Brown Shows He's No Blair as Leadership Is Commissioning Study

Dec. 17 -- Gordon Brown has an answer for every policy question his government is facing: Study it.

Since Brown succeeded Tony Blair as Britain's prime minister in June, his ministers have commissioned at least 49 reviews, an average of two a week, on topics ranging from a new national constitution to how advertisers target children. Schools Secretary Ed Balls alone announced four in a single speech last week.

The spate of reviews is subjecting Brown, who calls himself a ``conviction politician'' in the mold of Margaret Thatcher, to criticism that he puts off difficult decisions. Conservative Party leader David Cameron calls Brown a ``ditherer.'' The prime minister is ``petrified by indecision,'' says Vince Cable, the acting leader of the third party, the Liberal Democrats.

``Not everybody agreed with prime ministers like Blair and Thatcher, but they made decisions,'' says Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics. ``Brown faces a problem that he's seen as indecisive.''

While there are no official figures recording the number of reviews commissioned by past administrations, Brown has used the word ``review'' 49 times in the House of Commons in less than six months as prime minister, according to a search on Hansard, the publication that gives verbatim reports of speeches and debates.

Thatcher uttered it just seven times in the Commons in her first six months, none of them to announce new reviews, a search of the archives at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation indicates.

Nor was Blair a big fan of such studies, according to David Hencke, co-author of ``The Survivor: Tony Blair in War and Peace.''

`A Gut Politician'

``Blair certainly didn't order anything like that many in that time,'' Hencke said in a telephone interview. Blair, he said, was much more of ``a gut politician,'' with ``no interest'' in the bureaucratic mechanics of policy studies.

Brown's office defends his decision-making process, saying in a statement that it indicates a ``measure of the prime minister's determination to ensure that procedures are followed to the letter.''

Among the subjects under review are mortgage structures, the duties of citizens and sexual education in schools.

Some topics, such as special-needs education, have two reviews. One study, into the safety of Nimrod surveillance aircraft, was announced by Defense Secretary Des Browne as he reported the findings of another inquiry into the same subject.

Super-Casinos

In other cases, the results of the probes seem to be predictable. In the case of gambling policy, Brown, 56, took the precaution of saying he was opposed to building Las Vegas-style super-casinos as he announced an inquiry.

More recently, reviews have been set up in response to crises, with bigger issues getting more than one. Kieran Poynter, chairman of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell, are writing separate reports following the loss by tax officials of disks carrying the private details of half the population of the country.

Those investigations run alongside a police inquiry and one by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which has jurisdiction over tax offices. There is also a separate report due into the security of data by Mark Wallport, director of the Wellcome Trust, and by Information Commissioner Richard Thomas.

After Brown acknowledged his Labour Party unlawfully took donations channeled thorough intermediaries, two reports were ordered. They will complement a police investigation.

Working Style

All this work is the most tangible hallmark yet to emerge about Brown's working style and illustrates a break from the practices followed by Blair.

While Blair, 54, preferred to make decisions with a clutch of advisers gathered on sofas in his Downing Street office, Brown prefers to gather expert advice over a period of months.

Brown developed his habits during his decade at the Treasury as chancellor of the exchequer under Blair. There, he ordered 35 reviews between 1999 and 2007. The most important, by former National Westminster Bank Plc Chief Executive Derek Wanless, recommended the tax increase that Brown ordered in 2002.

``A major innovation of the Brown years at the Treasury, for good or bad, was trying to move policy forward by a plethora of reviews,'' says Professor Colin Thain of the University of Ulster, who is studying Brown's work as finance minister.

None of these studies have appeared to have any impact on Brown's popularity, which has sagged in recent months.

Slipping Support

The ruling party had the support of 32 percent of voters compared with 43 percent for the Conservatives, according to a YouGov Plc poll of 4,004 people conducted Nov. 26-29. The Conservatives' lead of 11 points compares with a Labour advantage of up to 13 points in September.

Supporters of Brown, concerned the government's agenda is being lost in the complexity of the issues it faces, urge the prime minister to spell out more clearly what Labour stands for.

While convincing voters of the government's competence is ``necessary,'' it ``isn't enough,'' says Sunder Katwala, a Brown ally who leads the Fabian Society, a Labour-supporting policy research group. ``Brown does know what his story is. The question is, Can he make the case that the party understands to the wider country?''