The Hindu Business Line : <I>Gordon Brown's Gordian knot </I>

The widely assumed Prime Minister-to-be of Britain, Mr Gordon Brown, is inevitably the recipient of advice (welcome or otherwise!) from all quarters. One such piece of advice is that he should not let go the authority and powers Mr Tony Blair, as Prime Minister, had shored up for himself. This is a reaction to Mr Brown's known and declared aversion to the `presidential' style adopted by his predecessor.

He is in favour of restoring to Parliament the royal prerogatives that Mr Blair had appropriated for himself, and vesting the Cabinet Ministers with ample latitude to take decisions and carry them out in their own right.

On the other hand, it is also true that Prime Ministers, because of the onerous burdens of office that they have to bear, and the heavy demands on their time, are unable to pay close and constant attention to the functioning of various Departments, ensure the necessary coordination and create the impression of watchfulness on their part. They have mostly remained content with depending on briefings by their colleagues from time to time or discussions in Cabinet on issues brought before it.

On this ground, some have urged the establishment of a new "Department of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet" directly under Mr Brown to monitor the progress on various policy fronts, and intervene to resolve intra-cum- inter-Ministerial conflicts. More importantly, such a Department, it is argued, will help give a push to the reforms in public services and the delivery system in the context of the prevailing public discontent over the unresponsive and insensitive mode of governance.

Political honeymoon

Each Prime Minister has a personality, style and preferences of his own, and he may consider it unnatural to attempt to be someone other than himself. From all that is known of Mr Gordon Brown, he is not given to promoting a cult of the personality or throwing his weight about flamboyantly. He has seen his friend Mr Blair in action now for a decade, and must have by now come to his own conclusions as to the approaches that would or would not suit the goals he has in view. It is unlikely, therefore, that he would go by the glib suggestions of others.

At the same time, he too had been a familiar figure for his colleagues in the Whitehall all these years and it is but natural that he and they would have developed a certain fixed way of relating themselves to each other, including a degree of familiarity which, if it did not breed contempt, would at least have been instrumental in generating latent or patent likes and dislikes. Not to put too fine a point on it, there might be a feeling on each side of being taken for granted by the other.

From being an associate to becoming the boss is no easy transition. It calls for display of self-confidence, professional competence, acuity and, if need be, assertiveness of a high order. It may well be that the assumption of office by Mr Brown would see some (like the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott) leaving with grace and some being eased out or dropped.

Even so, it is as well that Mr Brown starts off with a team with which he feels comfortable, even if it means wielding the axe and the broom. Whatever revamping of systems or restructuring of Cabinet Mr Brown has in mind, it is best for him to get it over with in the first flush of becoming the Prime Minister, while still in the midst of his political honeymoon.

B. S. RAGHAVAN