's 2.1%, though lower than that of any other English-speaking country. UK unemployment is 5.5%, down from 7% in 1997 and lower than the Eurozone's average of 8.1%.

In October 1997, Brown took control of the United Kingdom's membership of the European single currency issue by announcing the Treasury would set five economic tests to ascertain whether the economic case had been made. In June 2003 the Treasury indicated the tests had not been passed.

File:G8brown.JPG

Gordon Brown meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2006

Between 1999 and 2002 Brown sold 60% of the UK's gold reserves at $275 an ounce. It was later attacked as a "disastrous foray into international asset management" as he had sold at close to a 20-year low. Prices went on to reach $700 an ounce in May 2006 – he could have raised £4bn for the public had he waited. He pressured the IMF to do the same, but it resisted.

Brown feels it appropriate to remove much of the unpayable Third World debt but does not feel that all debt should be wiped out.

On 20 April 2006, in a speech to the United Nations Ambassadors, Brown outlined a "Green" view of global development:

"... far from being at odds with each other, our economic objectives and our environmental objectives now increasingly reinforce each other. ... Environmental sustainability is not an option – it is a necessity. For economies to flourish, for global poverty to be banished, for the well-being of the world's people to be enhanced - not just in this generation but in succeeding generations - we have a compelling and ever more urgent duty of stewardship to take care of the natural environment and resources on which our economic activity and social fabric depends. ... A new paradigm that sees economic growth, social justice and environmental care advancing together can become the common sense of our age."

Higher education

In 2000, Brown started a major political row about higher education (referred to as the Laura Spence Affair) when he accused the University of Oxford of elitism in its admissions procedures.

He described its decision not to offer a place to state school pupil Laura Spence as "absolutely outrageous" and implied that its decision was based on her background rather than her academic potential. This started a major and hotly argued row in the media in which Oxford strongly denied these accusations.

With his comments, Brown can arguably be credited with raising widening participation to Higher Education higher up the political agenda. However, at the same time, many of his opponents said that Brown's comments were ill founded, including Lord Jenkins (then Chancellor of the University of Oxford) who said that "nearly every fact he used was false," and that said Brown's speech about Spence had been a "little Blitzkrieg in being an act of sudden unprovoked aggression".

Run up to succeeding Blair

In October 2004 Tony Blair announced he would not lead the party into a fourth general election, but would serve a full third term. Political controversy over the relationship between Brown and Blair continued up to and beyond the 2005 election, which Labour won with a reduced parliamentary majority and reduced vote share. The two campaigned together but the British media remained – and remain – full of reports on their mutual acrimony. Blair, under pressure from within his own party, announced on 7 September 2006 that he would step down within a year. Brown was the clear favourite to succeed Blair for several years with experts and the bookmakers; he was the only candidate spoken of seriously in Westminster. Appearances and news coverage leading up to the handover were interpreted as preparing the ground for Brown to become Prime Minister, in part by creating the impression of a statesman with a vision for leadership and global change.

Gordon Brown in 2002.

Brown is the first prime minister from a Scottish constituency since the Conservative/SUP Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1964. He is also one of the few university-educated Prime Ministers not to have attended Oxford or Cambridge, along with the Earl of Bute (Leiden), Lord John Russell (Edinburgh) and Neville Chamberlain (Birmingham). Several Prime Ministers were not university-educated including Winston Churchill, James Callaghan and John Major.

On 9 September 2006 Charles Clarke in an interview in The Daily Telegraph said the Chancellor had "psychological" issues that he must confront and accused him of being a "control freak" and "totally uncollegiate". Brown was also "deluded", he said, to think that Blair can and should anoint him as his successor now.

