Red Box - Times Online's Westminster blog

David Miliband for Chancellor says Blair's former speechwriter

Cherie Blair tomorrow vents her spleen in the Times, having brought forward the publication of her autobiography by six months. Gordon Brown, she suggests, would have got the keys to Number 10 much earlier if he'd helped her husband more along the way.

At the same time, her husband's former speechwriter, Peter Hayman, writes on The Times comment pages that Alistair Darling should be pushed aside and David Miliband should be made Chancellor. Is this all Hyman's own work or is he acting as a Blairite outrider to float an idea?

A prime minister needs his strongest minister as chancellor, and Mr Miliband is currently the strongest minister. He has a feel for economic policy as well as wide experience of all policy development as a former head of the No 10 policy unit. He would be skilful, has spent time thinking through what a post-Blair agenda looks like more than most, and combines an appeal to middle and lower-income voters. ....

Mr Brown never needed a safety-first premiership. Rather, he had to perform an extraordinary act of renewal. He needed a chancellor to stand up in his first Budget and set out an agenda for both economic stability and reform. What Gordon Brown needed was a Gordon Brown as chancellor (minus the aggro). It may well be too late. But at least putting the right chancellor in place would provide a glimmer of hope. For there is nothing more important if Labour is to recover than to convince the public that the good times will return.

The people really responsible for Brown's woes?

According to this morning's Telegraph, Gordon Brown is going to exact full revenge against the people who are really to blame for his recent problems.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that while Mr Brown is expected to make some minor Cabinet changes he will "clear out the dead wood'' in the junior ranks. Among those who are thought to be vulnerable are Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, and Angela Eagle, a junior Treasury minister. Both have embarrassed Mr Brown over tax.

Oh not him again

Tonight Gordon is arriving in Washington, where I'm told Pope mania is inescapable (now they love the Pope-mobile). Tonight there is a reception at the British embassy for Gordon (travelling media not invited, though DC based Brit journalists are - go figure). But, as if to underscore the thunkingly dreadful timing, the octoganerian pontiff's birthday party is being held across the street from the British embassy. Talk about being overshadowed.

And who, by the way, briefed a newspaper the Pope and Brown never be in the same state at the same time earlier in the week?

Stop talking to PR Week

After this report of PR Week's latest from Thursday Stephen Carter's people in Downing Street have been told to stop talking to the advertising world magazine, according to this morning's Guardian.

Brown has been told that people within Carter's team have been talking freely to contacts on PR magazines, and Downing Street has demanded that the chatter stops. A senior Labour MP said: "It is time these recruits from the PR world learned that success in government is not measured by how many times you appear in PR Week."

It isn't possible to say from this though if "Downing Street" demanding that Carter's allies keep schtum means that Brown himself has said it. Apparently it isn't Carter himself doing the briefing, others in Downing Street have concluded.

A PR Week graphic that will be causing much misery

Click above to see graphic in full

This excellent Downing Street organogram appeared in PR Week (of all places) this week. It would take a huge amount of insider knowledge to put such a thing together without any sort of briefing. Clearly someone helped.

It also has a huge picture of Stephen Carter next to a small picture of Gordon, and has other long-term aides much lower down the tree, including the now-departed Spencer Livermore.

"Carter is responsible for sharpening decision-making across government, putting in place a proper diary system and imposing more structure on the Prime Minister's chaotic 16-hour days," says the text.

So the question is: how do the others on this graphic feel about it?

The Dfid text message

"At the Department for International Development, where Douglas Alexander and Shriti Vadera are jostling for power, one senior official presented a lengthy policy paper recently. The response was a one-line text-message that was, decidedly, uncomplimentary. The arrogance is shocking" - Camilla Cavendish in today's Times. Maybe Shriti, now a development minister, does not have time for official reports because she is still spending time interfering in the Treasury over Northern Rock?