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A far better, more exciting, and more lively blog can be found at

www.gordonbrownforbritain.com

It's got Oona King, daily blogs, something called a "moblog" that involves pictures sent from camera phones that travel with Gordon at different visits and a map that shows you where GB has been in the leadership campaign.

Anyway, it's a cool place to be.

I'd urge you all to check it out, as it were, on www.gordonbrownforbritain.com

B4G

Miliband: "I'm a Brownite"

Environment Secretary David Miliband has announced that he will vote for Gordon Brown as Labour leader.
His declaration will be seen as giving a boost to the chancellor, the favourite to succeed Tony Blair.

When Mr Miliband told the BBC on Tuesday that he did not intend to run for the top job, critics said he had left himself room to change his mind.

But he tries to remove any uncertainty when he writes in The Observer: "I will vote for Gordon Brown".

After months of intense speculation, Mr Miliband told the BBC that he did not intend to run for the Labour leadership when Mr Blair announces his resignation after the 3 May elections.

In The Observer, Mr Miliband seeks to make it absolutely clear that Mr Brown is the best candidate to take forward Mr Blair's legacy.

He argues that success in the next general election will require the party not to go back on New Labour, but to offer "New Labour Plus".

"I will vote for Gordon Brown to lead Labour's drive," he writes.

"I have watched him and worked with him for nearly 20 years. He has in the last 10 years done great things for living standards; no-one is better qualified to lead across a wider canvas."

'Coronation'

He adds: "I said three years ago that I would not be a candidate for the leadership. I meant it and have not wavered from that view.

"I certainly am not in the business of waiting to pounce on local or Scottish and Welsh election results to change my mind."

Candidates need the support of 44 MPs to join the leadership contest.

Michael Meacher, the former environment minister, said he had the support of 25 Labour MPs and expected to inherit 15 more who were currently backing the other declared candidate, the chairman of the Socialist Campaign Group John McDonnell.

He said: "We should not have a coronation when there has been no debate on policy since Blair came in in 1994.

"It's crucial that Brown is made to answer as to what he's going to deliver to us. We are entitled to know."

New Labour Plus

Some commentators believe that there could also be challenges from Home Secretary John Reid and former home secretary Charles Clarke.

Mr Reid appeared to keep his options open in an interview with GMTV's Sunday Programme.

He says: "By saying that I won't discuss it, by definition you don't rule in or out.

"I'm sure the Prime Minister will make his views more specific, and when he does that, we will all have the chance to make sure that we express our views."

Mr Miliband says that New Labour Plus would be "broader and deeper" than New Labour.

It would bring together what he regards as the good things about New Labour and new policies such as creating institutions to bring citizens together, action to ease access to the housing market and the devolution of money-spending power to a local level.

Gordon & Douglas Alexander write for the Fabian Society: Stronger Together, Weaker Apart

Gordon Brown and Douglas Alexander argue that Scotland and England are Stronger Together in their new pamphlet for the Fabian Society.

Chancellor Gordon Brown and Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander spoke of their belief in the strength of the Union and its future at the launch of their Fabian pamphlet.
At an event in Edinburgh in April, both authors outlined why Scotland benefits both economically and politically from remaining part of the Union.
They argue that it would not make economic sense for Scotland to break away from the Union with England and Wales.
Trading links have helped create 200,000 more Scottish jobs since 1997 and more Scots in employment than ever before, says the publication.
"Scotland is a country advancing towards full employment instead of a country weighed down by high unemployment and its social consequences."
The authors say the SNP's politics of "grudge and grievance" refuse to recognise these economic realities.
Not only is Scotland linked economically with England, but the countries' populations are linked by migration. A million Scots live south of the border and more than three quarters of a million English people live in Scotland.
The Union gives Scotland - and Britain - a powerful international voice, at a time when many political challenges are international, not local.
Issues such as climate change, international terrorism and poverty need collective not individual action, say the authors.

Guest Blog: Cllr Kerron Cross

Today we welcome over to Bloggers 4 Gordon Kerron Cross, who is Vice Chair of the Christian Socialist Movement and a Labour Councillor in South Oxhey, as well as being quite funny.

