What Went Wrong, Gordon Brown?


Book Description

- In opposition he was the strategic driving force behind New Labour.- In government he was one of Britain s most intellectually assured chancellors.- Within his own party, he seemed an unchallengeable power.- Everything in his background prepared him




My Life, Our Times


Book Description

This revelatory memoir from Britain's former Prime Minister offers vital insights into our extraordinary times. Former Prime Minister and the country's longest-serving Chancellor, Gordon Brown has been a guiding force for Britain and the world over three decades. This is his candid, poignant and deeply relevant story. In describing his upbringing in Scotland as the son of a minister, the near loss of his eyesight as a student and the death of his daughter within days of her birth, he shares the passionately-held principles that have shaped and driven him, reminding us that politics can and should be a calling to serve. Reflecting on the personal and ideological tensions within Labour and its successes and failures in power, he describes how to meet the challenge of pursuing a radical agenda within a credible party of government. From the invasion of Iraq to the tragedy of Afghanistan, from the coalition negotiations of 2010 to the referendums on Scottish independence and Europe, Gordon Brown draws on his unique experiences to explain Britain's current fractured condition. By showing us what progressive politics has achieved in recent decades, he inspires us with a vision of what it might yet achieve. Riveting, expert and highly personal, this historic memoir is an invaluable insight into our times.




Seven Ways to Change the World


Book Description

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER 'His vision, ideas and passion shine through on every page' Ed Balls 'Compelling, challenging, inspiring and very timely' Piers Morgan 'Immensely powerful and persuasive...I found it exhilarating throughout' Joanna Lumley When the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the globe in 2020, it created an unprecedented impact. But out of such disruption can come a new way of thinking, and in this superb book, updated to include the latest events in Ukraine and at COP26, former UK prime minister Gordon Brown offers his solutions to the challenges we face now and in the future. In the book, he states that there are seven major global problems we must address: global health; climate change and environmental damage; nuclear proliferation; global financial instability; the humanitarian crisis and global poverty; the barriers to education and opportunity; and global inequality and its biggest manifestation, global tax havens. Each one presents an immense challenge that requires an urgent global response and solution. All should be on the world’s agenda today. None can be solved by one nation acting on its own, but all can be addressed if we work together as a global community. However, Brown remains optimistic that, despite the many obstacles in our way, we will find a path to regeneration via a new era of global order. Yes, there is a crisis of globalisation, but we are beginning to see the means by which it might be resolved. Crises create opportunities and having two at once shouldn’t just focus the mind, it might even be seen as giving greater grounds for hope. In Seven Ways to Change the World, Brown provides an authoritative and inspirational pathway to a better future that is essential reading for policy makers and concerned citizens alike.




Best for Britain?


Book Description

On 28th June 2007, Gordon Brown finally succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister for Great Britain, having waited in the wings for over ten years. Does his premiership signal a shift to the left in British Politics? What will it mean for the UK's relationship with the US? Simon Lee systematically examines Brown's politics over the last ten years of Labour power, and provides an examination of Britain's most important political figure.




Squandered


Book Description

Over the last ten years, New Labour has boosted public spending by around a trillion pounds - that's £1,000,000,000,000 of our taxes - over £50,000 for every household in Britain. But what have we got for our money? Effective and responsive public services that are the envy of the world? Or the creation of a vast, self-serving bureaucracy that has presided over the greatest waste of money in British history? With so much money, a tsunami of extra cash, being thrown at public services - health, education, policing, defence, social services and public administration - there have been some successes. Nevertheless, the results of the Government's tidal wave of extra spending have been worse than pitiful. In department after department, it is the same sorry story - a triple whammy of incompetence, cover-up and cuts that have all but decimated public services, while those responsible have lavished money and honours on themselves. David Craig exposes the sometimes tragic, sometimes comic story of how New Labour's years of mismanagement have led to a bureaucratization of Britain that has squandered almost unimaginable amounts of taxpayers' money, caused irreparable damage to all our lives and rewarded the man responsible with the keys to Number 10.