By the start of 2007, prospects of any significant current or former Cabinet-level contender to Brown receded significantly, and Brown's odds with major bookmakers became as short as 1/10 on. A number of those tipped as potential rivals ruled themselves out – notably Education Secretary Alan Johnson, who declared he would contest the deputy leadership, and Environment Secretary David Miliband, who stressed his support for Brown to close down speculation of a possible challenge. Despite his disavowals, attempts to draft Miliband to run continued, with the launch of a website by former Ministers Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke, obstensibly to debate policy, but widely viewed as an attempt to test the water. However, this widely-covered initiative was also a seen as sign of weakness in that the project appeared to have no credible champion to carry the banner in a leadership contest. Only candidates from the left of the party, John McDonnell and former Environment minister Michael Meacher declared their willingness to contest the election; each needed to gain 44 nominations from Labour MPs required to be successfully nominated. Either would have been rank outsiders in a contest. With growing realisation that both could not be nominated and that both standing was likely to lead to neither being nominated, they agreed that when Blair stepped down they would compare nominations and the candidate with the lower number of nominations would withdrew and urge his supporters to nominate the other.

From January 2007 the media reported that Brown had now "dropped any pretence of not wanting, or expecting, to move into Number 10 in the next few months" – although he and his family will likely use the more spacious 11 Downing Street. This enabled Brown to signal the most significant priorities for his agenda as Prime Minister - stressing education, international development, narrowing inequalities (to pursue 'equality of opportunity and fairness of outcome'), renewing Britishness, restoring trust in politics, and winning hearts and minds in the war on terror as key priorities - speaking at a Fabian Society conference on 'The Next Decade' in January 2007.

On the eve of the 2007 budget, Brown's character was attacked by Lord Turnbull who worked for Brown as Permanent Secretary at the Treasury from 1998 to 2002. Turnbull accused Brown of running the Treasury with "Stalinist ruthlessness" and treating Cabinet colleagues with "more or less complete contempt". This was especially picked up on by the British media as the comments by Turnbull were made on the eve of Brown's (expected to be last) budget report.

In his resignation speech on 10 May, Tony Blair made clear of his intention to stand down as Prime Minister on 27 June. On the Wednesday following this announcement, it became clear that no other candidate would gain enough nominations to get on the ballot paper with Brown. He therefore formally became Leader of the Labour party at a special Party Conference held in Manchester on 24 June.

Brown as Prime Minister

Main article: Premiership of Gordon Brown

Brown became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 27 June 2007. Like almost all previous Prime Ministers, Brown concurrently serves as the First Lord of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service, is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom and, hence, also a Privy Counsellor. He is also Leader of the Labour Party and Member of Parliament for the constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.

First 100 days

In the six weeks election up to succeeding Blair, Brown had been careful to not be critical of the then current Blair administration. Staying mainly out of the limelight to ensure a smooth transition of power. As soon as Brown became the Prime Minister, his first speech on 27th June emphasised a breakaway from the unpopular Blair administration - mentioning the word 'change' 8 times in his three minutes speech. On 28th June he radically changed the Cabinet, creating what is said to be the biggest Cabinet reshuffle in post-war history, creating several new posts and closing old ones, including the post of Deputy Prime Minister. Brown is expected announced a number of new policies in his first one hundred days of government, starting with constitutional reform on 28th June. Not much is known on what Brown's policies will be, but an extract from his first speech as Prime Minister said - "[I] have heard the need for change: change in NHS; change in schools; change with affordable housing; change to build trust in government; change to protect and extend the British way of life."

First cabinet

For the current Cabinet, see Cabinet of the United Kingdom § Current Cabinet.

For a list of former Cabinets, see List of British governments.

Cabinet of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Royal Arms of His Majesty's Government
Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street
Cabinet overview
Formed	1644 (1644)
Type	Committee of the Privy Council
Jurisdiction	His Majesty's Government

The Cabinet of the United Kingdom is the senior decision-making body of His Majesty's Government. A committee of the Privy Council, it is chaired by the Prime Minister and its members include Secretaries of State and other senior ministers. Members of the Cabinet are appointed by the Prime Minister and are by convention chosen from members of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

The Ministerial Code says that the business of the Cabinet (and cabinet committees) is mainly questions of major issues of policy, questions of critical importance to the public and questions on which there is an unresolved argument between departments.

