Early election fever

Amid all the excited talk in both the MSM and the blogosphere about Gordon Brown calling an early general election, I offer this by way of a counter-argument.

As reported here at the height of the speculation over whether David Miliband would challenge him, Gordon has already made it clear that he intends to serve only one full-term as Prime Minister, and that he expects to hand over to a younger successor (Miliband?) within seven years.

So to get an idea of how far away the next election is, you just have to do the sums and work backwards. A full Parliament equals five years, and seven minus five equals two. Ergo, Gordon plans to hold the election in 2009, and serve as premier until the end of that Parliament in 2014.

I think it will take more to deflect him from this course than the kind of short-term polling advantage over the Tories that we saw this weekend.

Not a good start for Harriet

I was genuinely pleased for Harriet Harman when she won the Deputy Leadership yesterday - she was by no means the worst of the six candidates - and some of the coverage of her victory today has been less than gallant.

The Lobby, as is its wont, seems to have collectively decided that Gordon's decision not to make her DPM was a calculated snub. Which it wasn't - he only ever intended to make the winner of this contest DPM if he had to, ie in the event of a runaway victory. The truth is that Alan Johnson wouldn't have become DPM on 50.4pc of the vote either.

All of that said, Harman's interview on the Today Programme this morning, in which she denied ever having called on the government to apologise for the war in Iraq, made her look both disingenuous and stupid - all the more so coming the day after she called for an "end to spin."

As can clearly be seen from this transcript of her earlier comments, she is quite clearly playing with words in a way that has previously brought New Labour into such disrepute. Poor show.

Okay, it's egg-on-face time...

Now that the deputy leadership election is over, and we know a bit more about Gordon Brown's plans for government, the time has finally come to put my neck on the line and make my final prediction of what I think will be his Cabinet line-up.

This afternoon's events in Manchester contained a good few clues...

* There will be no Deputy Prime Minister. There might have been had someone run away with the deputy leadership, but now there is no need and it wasn't the role that Harriet Harman sought anyway. Ergo, the de facto DPM will be Jack Straw. He will get the job of chairing all Prescott's Cabinet Committees and acting as Gordon's general troubleshooter, as well as overseeing the constitutional reform agenda. Clearly he would be unable to comine those roles with any of the major offices of state, so I tip him instead to become Minister of Justice and First Secretary of State (a title both Prescott and Michael Heseltine enjoyed at various times).

* Hilary Benn will not be promoted to a major office of state. He performed extremely disappointingly in the deputy leadership contest and the Brownites were known to have been unimpressed with his apparent lack of vigour. A middle-ranking post now seems the best he can hope for. Similarly, Hazel Blears is hardly screaming out for promotion after coming last in the contest, although the lack of talented women in the government (see below) will almost certainly save her from the sack.

* Harriet Harman and Douglas Alexander will perform the two key party roles in government. I think it unlikely however that Harman will not also be given some kind of cross-cutting ministerial portfolio, such as Minister for the Family. Similarly I now expect Alexander to retain his current Cabinet role of Transport Secretary for the time being. I had tipped him to go to Defence, but that is not a job that is easily combined with a party role and to take on two new jobs at this stage would be asking a lot.

* As I noted in the previous post, Mr Brown's declaration that the NHS will be his "immediate" priority strongly suggests that Patricia Hewitt is now on her way out of government. If Mr Brown thought the NHS was being well-managed he would scarcely see the need to make it his top priority on entering No 10. I strongly expect Yvette Cooper to return to the Department of Health as Secretary of State.

My other key predictions are:

* John Denham will be in the Cabinet. Gordon is known to want to make some kind of statement about the Iraq War and this is one way of doing it. And apart from that, he was a good minister. I tip him to return the department where he was a junior minister, Work and Pensions.

* The shortage of suitably qualified women to replace Hewitt, Tessa Jowell and Hilary Armstrong will come to the rescue of Labour's great survivor, Margaret Beckett, who is in any case a close Brown ally. It will however not be enough to save Ruth Kelly who is regarded the Brownites as a political liability.

* Gordon will bite the bullet and make Alistair Darling Chancellor. Having another Scot in such a senior role will represent a considerable political risk, but he will offset this with big promotions not only for Straw but for two other leading English MPs, David Miliband and Alan Johnson.

So here goes....

Prime Minister: Gordon Brown
First Secretary of State and Minister of Justice: Jack Straw
Foreign Secretary: David Miliband
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Alistair Darling
Home Secretary: Alan Johnson
Leader of the House of Commons: Margaret Beckett
Education Secretary: Jacqui Smith
Health Secretary: Yvette Cooper
Environment Secretary: Hilary Benn
Trade and Industry Secretary: Stephen Timms
Transport Secretary (and Election co-ordinator): Douglas Alexander
Defence Secretary: John Hutton
Work and Pensions Secretary: John Denham
Local Government and Communities Secretary: Hazel Blears
Culture Secretary: James Purnell
Secretary of State for Devolved Nations and Regions: Peter Hain
Leader of the House of Lords: Baroness Scotland
Minister for the Family (and Party Chair): Harriet Harman
Minister for the Cabinet Office: Ed Miliband
International Development Secretary: Andy Burnham
Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Ed Balls
Chief Whip: Nick Brown
Housing Minister (attending Cabinet): Jon Cruddas

The following will be leaving the Government. Tony Blair, John Prescott, John Reid, Patricia Hewitt, Lord Falconer, Baroness Amos, Hilary Armstrong, Ruth Kelly, Tessa Jowell and Des Browne.

Brown hits the right note

This afternoon's acceptance speech by Gordon Brown was no mere formality, but a significant pointer to the way he intends to govern Britain. "Wherever we find injustice...there must we be" was not a bad opening mission statement for a left-of-centre premier.

For me, three things stood out in the speech. First, the acknowledgement that the need for more affordable housing has risen to near the top of the political agenda and the announcement that the Housing Minister will in future attend Cabinet. I am going to take a punt and predict that this post will go to the man who helped put the issue on the agenda, Jon Cruddas.

Second, the new Prime Minister's pledge that the NHS will be his "immediate" priority. This is a recognition of the state of crisis affecting some parts of the service and the fact that Labour has not necessarily reaped the political dividends here for all its huge investment in health. It does not bode well for the current Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt.

Thirdly, Mr Brown's call for a "new constitutional settlement." I always believed that reviving the stalled constitutional reform agenda would be a key element of any Brown premiership and I expect this to address, among other things, reform of Parliament, local government, and the voting system, with Jack Straw in overall charge.

A last word about Tony Blair, whose short contribution was also significant. He said that in successfuly staging a stable and orderly transition, Labour had once again proved itself a mature party of government.

How very true that is. Labour has avoided the bloodletting and recrimination that accompanied the fall of Margaret Thatcher, and against the backdrop of the complexity of the Blair-Brown relationship, and all the inevitable tensions that accompany the exercise of great power, that is a very considerable achievement indeed.