Drowning their sorrows at no. 10 Browning Street

The machinery of Gordon Brown’s central government is in the spotlight. After scaling popularity and apparent authority that even opponents grudgingly accepted during the months immediately upon his succession, Brown is now universally judged to be in trouble, a mere six months into his long-awaited premiership.

Harold Macmillan’s celebrated ‘events, dear boy, events’ have certainly been to the fore. These initially worked in the new prime minister’s favour. His muted response to the summer floods, the renewed outbreak of foot and mouth and attempted bombings in London and Glasgow led to the appearance of a man not given to histrionics nor to the ‘I feel your pain’ easy compassion of Tony Blair, but to one of calm and resolution, all in tune with Brown’s decade-long domination of the Treasury and much of domestic policy.

All changed in the autumn with the election that never was, whereby Brown was undoubtedly tempted by his burgeoning popularity into very nearly calling a snap election. His seemingly daily observations and calculations over opinion polls, which went on for over a week, sat at odds with his professed desire to strike a statesmanlike chord. When the polls swiftly turned against him, in part due to his indecision, his shying away from a dissolution of parliament looked like an unnecessary and uncharacteristic mistake.

Recent months have served to reinforce an air of weakness and vacillation around No. 10 and the centre of government. The crunch in the global credit markets which began in the US quickly infected London, threatening a recession for the first time since New Labour came to power in 1997.

The consequent near collapse and potentially forced nationalisation of Northern Rock was followed by a series of minor recriminations between the government, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority over who knew what and when and who should have acted in what way. All very damaging for the former chancellor-turned-prime minister who prided himself on dour financial competency.

Then came the missing disks in HM Revenue and Customs which made a mockery of the trust required to set up the national identity card scheme, not to mention the drip-drip effect of daily headlines over Labour Party funding. Vince Cable, the acting Liberal Democrat leader’s jibe that Brown had undergone a ‘remarkable transformation in the past few weeks, from Stalin to Mr Bean’ was all too accurate.

The prime minister’s polling has continued to dive with indecision and unforced errors hitting him hard. Thus we have the somewhat bizarre position that Brown has actually done little, something initially praised, then damned mercilessly.

A large part of the problem is how the machine has been manipulated. The comments by Lord Turnbull, former cabinet secretary and permanent secretary to the Treasury regarding Brown’s ‘Stalinist’ tendencies, have played out badly once Brown got hold of the levers to No. 10. Brown is working himself and his civil servants harder than ever, beginning at 5 a.m. (and necessitating a kind of shift system for his private office).

The official side of the Brown government’s decision-making centre has been managed by Tom Scholar, chief of staff and principal private secretary to the prime minister, and Jeremy Heywood, head of domestic policy and strategy. Before Christmas, however, a ‘big gap’ was identified on the political side according to a seasoned Whitehall commentator. This is entirely understandable. For no matter how good civil servants are, or the system they are operating, there is an unavoidable need for clear political leadership.

Those politicians trusted absolutely are few, chief among them the two Eds, Balls and Miliband. Dependence on these two young tyros has been clear for many years and has transferred to government. In the case of Ed Miliband, this is fine having placed him as minister for the cabinet office.  But Balls was appointed secretary of state for Children, Schools and Families, a key strategic and major spending department. Rumours that Balls was spending mornings in Downing Street are wide of the mark but it is clear that he remains an intrinsic part of Brown’s decision-making, hardly an ideal situation for Balls, for the government as a whole or for Brown personally. Simply put, Brown needs more trusted political lieutenants.

Thus the appointment of Stephen Carter in early January as the prime minister’s chief of strategy and principal adviser. Within days this fresh start was mired by allegations in the  press of deception committed when Carter was CEO of the beleaguered telecoms company from 2000-2001.

His job is to sharpen the work of the political advisers and to organise the political side of Brown’s life. An ally of Brown recently put it into context when he was quoted as saying ‘I know there is a policy unit, I know there is a strategy unit, but what we need is a decision unit’. This, the Brownites hope, Carter will help deliver.

Brown ruled the Treasury for a decade with an iron fist and what seemed effortless competency. His move to No. 10 was always going to be challenging. But the first six months of his premiership has ended with a feeling that the new prime minister has been found lacking with the shift from two dimensions to three. While it is always the case that any new team needs to play itself in, the question is, did Tony Blair do better?

Dr Jon Davis teaches at Queen Mary, University of London, and is Executive Director of the Mile End Institute.