The work of the Cabinet is scrutinised by the Official Opposition's Shadow Cabinet.

History

Until at least the 16th century, individual officers of state had separate property, powers and responsibilities granted with their separate offices by royal command, and the Crown and the Privy Council constituted the only co-ordinating authorities. In England, phrases such as "cabinet counsel", meaning advice given in private, in a cabinet in the sense of a small room, to the monarch, occur from the late 16th century, and, given the non-standardised spelling of the day, it is often hard to distinguish whether "council" or "counsel" is meant. The OED credits Francis Bacon in his Essays (1605) with the first use of "Cabinet council", where it is described as a foreign habit, of which he disapproves: "For which inconveniences, the doctrine of Italy, and practice of France, in some kings' times, hath introduced cabinet counsels; a remedy worse than the disease". Charles I began a formal "Cabinet Council" from his accession in 1625, as his Privy Council, or "private council", and the first recorded use of "cabinet" by itself for such a body comes from 1644, and is again hostile and associates the term with dubious foreign practices.

There were ministries in England led by the chief minister, which was a personage leading the English government for the monarch. Despite primary accountability to the monarch, these ministries, having a group of ministers running the country, served as a predecessor of the modern perspective of cabinet. After the ministry of Lord Stanhope and Lord Sunderland collapsed, Sir Robert Walpole rose to power as First Lord of the Treasury. Since the reign of King George I the Cabinet has been the principal executive group of British government. Both he and George II made use of the system, as both were not native English speakers, unfamiliar with British politics, and thus relied heavily on selected groups of advisers. The term "minister" came into being since the royal officers "ministered" to the sovereign. The name and institution have been adopted by most English-speaking countries, and the Council of Ministers or similar bodies of other countries are often informally referred to as cabinets.

Cabinet Office, London

The modern Cabinet system was set up by Prime Minister David Lloyd George during his premiership, 1916–1922, with a Cabinet Office and secretariat, committee structures, unpublished minutes, and a clearer relationship with departmental Cabinet ministers. The formal procedures, practice and proceedings of the Cabinet remain largely unpublished.

This development grew out of the exigencies of the First World War, where faster and better co-ordinated decisions across government were seen as a crucial part of the war effort. Decisions on mass conscription, co-ordination worldwide with other governments across international theatres, and armament production tied into a general war strategy that could be developed and overseen from an inner "War Cabinet". The country went through successive crises after the war: the 1926 general strike; the Great Depression of 1929–32; the rise of Bolshevism after 1917 and fascism after 1922; the Spanish Civil War 1936 onwards; the invasion of Abyssinia 1936; the League of Nations Crisis which followed; and the re-armament and resurgence of Germany from 1933, leading into the Second World War. All these demanded a highly organised and centralised government centred on the Cabinet.

Composition

The Prime Minister decides the membership and attendees of the Cabinet.

The total number of Cabinet ministers who are entitled to a salary is capped at 21, plus the Lord Chancellor, who is paid separately. Some ministers may be designated as also attending Cabinet, like the Attorney General, as "...it has been considered more appropriate, in recent times at any rate, that the independence and detachment of his office should not be blurred by his inclusion in a political body – that is to say the Cabinet – which may have to make policy decisions upon the basis of the legal advice the law officers have given."

The Cabinet is a committee of the Privy Council (though this interpretation has been challenged) and, as such, all Cabinet ministers must be privy counsellors.

Members of the Cabinet are by convention chosen from members of the two houses of Parliament, as the Peel convention dictates that ministers may only be recruited from the House of Commons or the House of Lords, although this convention has been broken in the past for short periods. Patrick Gordon Walker is perhaps the most notable exception: he was appointed to the Cabinet despite losing his seat in the 1964 general election, and resigned from Cabinet after running and losing in a by-election in January 1965. Sometimes, when a minister from neither House is appointed, they have been granted a customary peerage. The Cabinet is now made up almost entirely of members of the House of Commons.

