|
The Premiership of Gordon Brown began on 27 June 2007 when Brown accepted the Queen's invitation to form a government, replacing Tony Blair as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It ended with his resignation as Prime Minister on 11 May 2010. While serving as Prime Minister, Brown also served as the First Lord of the Treasury, the Minister for the Civil Service and the Leader of the Labour Party. He was succeeded as Prime Minister by David Cameron Brown's style of government differed from that of Tony Blair, who had been seen as presidential. Brown rescinded some of the policies which had been introduced or were planned by Blair's administration. He remained committed to close ties with the United States and to the war in Iraq, although he established an inquiry into the reasons for Britain's participation in the conflict. He proposed a "government of all the talents" which would involve co-opting leading personalities from industry and professional occupations into government positions. Brown also appointed Jacqui Smith as the UK's first female Home Secretary, while Brown's former position as Chancellor of the Exchequer was taken over by Alistair Darling. Brown's government introduced monetary and fiscal policies to help keep the banks afloat during the financial crisis in 2008, and as a result the United Kingdom's national debt increased dramatically. The Government took majority shareholdings in Northern Rock and Royal Bank of Scotland, both of which experienced financial difficulties. Large amounts of money were injected into several other banks, including newly merged HBOS-Lloyds TSB, which received £17 billion. Domestic policies focusing on education, employment and health were introduced by the administration. The Labour Party was persuaded to give Gurkhas settlement rights in Britain by the campaign of actress Joanna Lumley and attracted criticism for its handling of the Scottish Government's release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahithe only person to have been convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Brown was also dogged by allegations of bullying. During the first four months of his premiership, Brown enjoyed a substantial lead in the polls. His popularity amongst the public may have been because his handling of numerous serious events during his first few weeks as Prime Minister, including two attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow at the end of June 2007. However, between the end of 2007 and September 2008, his popularity fell significantly; two contributing factors were believed to be his perceived change of mind over plans to call a general election in October 2007 and his handling of the 10p tax rate cut in 2008, which led to allegations of weakness and dithering. His unpopularity led eight Labour MPs to call for a leadership contest in September 2008, less than 15 months into his premiership. The threat of a leadership contest receded due to his perceived strong handling of the global financial crisis in October, but his popularity hit an all time low and his position became increasingly untenable after the May 2009 expenses scandal and Labour's poor results in the 2009 Local and European elections. Brown's cabinet began to rebel; there were several key resignations in the run up to local elections in June 2009. However, Brown was backed by his party. He faced a second attempt to launch a leadership challenge by former Cabinet colleagues Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt in January 2010, but the plot failed to gather momentum and Brown remained as both Labour leader and Prime Minister to lead his party into the 2010 General Election. The election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Conservative Party winning the largest number of seats. Brown remained as Prime Minister while the Liberal Democrats entered separate negotiations with Labour and the Conservatives with a view to forming a coalition government. He announced his intention to resign on 10 May 2010 to help broker a Labour-Liberal Democrat deal. However, this became increasingly unlikely and on 11 May, Brown announced his resignation as Prime Minister and as Leader of the Labour Party. ==Bid for Labour leadership== (詳細はGordon Brown formally announced his bid for the Labour leadership and replaced Tony Blair as Prime Minister on 27 June 2007. On 16 May, Channel 4 News announced that Andrew Mackinlay had nominated Brown, giving him 308 nominationsenough to avoid a leadership contest. A BBC report states that the decisive nomination was made by Tony Wright with MacKinlay yet to nominate at that point. Following Blair's announcement of his resignation and Brown's bid for leadership, the Labour Party rose in popularity in the polls, gaining three points after months of low polls and trailing behind the opposition Conservative Party However, Labour subsequently lost this lead.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url=http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention/ )〕 Brown launched his campaign website the same day as formally announcing his bid for leadership, titled "Gordon Brown for Britain". In 2007, one year before the Global economic crisis, Brown delivered his final Mansion House speech as Chancellor before moving into Number 10; he told financiers, "A new world order has been created", that everyone needed to follow the City's "great example", and "an era that history will record as the beginning of a new Golden Age". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Premiership of Gordon Brown」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|