by Gordon Brown
I had always known that Downing Street was never more than a temporary home for us. Most of all it was a place of work. I was departing because the work I had been doing had come to an end. But I felt that in losing I had let millions of people down. And I was determined to display the dignity that I had always expected and demanded of Labour MPs and ministers. My remarks were direct and to the point:
As you know, the general election left no party able to command a majority in the House of Commons. I said I would do all that I could to ensure a strong, stable and principled government was formed, able to tackle Britain’s economic and political challenges effectively. My constitutional duty is to make sure that a government can be formed following last Thursday’s general election. I have informed the Queen’s private secretary that it is my intention to tender my resignation to the Queen. In the event that the Queen accepts, I shall advise her to invite the leader of the Opposition to form a government.
I wish the next prime minister well as he makes the important choices for the future. Only those that have held the office of prime minister can understand the full weight of its responsibilities and its great capacity for good. I have been privileged to learn much about the very best in human nature and a fair amount too about its frailties, including my own. It was a privilege to serve. And yes, I loved the job not for its prestige, its titles and its ceremony – which I do not love at all. No, I loved the job for its potential to make this country I love fairer, more tolerant, more green, more democratic, more prosperous and more just – truly a greater Britain. In the face of many challenges in a few short years, challenges up to and including the global financial meltdown, I have always strived to serve, to do my best in the interest of Britain, its values and its people.
And let me add one thing also. I will always admire the courage I have seen in our armed forces. And now that the political season is over, let me stress that having shaken their hands and looked into their eyes, our troops represent all that is best in our country and I will never forget all those who have died in honour and whose families today live in grief.
My resignation as leader of the Labour Party will take effect immediately. And in this hour, I want to thank all my colleagues, ministers, Members of Parliament. And I want to thank above all my staff, who have been friends as well as brilliant servants of the country.
Above all, I want to thank Sarah for her unwavering support as well as her love, and for her own service to our country.
I thank my sons John and Fraser for the love and joy they bring to our lives.
And as I leave the second most important job I could ever hold, I cherish even more the first – as a husband and father.
Thank you and goodbye.
Sarah, John, Fraser and I then left quietly, hand in hand. We walked into the suddenly gathering twilight and took our leave of Downing Street for the last time.
There remained one official duty still to perform: going to the Palace. The traditional departure from government does not involve, as some people believe, the prime minister handing over seals of office, or anything formal like that. It is simply saying goodbye to the Queen – and thanking her. As usual, she was charming and the occasion itself was relaxed. I think the Queen would not object to me recounting what happened. She had kindly invited John and Fraser to be present at this last official event and wanted to give us a personal gift, an inscribed photograph of herself. Fraser was just four, and when he looked at the photo he said, ‘That’s the Queen!’ – as if it was of someone other than the person who had just handed it to him. Queen Elizabeth, startled by his response, replied: ‘But I’m the Queen, I’m the Queen.’ We laughed, and then we left. And so ended three years of regular audiences – more than a hundred – at Buckingham Palace.
The boys drove off from the Palace to prepare for school the next day. I went to Labour Party headquarters to give a speech to the staff and thank them for the work they had done. I was leaving London for good; Sarah and I flew back to Scotland, arriving in Fife around 10 p.m. For the next month, we were split as a family. I was mainly in Scotland and Sarah down in London as the boys finished their school term. I visited as regularly as I could without wanting to intrude on the Westminster scene.
Since 2010, I have often been asked whether I was too eager to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Many Labour MPs, including some members of the Cabinet, did not want one; this was not for the most part because of a belief that it would entail a surrender of principles, but because they felt that in opposition we could rebuild quickly. Their calculation was that we would be back in power within five years. I thought this was foolhardy: in my view letting the Conservatives in the door would help a previously unelectable party manoeuvre itself into the mainstream. So, indeed, it came to pass.
Why do I tell the story of May 2010 in such detail? I do not do so because I believe I or my party had any special right to stay in power. I knew from the outset that we would almost certainly have to leave, and I do not complain that we had to go. But how it happened raises important issues, for at least some of what transpired is an object lesson in how not to do things. Britain has no written constitution, no formal rules or procedures to follow in the case of a hung parliament, and no clear guidelines for civil servants or other unelected public officials which prohibit interference. The advantage here is flexibility; the disadvantage is that non-elected officials may have the power to do more than is reasonable in a democracy. As I have argued, not least on fiscal policy, Mervyn King failed to understand the limits of his unelected position.
I had anticipated that the Civil Service would convene discussions with Opposition parties: indeed, I approved them. It was only right that the Civil Service made talks possible. But I did not think, as I now do, that it was necessary to stipulate the limits of its role.
