The Great Debate UK
Christopher Harvie on “the last days of Gordon Brown”
As Britain gears up for a general election with polls pointing toward a hung parliament, pundits are not only speculating on how the political landscape of the future might look, but they are also taking stock of the past.
In his new book “Broonland, the last days of Gordon Brown“, Christopher Harvie, a former colleague of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and an SNP Member of the Scottish Parliament for mid-Scotland and Fife in Brown’s Kirkaldy base, takes a turn at surveying the lay of the land.
Harvie analyses Brown’s role, New Labour and the trajectory of the economy, which grew under the leadership of prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Brown, in spite of the fact that Britain’s “infrastructure and education were poor, manufacturing shrank; the UK’s nations drifted apart, while London seemed to wilfully detach itself from Europe”.
The gap between the rich and poor has widened as manufacturing has been replaced by retail, entertainment and recreation.
