Steve Richards: The quiet radicalism of Gordon Brown

After the theatrical conservatism of Tony Blair, prepare for the solid radicalism of Gordon Brown. The contrast will be marked in terms of style and substance.

This might seem an odd conclusion as the term "radical" was associated persistently with Mr Blair. The former Prime Minister went out of his way to make the association himself. I recall in the first term a mere visit to a council estate was hailed as an act of sweeping radicalism. Conversely, Mr Brown was dismissed often as being cautiously backward looking.

Yet his record at the Treasury merits the sought-after adjective of radical, even if he did not boast about his crusading zeal quite as much as the more cautious Mr Blair. Perhaps Mr Brown's expedient restraint explains why he became the most misunderstood figure in British politics, at least until the start of his prime ministerial honeymoon.

Already the terrorist threat gives Mr Brown the chance to counter one of the cruder caricatures. In advance of his accession, some of his critics wondered patronisingly how he would cope with the unexpected, as if his experience of politics had been limited to a brief stint as minister for the arts in a quiet year. As it has turned out, the early timetable for Mr Brown's best-laid plans, meticulously prepared over several years, was blown off course. He had planned to hit the ground running with a statement yesterday of sweeping reforms to the constitution. Instead, the new Home Secretary, the appropriately undemonstrative Jacqui Smith, was talking about terror.

Mr Brown does not appear to be reduced to a nervous wreck by the dramatic change of gear, and nor does the Home Secretary, who must be pinching herself when nobody is looking. There will be no equivalent to Mr Blair's deranged 10-point plan rushed out after the 7/7 attacks, a time when the then home secretary was on holiday and the rest of the cabinet were nowhere to be seen. Virtually none of Mr Blair's 10 points wasimplemented. On the basis of her performance so far, there will also be no destructively macho posturing from Ms Smith as there was from her predecessor, John Reid.

Yet there is obviously a need for some adjustments to the law. The case was made most forcefully yesterday by Lord Carlile, the Liberal Democrat peer, independent reviewer of security legislation and no reckless opponent of civil liberties. He explained in detail why more restrictive control orders were required, pointing out that those subject to existing orders could abscond too easily. He called also for a judicially supervised system that might enable arrest without charge for more than 28 days. This was not partisan posturing, but a clear-headed assessment.

Wisely, Mr Brown makes no move in the immediate aftermath, and has limited his media appearances. Bizarrely, Mr Blair has been on TV much more than the new Prime Minister. On the day after Mr Brown took over, Mr Blair gave an interview on his post-prime ministerial life. Last night, he was on again, featuring in a documentary about his final weeks in power. Tomorrow, he will turn up in a peak-time slot with Cherie. After the long farewell there appears to be an equally lengthy "Hello ... here I am again." A period of silence would be a wiser course.

In the meantime, Mr Brown has been getting on with the job, as Harold Wilson used to put it. In his artful reshuffle, Mr Brown managed to be generous to some of Mr Blair's old friends and bring in a range of outsiders to form a protective shield around his new government. Yet behind the shield his closest allies are in the pivotal positions, all of them knowing precisely the direction in which they wish to travel. After all, they have been talking about little else for a decade.

Douglas Alexander plans for the next election. In the Cabinet Office, Ed Miliband will write the manifesto, as well as co-ordinate government activity. It was Mr Miliband who invented the now-famous phrase "progressive consensus". He and a few others have talked long into the night with Mr Brown about how a coalition of support could be formalised to achieve genuinely radical change. One of those who took part in such discussions was Ed Balls, who runs the new department that encompasses schools, families and several other social policy areas central to the Brownite mission.

Mr Alexander also presides over the new, enhanced Department for International Development, joined by Shriti Vadera, Mr Brown's former adviser described recently in a largely flattering profile in The Spectator as a figure who seeks to energise the private sector to achieve socialist objectives - a classic Brownite hybrid. Make a list of Mr Brown's priorities and you will find that it is his closest allies who are responsible for implementing them. In his ministry, of all the talents, some are deemed more talented than others.

It was said of Mr Blair that he was the sunny optimist compared with Mr Gloomy at the Treasury. Yet Mr Blair worked on the assumption that Britain was a centre-right country, a pessimistic starting point for a leader supposedly on the centre left. Recently, Mr Blair told me that while a Conservative government could govern from the right, a Labour administration could never govern from the left, not even the centre left.

In an interview with The Sunday Times at the weekend, Mr Balls openly challenged this pessimism by arguing for a progressive consensus. Mr Brown shares part of Mr Blair's cautious assessment, that England, in particular, could easily return to the Conservatives. He shared an office with Mr Blair as Labour was slaughtered at general elections. But Mr Brown is more optimistic about the scope for forming a coalition that reflects the progressive instincts of most voters.

Will Mr Brown succeed in his mission? Look at his record so far and he tends to prevail. I recall meeting Mr Blair and Mr Brown separately at the start of Labour's second term. Mr Blair said his priorities were public service reform, now that the issue of investment had been addressed, and joining the euro. Mr Brown said the issue of investment had not been addressed and more money had to be raised to accompany reforms. He hinted strongly the euro was not a second-term issue. Mr Brown proved to be right and Mr Blair was wrong, in spite of being the one who was Prime Minister at the time.

Mr Brown will be similarly resolved now. The only question to haunt him in his confident start is whether, as one of his close cabinet allies put it to me, the Government has already sunk too far below the water line. These are very early days, but the polls suggest that the fragile vessel is rising to the surface once more.

s.richards@independent.co.uk

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