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  Blair's Successor at Downing Street: Does Gordon Brown Mean Real Change?

Blair's Successor at Downing Street Does Gordon Brown Mean Real Change?

By Sebastian Borger in London

Part 2: The Penchant for Interventionism Remains

Brown's foreign policy activities have so far been limited to economic and financial issues -- he was an early advocate of comprehensive debt relief and an increase in development aid, for example. Like Blair, Brown is also guided by "strict moral ideas," says Geoff Mulgan, who is one of the pioneering thinkers behind New Labour and today the director of the Young Foundation. Blair's penchant for interventionism in the global political fields of world economics, the environment and terrorism will be retained by Brown, according to Mulgan, who has worked closely with both men. "That involves patient diplomacy as well as military intervention."

But if Brown doesn't want to end up like longtime Canadian finance minister Paul Martin, who was voted out of power barely a year after taking office as prime minister, he will have to strive for a convincing renewal of both his party and the government. "All the talents" will be represented in his cabinet, Brown has announced. Normally a new British prime minister implements a full cabinet reshuffle -- to demonstrate his authority. But Brown would do well to leave two positions unchanged.

The young, up-and-coming Labour politician David Miliband has learned the ropes in the Environment Ministry and recently managed to get an ambitious climate protection law through parliament. In doing so he is covering an important flank of the Labour Party against youthful Tory leader David Cameron, who has pushed environmental policy to the center of political debate in Britain.

The Education Ministry, shaken by too many changes of minister, is now led by the competent and popular Alan Johnson. Labour's educational reforms have gotten stuck halfway and tangible results are still rare, so the minister has much work ahead of him. Keeping Johnson, a former mailman and trade union leader, in office would therefore be a clear signal to skeptics within the Labour Party who fear a return to the former comprehensive school ideology.

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