Indeed, he wins the Big B4G Award for most impressive tagline to a Blog: Labour's Number 1 Political Blogger - "Labour’s Iain Dale, but funnier."

Quite right.

Big thanks to Kerron for guest blogging for us, and you can visit him on the web at www.kerroncross.blogspot.com if you like his entry here, which you are sure to, because it's funny and insightful. So here it is:
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I’ve been a Gordon Brown supporter for many years now (long before it became politically fashionable or expedient in the Labour Party to be a Gordon supporter) but for me he is the only real heir to the Labour leadership - and that’s with good reason too.

Gordon Brown is arguably the most capable, successful and effective Chancellor of Exchequer we have ever seen in this country. And what’s more he is intensely loyal. He has waited patiently – more patiently than most politicians would be when faced with the same situation – for his opportunity to lead the Labour Party, and the country. He deserves the opportunity to prove himself in the top job.

Under Gordon we have seen record employment levels (and record low unemployment), a stable yet growing economy, a national minimum wage, an increase in maternity leave and the introduction of paternity leave, help to the most needy in society, increase in aid to the poorest overseas, and investment in the public services that was so lacking under the Tories – amongst other things. (I could go on, but I don’t want to bore you!)

And what do we have as the major criticism of Gordon from his critics from inside and outside the party? That he is a rather dour Scot, overly serious, with a forensic eye for detail, more bothered about the fine points of policy than how he comes across on TV. Well, I’m sorry, but those are exactly the sort of characteristics that I want from my politicians.

What we are looking for is someone who can run the country effectively, not someone who may have the charm and personality to win Eurovision.

OK, I should perhaps declare an interest by saying that I am currently dating a rather dour Scot and this may mean that I am somehow predisposed to supporting them, but I really don’t see being austere and focussing on detail as being major problems for someone wanting to be Prime Minister. What comes across is that Gordon is passionate, honest and sincere.

As for the Conservatives, the more I look at David Cameron and George Osborne, the more they remind me of a pair of 1940s spivs on the make – especially with those new slick hairstyles that they are sporting. Personally I think the British people have had enough of the over-styled, over-produced, spin-laden, all-things-to-all-men kind of politician. What they want is someone who is authentic. Someone who comes across as a genuine person with a passion for the things that matter – and I believe Gordon is that man.

For whatever you say of Gordon and his policies, he is a man of substance who not only speaks from the heart, but speaks with gravitas when he does so.

And I for one look forward to a time when he is our Prime Minister.

“The British economy is today growing faster than all the other G7 economies…” What they are saying: (a taster)

Don't take our word for it...

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We congratualte the government on making this budget a quitters' budget
Deborah Arnott, of Ash

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And yet, the chancellor has done something that produced huge roars on the Labour benches and awkward gasps on the Tory benches. A headline cut in income tax (which the Tories have long dreamed of making) and a headline cut in business taxation.
Nick Robinson, BBC Political Editor

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People who have lost their retirement savings when their company pension scheme went bust received a welcome boost.

The chancellor pledged that the amount of money being made available to the Financial Assistance Scheme - which pays money to people who have lost their pensions - would quadruple from £2bn to £8bn.
BBC

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Helen Goodman MP, a former head of strategy at the Children's Society, said tax and benefit changes would help meet the government's goal of eradicating child poverty by 2020. "If we can lift 200,000 children out of poverty every year, we can hit that target," she said.
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Labour backbenchers were jubilant yesterday after watching Gordon Brown wrongfoot the Conservatives with his 2p cut in the basic rate of income tax.

MPs reported a buoyant mood in the tearooms, ascribed in part to relief that the chancellor had produced a budget startling enough to knock Lord Turnbull's recent criticisms of his leadership style and the party's faltering poll ratings off the agenda.

"The polls have been depressing, but this is just what the doctor ordered," said one backbencher. Labour MPs were confident the package was a winning one.

Tania Branigan, Guardian political correspondent

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Round 1 goes to Gordon in the new Green Battle with Cameron

Cameron opened round 1 with a feeble jab about tackling the impending environmental catastrophe by pricing working families out of air travel.