My Scotland, Our Britain


Book Description

My Scotland, Our Britain: A Future Worth Sharingis a highly personal account of Gordon Brown's Scotland, the nation he was born in, and our Britain, the multinational state that the Scots, English, Welsh and Northern Irish have created and share. Laying bare his family's ancestry over 300 years of the Union and explaining how it shaped his background, Brown charts what it was like growing up in Scotland in the 1950s and 1960s, and explains the influence of religion, education and Scotland's unique industrial structure on the shaping of his and Scotland's identity. He sets out the dramatic economic, social and cultural changes of the past fifty years and the vastly different prospects his children will face, demonstrating that a sense of Scottish national identity has always remained strong and how Scottish institutions have always fiercely guarded their independence. The referendum should not be seen as a battle between Scotland and Britain, he argues, but one between two visions of Scotland's future: one that sees Scotland prosper with a strong Scottish Parliament that is part of the UK, and one that severs all the political links Scots have with the UK. Brown puts forward his proposal for a constitutional settlement that could unite the country, and argues that in tune with Scotland's history of deep engagement with the wider world -as inventors, explorers, traders, missionaries, business leaders and aid workers -the best future for Scots is not to leave Britain, but to continue to shape it.




Sea Kayak


Book Description

This book is a modern guide to sea kayaking by one of the leading exponents of the sport who is also a highly respected coach in this field. Gordon Brown is a BCU Level 5 sea coach based on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. He shares his knowledge with you in his own succinct humorous style and very visual approach. In this book Gordon covers topics of kayaking history, physiology, boat and paddle dynamics, seamanship and navigation, safety and rescue, weather forecasting, caves, rockhopping and tidal races, expeditions and overnighting, as well as a wealth of tips and resources for the sea paddler. This is a visually stunning book printed on 170gsm silk paper filled with top quality photographs. Over seventy photographs and illustrations help to make this an essential modern manual for the sea kayaker.




Wartime Courage


Book Description

In these ten stories of battlefield and British home-front action in the Second World War, Prime Minister Gordon Brown pays tribute to the courage of the men and women who took up arms against tyranny and overcame it. Some are stories of decisive action taken in searing heat of combat. On D-Day Company Sergeant Major Hollis of the Green Howards VC stormed a pill-box alone, overcoming its defenders and thus paving the way for a crucial advance to higher ground, while Sergeant Hannah VC, single-handedly fought a fire in a bomber returning from a raid on invasion barges at Antwerp in 1940, as machine-gun ammunition exploded all around him. Others tell of great danger faced again and again- Graham Hayes and Geoffrey Appleyard of the Small Scale Raiding Force (Forerunners of the SBS) carried out daring and innovative actions on enemy shipping in Africa and then the Normandy coast, while John Bridge, a physics teacher turned mine-and-bomb disposal officer, repeatedly practised his nerve-racking skills for six years, always aware that there were no second chances if things went wrong. Meanwhile, behind the lines the sangfroid of clandestine operatives like Major Hugh Seagrim, GC, in occupied Burma and Violette Szabo in occupied France took on a daunting, almost mysterious character. With accounts of the risks taken by resistance fighters, the bravery of Battle of Britain pilots, the sacrifices of sailors at sea, the determination of civilian defence workers on the home front, and the daring rescue of Jews from certain death, this gripping and inspiring book celebrates the courage of an exceptional generation.




Whatever it Takes


Book Description

At the beginning of the financial crisis, in September 2008, Gordon Brown called an emergency press conference in which he declared, 'we will do whatever it takes to restore stability in the financial markets'.




Schooled


Book Description

Capricorn (Cap) Anderson has never watched television. He's never tasted a pizza. Never heard of a wedgie. Since he was little, his only experience has been living on a farm commune and being home-schooled by his hippie grandmother, Rain. But when Rain falls out of a tree while picking plums and has to stay in the hospital, Cap is forced to move in with a guidance counselor and her cranky teen daughter and attend the local middle school. While Cap knows a lot about tie-dying and Zen Buddhism, no education could prepare him for the politics of public school. Right from the beginning, Cap's weirdness makes him a moving target at Claverage Middle School (dubbed C-Average by the students). He has long, ungroomed hair; wears hemp clothes; and practises tai chi on the lawn. Once Zack Powers, big man on campus, spots Cap, he can't wait to introduce him to the age-old tradition at C-Average: the biggest nerd is nominated for class president—and wins.