Blair to Brown

The News Item

On June 27th 2007 Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister of the UK. At that time Tony Blair stood down not only as PM but also as the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield.

The Background

John Smith, the former leader of the Labour Party, died of a heart attack in 1994 at the relatively young age of 55. It is said that a deal was then done between Blair and Brown that Blair would eventually make way for Brown if Brown did not oppose Blair as the new leader of the party. Speculation then continued that Blair reneged on that deal, which was for him to hand over power at an earlier stage.

Blair then became leader of his party and defeated the standing Conservative Government at a General Election in 1997, winning two further General Elections in 2001 and 2005. Throughout this time Brown was his Chancellor of the Exchequer, responsible for management of the country’s finances.

It is said that relations between the two men worsened and were at times pretty frosty, although they always went to a great deal of trouble to speak up their unity and act in harmony when in public together.

Labour's ruling National Executive Committee went through the process, once Blair announced the date he would stand down, of finding a successor as Labour leader. Gordon Brown emerged as the only contender who could get enough Labour MPs backing him in order to be considered. So there was no election within the party.

The People

1. Tony Blair (born 6 May 1953) served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007, the Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007 and the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007. On the day he stood down as Prime Minister, he was appointed official Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East on behalf of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.[i]

2. Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the First Lord of the Treasury, the Minister for the Civil Service, the current Member of Parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and the Leader of the Labour Party since 27 June 2007. Before this, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007.[ii]

Issues and Themes Raised

1. Leadership

What is the best way to choose a leader? Having chosen a leader how accountable should they be? Are they solely responsible or should they share power with, for instance, a cabinet or team?

2. Democracy

In a country recognised as a democracy how much do the people actually get to decide? The new Prime Minister, it could be said, is not someone for whom we have voted. It will take a General Election (not necessarily due until 2010) for Gordon Brown to seek a mandate from the British people.

3. Trust

Alastair Campbell was Tony Blair’s Director of Communications from 1997 – 2003. He says, in his recently published diary, that no deal was done with Gordon Brown in 2003 about a handover, although at that time Blair had, apparently, no stomach to fight the next General Election. We cannot know, until all party’s diaries and biographies are published, who promised what and to whom, but trust plays an enormous role in politics. How much do we trust our elected leaders and those who report on them? Do we observe them trusting each other?

4. The media

We rarely get the opportunity to respond directly to our political leaders. Their communication to us goes through a process of editing and selection by the media. How do we decide who is telling the truth? Politicians are always trying to keep control of the message and the subject matter of media interest. In other words they aye trying to be more proactive than reactive?

5. Ambition

‘All people who get to the top have to have a driving ambition. To want it. I see Brown wanting the job desperately. Not quite as heroic as Macbeth, but he’s been waiting in the wings for a very long time and he thinks it’s his right to have it.’[iii] How ambitious should Christians be?

What Does the Bible Have to Say

To study leadership and democracy one might look at the selection and calling of Old Testament kings and prophets such as:

Saul (1 Samuel 9&10)

David (1 Samuel 16:1-13)

Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-8)

In Acts we find the early church making the decision to find an apostle to replace Judas (Acts 1:12-26) or choosing seven to look after the needs of Greek widows (Acts 6:1-7).

To study trust we might look at some of Jesus’ words encouraging faith and trust in God (John 14&15), or some of Jesus words about faith (Matthew 6:25-34; 8:5-13;17:20-21). Often in the Bible the words ‘faith,’ hope,’ trust’ and ‘wait’ are used to translate the same idea.

The media is not an easy theme to pick up in the Bible but we might look, for instance, at the way news about Jesus spread in Mark’s Gospel and the way Jesus tried to get people to keep quiet rather than spread misunderstanding (Mark 1:43-45; 3:12; 5:18-20,43). At the end of the gospel, when Jesus did ask that news of his resurrection be made known, the women were afraid and said nothing (Mark 16:8). What is the relationship between all this and the manipulation of a story known as ‘spin?’

What does the Bible say about ambition? Basically that we should ditch it in so far as it is self-seeking and replace it with service. We should do nothing out of selfish ambition but follow Christ’s example of humility (Philippians 2:1-11). Jesus was a server (Mark 10:45) and a foot-washer (John 13:1-17).

Ways to Bring This Into your Group

1. Hold a mock election. Invite the members to campaign and persuade their peers to propose them for office and vote for them.

2. Study a selection of newspapers from the same day and look at how they deal with a story. Compare this with the way the story is dealt with on the radio, TV and internet. Try and separate opinion from fact.

3. Have a look at some of the events from Bible history and imagine (role-play even) how they might be reported in the media today.

4. Help the group to polish their CVs. As they do so you might like to hold a discussion about the balance to be struck between selling yourself and humility; between wanting opportunity to further your career and reckoning others better than yourself.

5. The former MP and diarist Tony Benn says there are five tests of power in any apparent democracy:

• What power have you got?
• Who gave it to you?
• To whom are you accountable?
• On whose behalf have you exercised it?
• How do we get rid of you?

Discuss these and use them to test the power of anyone you know who has any. Do the group think democracy is biblical?

6. Wash your group’s feet.

Further Information

A good source of further information on this subject is the BBC web-site or the online versions of the daily newspapers. Use the search facility to find the stories, especially just before and after the handover date of June 27th 2007.

BBC              http://news.bbc.co.uk

Guardian        http://www.guardian.co.uk

Independent   http://www.independent.co.uk

Telegraph      http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Times            http://www.timesonline.co.uk