"Boo!" hissed the crowd.

Gordon brushed the attack off with his right hand, and characteristically smashed his left fist into Cameron's punitive treatment of family holidays. "Bang!", his clunking fist hammered into the lightweight with a call for international leadership and a new world order to tackle climate chaos.

"Finish him!" the clearly excited fans yelled.

The Chancellor, in his red and green trunks, skipped around the ring.

For extended highlights of Gordon's painful blows to Cameron's environmental policy, see below for the speech to the Green Alliance.

"I could jolly well have been a contender" spluttered Cameron, clearly on his way to a serious defeat on the environment after just a single round.

"Now I shall have to fly all the way to the Arctic Circle to speak to those Monkeys and ask them what to do" [surely "Polar Bears"? - Ed]

Tune in soon for Round 2 of "Gordon Thumps Cameron on the Environment"

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Speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, to the Green Alliance, London

[You can get the whole thing here- http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/press/2007/press_28_07.cfm]


GB: Let me say how pleased I am to be here

with business leaders who are breaking new ground in environmental technology;
with long standing environmental champions who have changed the way we think about our planet; and
with committed members of the Green Alliance and other environmental organisations who lit the flame of modern environmentalism over thirty years ago, and whose inexhaustible campaigning and practical action is a major reason why that flame now lights up not just the national but the global stage.
Starting from modest beginnings and just a few far-sighted pioneers, building new scientific understanding on long-standing conviction, the environmental movement stands today as a mighty and determined force of people and ideas. Ideas which I recognise are not just about the use of resources but about justice; not just about economics but about quality of life; not just about the kind of world we live but the kind of people we are.

When Make Poverty History started, I said to them we would not always agree but would always champion your right to disagree.

So let me say that I appreciate the role this movement now plays: at all times challenging us to do more, but ready too to play your part in helping Britain shape a progressive global consensus - showing that as with action on debt, poverty eradication and peacekeeping, it is when the mobilisation of moral concern in civil society is allied to the power of the people to act through government that change happens.

And we know that change must occur. When, nearly two years ago I commissioned Nick Stern to conduct a review of the economics of climate change, I wanted to build a new consensus: that we had to go beyond the traditional alliance of economic growth and social justice as the central concerns of policy, and put growth, justice and environmental care together as our trinity of objectives.

But perhaps I did not realise, and - possibly outside some people in this room, I don't think many people did - quite the scale of the challenge that would be revealed by Nick Stern's work, now reinforced by the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We are facing a world at risk of an increase in temperature equivalent to that between the last Ice Age and now. But, as Stern shows, this is also a world of great new opportunity - for business, commerce and science, to ensure that a green economy will also be a growing economy.

And the last few months have seen change.

From the strong decisions of the European Commission on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme last autumn to a new American emphasis on reducing oil dependence;
from the announcement last month that thirteen US states on both west and east coasts were now committed to joining cap and trade schemes to the focus on environmental protection in the Chinese Prime Minister's address to the Chinese parliament only last week;
from the setting up of a commission on emissions trading in Australia to the announcement almost every week of a major global company's new environmental commitments; and
most of all, from last week's historic EU decisions to cut its emissions and to adopt new commitments on energy efficiency, renewable energy, carbon capture and storage and biofuels it is becoming clear that we have entered a new era.
back to top

And this goes beyond climate change. At about the same time I commissioned the Stern report, I asked the Treasury to conduct a review of the long-term challenges facing the UK economy which would need to inform our forthcoming Spending Review. This showed the importance too of issues of water scarcity, waste generation, marine protection and biodiversity protection, in the UK and globally. We face an unprecedented series of global challenges which I recognise will profoundly affect our economic wellbeing, our quality of life and our cultural values, and will require societies, governments and the international community to make some far-reaching decisions.

So this era requires a new approach, both internationally and at home in Britain.

Guest-Blogging comes to Bloggers 4 Gordon

Check back early next week for the first in a series of bloggers taking time out from their own sites to write for Bloggers 4 Gordon.

We'll be taking you from one high to the next in our sampling tour of the Labour blogsphere.

You're not going to want to miss it...