Civil servants from the Cabinet Secretariat and special advisers (on the approval of the prime minister) can also attend Cabinet meetings, but neither take part in discussions.

It has been suggested that the modern Cabinet is too large, including by former Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill and scholars Robert Hazell and Rodney Brazier. Hazell has suggested merging the offices of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales into one Secretary of State for the Union, in a department into which Rodney Brazier has suggested adding a minister of state for England with responsibility for English local government.

Meetings of the cabinet

Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairing the first meeting of his Cabinet

The Cabinet table

Her Majesty's Cabinet on a 19th-century trade card

See also: United Kingdom cabinet committee

Most cabinet meetings take place in the Cabinet Room of 10 Downing Street; however, they have been known to take place in other places.

Despite the custom of meeting on a Thursday, after the appointment of Gordon Brown, the meeting day was switched to Tuesday. However, when David Cameron became prime minister, he held his cabinet meetings on Thursdays again. Upon Theresa May's tenure, she switched the cabinet meetings back to Tuesday.

The length of meetings varies according to the style of the Prime Minister and political conditions, but modern meetings can be as short as 30 minutes. Ministers are bound by the constitutional convention of collective ministerial responsibility.

Importance

Further information: Powers of the prime minister of the United Kingdom § Contemporary theories of prime ministerial power

Cabinet ministers, like all ministers, are appointed and may be dismissed by the monarch without notice or reason, on the advice of the prime minister. The allocation and transfer of responsibilities between ministers and departments is also generally at the prime minister's discretion. The Cabinet has always been led by the prime minister, whose originally unpaid office as such was traditionally described as merely primus inter pares (first among equals), but today the prime minister is the preeminent head of government, with the effective power to appoint and dismiss Cabinet ministers and to control the Cabinet's agenda. The extent to which the Government is collegial varies with political conditions and individual personalities.

The Cabinet is the ultimate decision-making body of the executive within the Westminster system of government in traditional constitutional theory. This interpretation was originally put across in the work of 19th-century constitutionalists such as Walter Bagehot, who described the Cabinet as the "efficient secret" of the British political system in his book The English Constitution. The political and decision-making authority of the cabinet has been gradually reduced over the last several decades, with some claiming its role has been usurped by a "prime ministerial" government. In the modern political era, the prime minister releases information concerning the ministerial ranking in the form of a list detailing the seniority of all Cabinet ministers.

The centralisation of the Cabinet in the early 20th century enhanced the power of the prime minister, who moved from being the primus inter pares of the Asquith Cabinets of 1906 onwards, to the dominating figures of David Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin, and Winston Churchill.

The Institute for Government claims that the reduced number of full Cabinet meetings signifies "that the role of Cabinet as a formal decision-making body has been in decline since the war." This view has been contradicted by Vernon Bogdanor, a British constitutional expert, who claims that "the Cabinet has, in fact, been strengthened by the decline in full meetings, as it allows more matters to be transferred to cabinet committees. Thus, business is done more efficiently."

Most prime ministers have had a so-called "kitchen cabinet" consisting of their own trusted advisers who may be Cabinet members but are often non-cabinet trusted personal advisers on their own staff. In recent governments, generally from Margaret Thatcher, and especially in that of Tony Blair, it has been reported that many or even all major decisions have been made before cabinet meetings. This suggestion has been made by former ministers including Clare Short and Chris Smith, in the media, and was made clear in the Butler Review, where Blair's style of "sofa government" was censured.

The combined effect of the prime minister's ability to control Cabinet by circumventing effective discussion in Cabinet and the executive's ability to dominate parliamentary proceedings places the British prime minister in a position of great power, that has been likened to an elective dictatorship (a phrase coined by Quinton Hogg, Lord Hailsham in 1976). The relative inability of Parliament to hold the Government of the day to account is often cited by the UK media as a justification for the vigour with which they question and challenge the Government.

