First Acts As Prime Minister
On his first day in office Brown rescinded the Order in Council which gave Alastair Campbell, who left office in 2003, and Jonathan Powell, his predecessor's political advisers, authority to issue instructions to civil servants. Brown's senior advisers - such as Spencer Livermore, Sue Nye, Mike Ellam and Gavin Kelly - continued to exert considerable influence at the heart of government. Other senior advisors working for Brown in 10 Downing Street included former Treasury Special Advisers Damian McBride, Jonathan Ashworth and Jo Dipple and former senior Labour Party official, Fiona Gordon.
Brown faced a major prime-ministerial challenge two days after entering office, when two unexploded car bombs were discovered in London on 29 June. The following day, 30 June 2007, another car was driven into the entrance of the main terminal of Glasgow International Airport in a second apparent terrorist attack, causing a fire and considerable damage to the building. Brown was born in Glasgow, leading to speculation that the attacks were motivated against him. As a result of both the London and Glasgow incidents, Brown chaired emergency COBRA meetings to review plans to protect the British public. He also spoke to the First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond regarding the incidents.
On 3 July, Brown announced a programme of constitutional reform, including limits on the powers of the Prime Minister, extensions to the powers of Parliament, a consultation on a bill of rights and a possible lowering of the minimum voting age.
On 7 July 2007, Brown announced £14m in flood aid for the flood-hit areas in the north of England.
On 11 July, Brown announced that housing would be at the top of his political agenda, promising three million new homes to be built by 2020.
Read more about this topic: Premiership Of Gordon Brown
Famous quotes containing the words prime minister, acts, prime and/or minister:
“If one had to worry about ones actions in respect of other peoples ideas, one might as well be buried alive in an antheap or married to an ambitious violinist. Whether that man is the prime minister, modifying his opinions to catch votes, or a bourgeois in terror lest some harmless act should be misunderstood and outrage some petty convention, that man is an inferior man and I do not want to have anything to do with him any more than I want to eat canned salmon.”
—Aleister Crowley (18751947)
“These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this mans acts and words do not create a revival, it will be the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do. It is the best news that America has ever heard.... How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Few white citizens are acquainted with blacks other than those projected by the media and the socalled educational system, which is nothing more than a system of rewards and punishments based upon ones ability to pledge loyalty oaths to Anglo culture. The media and the educational system are the prime sources of racism in the United States.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“He had a gentleman-like frankness in his behaviour, and as a great point of honour as a minister can have, especially a minister at the head of the treasury, where numberless sturdy and insatiable beggars of condition apply, who cannot all be gratified, nor all with safety be refused.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (16941773)