Skipper

This portrait by Phil Hale of a Tony Blair's fag end days in power last June should be salutory for Gordon Brown; this is what ten years in power does to you. Simon Hoggart even suggests it's the equivalent of Dorian Grey's picture in the attic. Well, at least Blair had a reasonable hit list of achievements to his name, including Northern Ireland.

I've asked my students in Liverpool, for our last session next Tuesday to list Godron Brown's achievements during his first year in power. I'll be surprised if the list is a long one. Can anyone think of one or two to get my own list going? Setting the ball rolling on constitutional change? Some alleviation of poverty in the last budget? Reducing British troops in Iraq? These are small potato items.

To be honest I'm hard pressed to think of a single major achievement to stand in the Brown trophy cupboard. After a stint of reasonably successful crisis management last summer, it seems to have been downhill all the way- I won't bother with the familiar depressing list. It's just when things are getting bad though politically, as John Major discovered, that they insist on getting even worse. It's probably over-egging it to perceive shades of 1979 but the public service disputes seem to be building ominously. As well as the Grangemouth Refinery strike and those by teachers and civil servants, there are disputes pending in locaal goverenment, ther health service, police, prison service and FE colleges. I wonder if Mr Hale is washing his brushes to do Gordon while he's still resident in Number 10?