The classic view of Cabinet Government was laid out by Walter Bagehot in The English Constitution (1867) in which he described the prime minister as the primus‐inter‐pares ("first among equals"). The view was questioned by Richard Crossman in The Myths of Cabinet Government (1972) and by Tony Benn. They were both members of the Labour governments of the 1960s and thought that the position of the prime minister had acquired more power so that prime ministerial government was a more apt description. Crossman stated that the increase in the power of the prime minister resulted from power of centralised political parties, the development of a unified civil service, and the growth of the prime minister's private office and Cabinet secretariat.

Graham Allen (a government whip during Tony Blair's first government) makes the case in The Last Prime Minister: Being Honest About the UK Presidency (2003) that the office of prime minister has presidential powers, as did Michael Foley in The British Presidency (2000). However the power that a prime minister has over his or her cabinet colleagues is directly proportional to the amount of support that they have with their political parties and this is often related to whether the party considers them to be an electoral asset or liability. Also when a party is divided into factions a prime minister may be forced to include other powerful party members in the Cabinet for party political cohesion. The Prime Minister's personal power is also curtailed if their party is in a power-sharing arrangement, or a formal coalition with another party (as happened in the coalition government of 2010 to 2015).

Current Cabinet

Main article: Sunak ministry

As of 7 December 2023, the makeup of the Cabinet in order of ministerial ranking (via parliament.uk) is:

Sunak Ministry
Minister Constituency		Office(s)	Department	Took office
Cabinet ministers
	Rishi Sunak MP for Richmond (Yorks)	Prime Minister First Lord of the Treasury Minister for the Civil Service Minister for the Union	Cabinet Office	25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Oliver Dowden MP for Hertsmere	Deputy Prime Minister Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster	Cabinet Office	21 April 2023 (2023-04-21) 9 February 2023 (2023-02-09) 25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Jeremy Hunt MP for South West Surrey	Chancellor of the Exchequer Second Lord of the Treasury	HM Treasury	14 October 2022 (2022-10-14)
	David Cameron Life peer	Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs	Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office	13 November 2023 (2023-11-13)
	James Cleverly MP for Braintree	Secretary of State for the Home Department	Home Office	13 November 2023 (2023-11-13)
	Grant Shapps MP for Welwyn Hatfield	Secretary of State for Defence	Ministry of Defence	31 August 2023 (2023-08-31)
	Alex Chalk MP for Cheltenham	Secretary of State for Justice Lord Chancellor	Ministry of Justice	21 April 2023 (2023-04-21)
	Michelle Donelan MP for Chippenham	Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology	Department for Science, Innovation and Technology	20 July 2023 (2023-07-20)
	Victoria Atkins MP for Louth and Horncastle	Secretary of State for Health and Social Care	Department of Health and Social Care	13 November 2023 (2023-11-13)
	Michael Gove MP for Surrey Heath	Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Minister for Intergovernmental Relations	Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities	25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Steve Barclay MP for North East Cambridgeshire	Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs	13 November 2023 (2023-11-13)
	Penny Mordaunt MP for Portsmouth North	Leader of the House of Commons Lord President of the Council	Office of the Leader of the House of Commons	6 September 2022 (2022-09-06)
	Nicholas True, Baron True Life peer	Leader of the House of Lords Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal	Office of the Leader of the House of Lords	6 September 2022 (2022-09-06)
	Kemi Badenoch MP for Saffron Walden	Secretary of State for Business and Trade President of the Board of Trade Minister for Women and Equalities	Department for Business and Trade Government Equalities Office	7 February 2023 (2023-02-07) 6 September 2022 (2022-09-06) 25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Claire Coutinho MP for East Surrey	Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero	Department for Energy Security and Net Zero	31 August 2023 (2023-08-31)
	Mel Stride MP for Central Devon	Secretary of State for Work and Pensions	Department for Work and Pensions	25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Gillian Keegan MP for Chichester	Secretary of State for Education	Department for Education	25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Mark Harper MP for Forest of Dean	Secretary of State for Transport	Department for Transport	25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Lucy Frazer MP for South East Cambridgeshire	Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport	Department for Culture, Media and Sport	7 February 2023 (2023-02-07)
	Richard Holden MP for North West Durham	Minister without Portfolio	Cabinet Office	13 November 2023 (2023-11-13)
	Chris Heaton-Harris MP for Daventry	Secretary of State for Northern Ireland	Northern Ireland Office	6 September 2022 (2022-09-06)
	Alister Jack MP for Dumfries and Galloway	Secretary of State for Scotland	Scotland Office	24 July 2019 (2019-07-24)
	David Davies MP for Monmouth	Secretary of State for Wales	Wales Office	25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
Ministers who also attend Cabinet
	Simon Hart MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire	Government Chief Whip Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury	HM Treasury	25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Laura Trott MP for Sevenoaks	Chief Secretary to the Treasury	HM Treasury	13 November 2023 (2023-11-13)
	Victoria Prentis MP for Banbury	Attorney General for England and Wales Advocate General for Northern Ireland	Attorney General's Office	25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	John Glen MP for Salisbury	Minister for the Cabinet Office Paymaster General	Cabinet Office	13 November 2023 (2023-11-13)
	Esther McVey MP for Tatton	Minister of State without Portfolio	Cabinet Office	13 November 2023 (2023-11-13)
	Tom Tugendhat MP for Tonbridge and Malling	Minister of State for Security	Home Office	6 September 2022 (2022-09-06)
	Andrew Mitchell MP for Sutton Coldfield	Deputy Foreign Secretary Minister of State for Development and Africa	Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office	12 April 2024 (2024-04-12) 25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Johnny Mercer MP for Plymouth Moor View	Minister of State for Veterans' Affairs	Cabinet Office	25 October 2022 (2022-10-25)
	Michael Tomlinson MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole	Minister of State for Countering Illegal Migration	Home Office	7 December 2023 (2023-12-07)

