Gordon Brown has backed Keir Starmer’s bid for the Labour leadership, saying Starmer “has all the qualifications that are necessary for a Prime Minister of the future”.
Not quite the “ringing endorsement”
Brown was a key part of Tony Blair’s Thatcherism-lite government, taking the reins when Blair stepped down. He was also highly prone to public gaffes. And when the public finally got to assess his leadership in the 2010 general election, Labour got 8,609,527 votes (29% of people who voted). This compares to the party’s 9,347,273 (30.4%) in 2015, 12,877,918 (40%) in 2017, and 10,295,912 (32.2%) in 2019.
The former prime minister previously admitted making a “big mistake” regarding financial regulation leading up to the capitalist financial crisis of 2008. As the Guardian reported:
Brown had been prime minister for less than two months when the financial crisis began in the summer of 2007, but had been chancellor during the previous decade when the problems in the global banking system had gone unnoticed and unchecked.
Brown oversaw a multi-billion-pound bailout of the banks. And when Iceland let its banks fail, prosecuted bankers, and bailed out its citizens instead (actions leading to a strong economic recovery), Brown put its government on the UK’s terrorism list.
It’s perhaps this record that led many people to be unimpressed by Brown’s endorsement of Starmer:
Gordon Brown is backing @Keir_Starmer
Gordon Brown was the PM who decided – overnight – that investment banks needed to be bailed out, and that working people would pay it back.
Yeah. Figures.
— RedHerring (@CoastKerry) March 5, 2020
Even Gordon Brown didn't have the qualifications necessary, unfortunately, so I'm not sure this is the ringing endorsement the pundit brigade are going to pretend it is
— Corbynista Spider's Rights ⛏️ (@arachnochist) March 5, 2020
https://twitter.com/IcebergStream/status/1235598065840488448?s=20
Featured image and additional material via Press Association
