Gordon Brown has been reading the New Statesman. In fact, when he found out that Bernard Donoughue was writing an article about the lessons Brown could learn from the experience of James Callaghan's government in the late 1970s, he personally requested a copy of the article and I gather he read it on Wednesday night.
Donoughue, who worked for Wilson and Callaghan as their senior policy adviser, has got a book to plug (which looks pretty good) and so it's no surprise that he's putting himself about a bit in the media. But that doesn't detract from the value of his article, which contains about as good a list of "What Gordon should do" recommendations as any I've read.
Donoughue is not impressed by the "lightweight" nature of Brown's cabinet. He makes three main recommendations, and the most important involves bringing back heavyweights like Charles Clarke, John Reid and David Blunkett.
First, he should strengthen his cabinet by persuading some big beasts back inside in senior positions - one of them at the Treasury. Labour needs him to try sincerely, and them to agree.
Second, he should overtly try to create trust within his government by giving genuinely full support to his chosen ministers and making it clear that the days of cabals are over (he might wish to acknowledge the past sins of his own entourage in this area and the so-called Blairites could do the same).
Third, and above all, he should abandon micro-tinkering with a wide range of policies and focus on two or three major policy areas where he means to make progress in ways that matter to the mass of ordinary people. He should realise that Labour's legislative programmes in recent years have contained little political potency. I have read the Queen's Speeches in dismay and wondered, "Where are the votes in this?" They are usually full of administrative management and politically correct claptrap. We need a few policy initiatives on a dramatic scale if we are to change the current public mood - which is that it has made up its mind and wants change (Callaghan told me in 1979 that "there is a sea change in the public mood and it is for Thatcher"). If that is the case now, we must still try to change it.
Okay, so the Clarke/Reid appointments are never going to happen. But Brown has already started to depict himself as a leader focusing mainly on the economy and it's easy to imagine his conference speech touching on the issue of trust.
Donoughue also makes some specific policy proposals of his own. He wants the government to spend £20bn on tax cuts for the low-paid, funded by cutting waste in public spending. This is almost exactly what the Liberal Democrats are proposing, which doesn't mean Labour won't do it. Come to think of it, I haven't heard a Labour spokesman saying a word against the Lib Dem plan.
He also suggests Brown should ask his ministers to come up with some proposals that would cost nothing but still make a difference. I seem to remember an episode of The Thick of It revolving around this theme, but it turns out Wilson tried it in 1974, and it produced free TV licences for the elderly.