List of Cabinets since 1900

• Cabinets of the Unionist government, 1895–1905
• Cabinets of Henry Campbell-Bannerman's ministry, 1905–1908
• Cabinets of H. H. Asquith's ministries, 1908–1915
• Cabinets of H. H. Asquith's coalition ministry, 1915–1916
• Cabinets of David Lloyd George's ministries, 1916–1922
• Cabinets of Bonar Law's ministry, 1922–1923
• Cabinets of Stanley Baldwin's first ministry, 1923–1924
• Cabinets of Ramsay MacDonald's first ministry, 1924
• Cabinets of Stanley Baldwin's second ministry, 1924–1929
• Cabinets of Ramsay MacDonald's second ministry, 1929–1931
• Cabinets of Ramsay MacDonald's first national government, 1931
• Cabinets of Ramsay MacDonald's second national government, 1931–1935
• Cabinets of Stanley Baldwin's national government, 1935–1937
• Cabinets of Neville Chamberlain's national government, 1937–1939
• Cabinets of Neville Chamberlain's war ministry, 1939–1940
• Cabinets of Winston Churchill's war ministry, 1940–1945
• Cabinets of Winston Churchill's caretaker ministry, 1945
• Cabinets of Clement Attlee's first ministry, 1945–1950
• Cabinets of Clement Attlee's second ministry, 1950–1951
• Cabinets of Winston Churchill's third ministry, 1951–1955
• Cabinets of Anthony Eden's ministry, 1955–1957
• Cabinets of Harold Macmillan's first ministry, 1957–1959
• Cabinets of Harold Macmillan's second ministry, 1959–1963
• Cabinets of Alec Douglas-Home's ministry, 1963–1964
• Cabinets of Harold Wilson's first and second ministries, 1964–1970
• Cabinets of Ted Heath's ministry, 1970–1974
• Cabinets of Harold Wilson's third and fourth ministries, 1974–1976
• Cabinets of James Callaghan's ministry, 1976–1979
• Cabinets of Margaret Thatcher's first ministry, 1979–1983
• Cabinets of Margaret Thatcher's second ministry, 1983–1987
• Cabinets of Margaret Thatcher's third ministry, 1987–1990
• Cabinets of John Major's first ministry, 1990–1992
• Cabinets of John Major's second ministry, 1992–1997
• Cabinets of Tony Blair's first ministry, 1997–2001
• Cabinets of Tony Blair's second ministry, 2001–2005
• Cabinets of Tony Blair's third ministry, 2005–2007
• Cabinets of Gordon Brown's ministry, 2007–2010
• Cabinets of the Cameron–Clegg coalition, 2010–2015
• Cabinets of David Cameron's second ministry, 2015–2016
• Cabinets of Theresa May's first ministry, 2016–2017
• Cabinets of Theresa May's second ministry, 2017–2019
• Cabinets of Boris Johnson's first ministry, 2019
• Cabinets of Boris Johnson's second ministry, 2019–2022
• Cabinets of Liz Truss's ministry, September 2022 – October 2022
• Cabinets of Rishi Sunak's ministry, October 2022 –