The first set of talks between the Tories and Liberal Democrats was convened in the Cabinet Office, into which they were welcomed by Gus O’Donnell, on 8 May. And it was, of course, right that all factual information requested from the Civil Service was provided. In 2015, the Constitution Unit at King’s College London described the Civil Service’s role in coalition discussions as ‘to be available to offer information, but not advice’. But was advice not given in 2010? How do we explain the statements from key participants in the Conservative and Lib Dem negotiating teams that were never contradicted: George Osborne’s assertion that when it came to a £6 billion deficit reduction plan this view was ‘shared by the Treasury and the Bank of England’; David Laws’ statement that civil servant heads were ‘very supportive’ of the policy; and Vince Cable’s statement that ‘the government’s top officials expressed the fear that … “contagion” could easily spread to the UK’?
A seasoned observer whose opinions carry weight, Peter Riddell, has written that there is a balance ‘between factual advice and that which might be seen as implying a preference for one course of action over another’. The danger in 2010, Riddell writes, was ‘that the Civil Service itself would become the heart of the controversy, endangering its impartiality’. In a thoughtful survey of lessons learned from the 2010 election, the Institute for Government highlights ‘the difficult balancing act that the Civil Service had to play in all this: between factual advice and that which might be seen as implying a preference for one course of action over another’. ‘The Civil Service was not in the negotiating room in May 2010 but its advice was,’ the Institute observes, pointing out: ‘The distinction between factual advice and advice on what you should do can easily be blurred: for instance, in providing analysis of the feasibility of “in-year” spending cuts (that is in the 2010–11 financial year), the advice would be seen to have played one way – particularly with the governor of the Bank of England seen as operating outside the Whitehall rules.’ Its conclusion is that: ‘Parties involved in negotiations should be able to consult the Civil Service on costings of pledges and policies but this should not stray into policy advice.’
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p; The Cabinet Manual is silent on where the provision of information ends and the provision of advice starts. The problem, the Institute for Government says, is a lack of clarity in wording on the type of ‘support’ that can be offered. In any event, it is clear that the current Cabinet Manual is inadequate, an unacceptable halfway house between an unwritten constitution and a constitutional document. The Institute recommends that in future the Cabinet Secretary should be cautious about their level of involvement.
Prime ministers leaving government will in future find it impossible to play any sensible part in the House of Commons. If you speak out, then you are accused of trying to upstage your new leader. If you don’t speak regularly in debates, then you’re accused of being someone who is moping or bitter. In 2016 David Cameron would come to the same decision as Tony Blair to leave quickly. In a previous era, Churchill decided to stay in Parliament for nearly ten years. Edward Health was an MP for twenty-five years after he lost office and was declared ‘a great sulk’. I met Jim Callaghan and talked to him in the years from 1983 to 1987 when he was still in the Commons on the back benches. But the twenty-four-hour news cycle and wall-to-wall TV coverage of the Commons make it increasingly unrealistic to do anything other than step down as an MP when you leave Downing Street.
As happens so often, one event encapsulates what is happening in your life. A few days out of No. 10, I was back in London for a day, taking my younger son Fraser to nursery. As parents do, I was asking him what job he wanted to do when he grew up. ‘A teacher, a builder … and a dad,’ he replied. Beaming with delight that he thought being a father mattered so much, I turned towards him as he said: ‘But you’re only a dad.’
CHAPTER 19
BATTLES FOR BRITAIN
I had no desire to return to front-line politics after 2010. When I spoke at public meetings after leaving office, I often joked I was too old to be the comeback kid and too young to be an elder statesman. It was true: I was, at fifty-nine, almost certainly the wrong age to launch a wholly new career, and writing any memoirs was years away. I was at a stage in life where the over-exuberance of youth had subsided but I had no intention of slowing down. I had plenty of energy left. Since my schooldays, I had dreamed of what I could contribute in any way, however small, to creating a world free of poverty. This is the mission that has come to preoccupy me.
Against Sarah’s better judgement and the advice of Sue Nye, I had volunteered to take full personal responsibility for the defeat in 2010. While there were many reasons for us losing – the MPs’ expenses crisis, Iraq, the fallout from the recession and the simple fact that Labour had been in power for thirteen years – I felt that the party needed someone to blame.
On the Tuesday after he became leader, Ed Miliband apologised for the mistakes we had made in government over Iraq. Although it was not intended as such, this came to be seen as a renunciation of our entire record. Privately I called it the ‘year zero’ approach. The upshot was that no one defended our record. By airbrushing our past and appearing to denigrate our own achievements, we made it difficult for people to feel proud of Labour again. Not wishing to rock the boat, I decided it was best to keep silent and stand aside. I knew from experience that the media would seize on any comments from a past leader in order to embarrass the present leader. My advice to my successor, I joked, was not to take my advice.
A few days after the 2010 election I made it clear that I would focus as an MP on work in my own constituency and attend Westminster only for vital votes. I chose to speak in a few debates – on constituency issues, in a tribute to Nelson Mandela, on Scotland, and on events in Nigeria, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere where children were being denied their basic rights. I continued the work I had started in government to help Britain’s child migrants, many of whom I now found had been abused when they were forcibly removed from Britain and sent to countries in the Commonwealth.