See also

• British Government frontbench
• Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet
• United Kingdom cabinet committee

External links

• Cabinet Office – Main Site
• Cabinet Office – UK Executive
• Cabinet Office – List of Cabinet Ministers
• Cabinet Papers, 1915–1981 (National Archives)
• BBC news website – The Cabinet

Personal life

Honorary Degrees

Brown received honorary degrees from the University of Edinburgh in 2003 and Newcastle University in 2007 (DCL). He received an Honorary Doctorate alongside Alan Greenspan from New York University in 2006.

Family

Previous girlfriends included the journalist Sheena McDonald, Marion Calder and Princess Margarita, the eldest daughter of exiled King Michael of Romania. She has said about their relationship: "It was a very solid and romantic story. I never stopped loving him but one day it didn't seem right any more, it was politics, politics, politics, and I needed nurturing."

Brown married Sarah Macaulay in a private ceremony at his home in North Queensferry, Fife, on 3 August 2000 after a four-year courtship. She is a public relations executive and was, until 2001, Chief Executive of Hobsbawm Macaulay, the consultancy firm she owned with Julia Hobsbawm (daughter of the notable Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm). They met when her company was advising the Labour-supporting New Statesman magazine in 1994 and the relationship blossomed alongside Labour's electoral success. On 28 December 2001, a daughter, Jennifer Jane, was born prematurely and died on 8 January 2002. Gordon Brown commented at the time that their recent experiences had changed him and his wife:

"I don't think we'll be the same again, but it has made us think of what's important. It has made us think that you've got to use your time properly. It's made us more determined. Things that we feel are right we have got to achieve, we have got to do that. Jennifer is an inspiration to us."

Their second child, John, was born on 17 October 2003. Their third child, a son, James Fraser, was born on 17 July 2006; it was reported on 29 November 2006 that he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

Mrs Brown, unlike Cherie Blair QC, rarely appears at public events with her husband and until recently even missed his Budget speeches. She intends to remain out of the limelight as much as possible but accepts that her life will change when she moves into 10 Downing Street. However, to date, she has never given a magazine or television interview but is now inundated with requests to break her silence. She is unlikely to do so.

His two brothers are both involved in public relations. His brother John Brown is Head of Public Relations for Glasgow City Council and his brother Andrew Brown was appointed Head of Media Relations in the UK for the French-owned utility company EDF Energy in September, 2003. Andrew Brown was previously Director of Media Strategy at the public relations firm Weber Shandwick from 2003-2006 and had previously worked in broadcasting, serving as Editor of Channel 4’s political programme, ‘Powerhouse’, from 1996 to 2003. He previously worked for the BBC in the late 1970s and early 1980s .

Controversy in links to Nuclear industry

The link between Brown's brother Andrew and one of the main nuclear lobbyists EDF has caused some controversy given the finding that the government did not carry a proper public consultation on the use of nuclear power in its 2006 Energy Review . Attention has also been drawn to the fact that the father in law of Brown's closest advisor Ed Balls, Tony Cooper (father of the Labour minister Yvette Cooper) was described as an "articulate, persuasive and well-informed advocate of nuclear power over the last ten years" by the Nuclear Industry Association on his appointment as Chairman of the British Nuclear Industry Forum in June, 2002. He is also a member of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and was appointed to the Energy Advisory Panel by the previous Conservative administration. .

Depictions of Brown in the media

The new Brown administration has marked a stark contrast between the hyperactive media-friendly Blair to Brown's more sombre and dour personality who appears to be uncomfortable with the media spotlight. This garnered decidedly mixed views from the media and the British electorate, with some appreciating to see the end of Blair's much criticised 'sofa government' and others feeling Brown is not bold or dynamic enough to be Prime Minister.

In much parodies and dramas portraying Brown reflects his sombre personality. Brown was played by David Morrissey in the Stephen Frears directed TV movie The Deal and by Peter Mullen in the TV movie The Trial of Tony Blair of which Brown is depicted as miserly, dour and humourless.

See also

• Brown Ministry
• Blair-Brown deal
• Cabinet of the United Kingdom
• UK general elections: 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001, 2005, subsequent election
• Labour Party leadership election, 2007
• List of national leaders

References

Works:

• Brown, Gordon (2006); Speeches 1997-2006, edited by Wilf Stevenson. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0-74758-837-6
• Brown, Gordon (ed.); Wright, Tony (ed.) (1995). Values, Visions and Voices: An Anthology of Socialism. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 1-85158-731-4.
• Brown, Gordon (1989). Where There's Greed: Margaret Thatcher and the Betrayal of Britain's Future. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 1-85158-228-2.
• Brown, Gordon (ed.); Cook, Robin (ed.) (1987). Scotland: The Real Divide - Poverty and Deprivation in Scotland. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 0-906391-18-0.
• Brown, Gordon (1986). Maxton: A Biography. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 1-85158-042-5.

Biographies:

• Bower, Tom (2003). Gordon Brown. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-717540-X.
• Brivati, Brian (2002). 'Gordon Brown' in Labour Forces, Jefferys, Kevin (ed). IB Taurus Publishing. ISBN 1-41751-633-X
• Keegan, William (2003). The Prudence of Mr Gordon Brown. John Wiley. ISBN 0-470-84697-6.
• Maguire, Kevin (2001). 'Gordon Brown' in Dictionary of Labour Biography, Rosen, Greg (ed). Politicos Publishing. ISBN 1-90230-118-8
• Naughtie, James (2001). The Rivals: The Intimate Story of a Political Marriage. Fourth Estate. ISBN 1-84115-473-3.
• Peston, Robert (2005). Brown's Britain: How Gordon Runs the Show. Short Books. ISBN 1-904095-67-4.
• Routledge, Paul (1998). Gordon Brown: The Biography. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81954-6.

Others:

• Pym, Hugh & Kochan, Nick (1998), Gordon Brown the First Year in Power, Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747537011.
• Rawnsley, Andrew (2001). Servants of the people: The inside story of New Labour. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-027850-8.
• Rosen, Greg (2005). Old Labour to New. Politicos Publishing. ISBN 1842750453
• Routledge, Paul (2003). Bumper Book of British Lefties. Politicos Publishing. ISBN 184275064X

External links

• Gordon Brown's leadership campaign website
• Gordon Brown's First Speech as Prime Minister 27 June 2007
• Audio and Transcript of Gordon Brown’s First Speech as Labour Party Leader 24 June 2007
• 10 Downing Street - Prime Minister: The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP
• HM Treasury - Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Special Report: Gordon Brown
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Gordon Brown
• BBC News - Gordon Brown in Africa January 2005 trip about his 'Marshall plan for Africa'
• Open Directory Project - Gordon Brown directory category
• Gordon Clown - Satirical blog covering Gordon Brown's activities
• Observer: How Gordon Brown become the most powerful Chancellor in history
• Gordon Brown 'The Socialist Challenge' Extracts from his introduction to 'The Red Paper on Scotland' (1975)
• Transcript of Gordon Brown's acceptance speech Triple A accessible version of Gordon Browns' acceptance speech

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