My remaining time I devoted fully to various other community-based and charitable activities with which I was involved. I attended to my duties as chancellor of the Adam Smith College and president of Fife Society for the Blind. I helped Sarah with the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory – which has, in its first fifteen years, conducted path-breaking research into saving premature babies. I am privileged to be patron of The Cottage, Kirkcaldy’s family centre. I was proud to be involved also in the first stages of setting up Kirkcaldy’s food bank. A close family friend, Marilyn Livingstone – whose husband Peter was at school with me and whom I have known since the age of ten – talked with me about creating a foundation based in Kirkcaldy to help rejuvenate the area. She suggested setting it up in my name but I proposed that she call it the Adam Smith Global Foundation. Leading public figures have subsequently delivered an annual Adam Smith lecture there at her invitation, including Michael Sandel, Amartya Sen, Emma Rothschild, Jim Wolfensohn and most recently Ed Balls, almost every one of whom chose to address the theme of globalisation.
In the past two decades, the world has seen great initiatives that have transformed the lives of millions, some of which were started under the inspired leadership of valued friends of mine, Kofi Annan and Jim Wolfensohn, such as the Global AIDS and Health Fund and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, which have prevented 100 million child deaths; debt relief, which wiped off $100 billion of the unpayable debts of the world’s thirty-six poorest countries; the doubling of aid to Africa; and, most recently, the historic 2015 climate change agreement from which Donald Trump may be walking away, although at least he is walking alone. For too long, though, global education has been neglected. Its share of aid has fallen from 13 per cent in 2000 to 10 per cent today, with the result that half of the world’s children – 800 million – are forced out of education before their time, mainly through poverty, and lack even the basic skills necessary for the jobs of the future, a figure which will worsen by 2030 if we do not act now.
In the 1960s, a civil-rights struggle starting in America swept the world. In the 1970s and 80s, people came together to boycott a South African regime and end the oppressive forces of apartheid. And in the last two decades, guarantees for the rights of women, people with disabilities and LGBT persons have started to emerge. But the cause of children’s rights is too often unrecognised, unfulfilled and met with indifference. Even when armed with the knowledge that the best antidote to the great evils of child marriage, child labour and child trafficking is an education, we still fail to deliver on that most fundamental promise of a quality and inclusive education for all – and not just some – children. That is why I believe fulfilling this promise – particularly with respect to girls’ education – is the civil-rights struggle of our time.
I see Britain’s commitment to universal education – guaranteeing schooling to the poorest and most vulnerable children in the least promising corners of the world – as the British people demonstrating our internationalism in practice and cajoling other nations to do likewise. I want our internationalism to be akin to a bright beacon on a mountaintop, radiating enough energy to enlist the generosity of others and give hope to desolate and despairing children everywhere. Of course in practice our internationalism will often seem no more than a small flame flickering dimly amidst the strong countervailing winds of nationalism and narrow self-interest. But as long as millions of parents believe investment in education is a path out of poverty, and desire for all children what they seek for their own, then that flame can never be extinguished. And it is, of course, education that also unlocks our other great development goals: gender equality, improved girls’ health, better employment prospects, a higher quality of life, and a more enlightened attitude to coexistence between the religions of the world.
In 2011, I authored a report with Kevin Watkins, now head of Save the Children UK, showing that education aid was less than $10 per child per year – barely enough to buy one second-hand school textbook. While global health, I argued, had a regiment of patrons across the world – from governments in Norway and the US to in
stitutions like the Gates Foundation and the Global Fund – there was, at that time, no government championing global education (though Norway soon came on board) and no philanthropic equivalent to Bill Gates. That year, Ban Ki-moon, whom I knew from before he became UN secretary general, asked me to serve as the UN special envoy for global education. It is a role I have continued to hold under the new secretary general, another friend, António Guterres.
To fulfil my duties as special envoy I employed a small team, led by the highly qualified education expert and tireless campaigner Dr Justin van Fleet, and funded by the proceeds of any speeches and writing work I did, all of which were donated to this and other public service and charity work. In this role, I have since travelled to meet children in countries where millions are not at school – Pakistan, India, East Timor, South Sudan, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa – and in countries with large refugee populations from the conflicts in Iraq and Syria – Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. I took up the cases of the Chibok girls who had been kidnapped from their school in Nigeria, of girls fighting child marriage, and of Malala Yousafzai and her two friends, Shazia and Kainat, who had been shot by the Taliban in October 2012 simply because they were girls daring to go to school. I visited Malala in hospital a few days after her shooting, ran an event to mark her sixteenth birthday at which she addressed the UN, and Sarah and I were among those who helped Shazia and Kainat through their schooling in Britain.
As UN special envoy I also helped raise money to offer 250,000 children in Lebanon education in ‘double-shift schools’, where the same classrooms in which local children are taught in the morning are used to teach refugees from bordering Syria in the afternoon, and fought for a new fund – Education Cannot Wait – to pay for education for the world’s 30 million displaced children.