Gordon Brown: A New PM With A Very Different Style

Reading The Washington Post last night, I came across a fascinating piece that points out some of the early, visible differences between the governing style of Gordon Brown versus that of Tony Blair. Brown is less excitable and more calculating, for one thing, and it has already won him some praise. In a particularly interesting tidbit, the article depicts Brown’s steady, careful approach to the foiled terrorist plot:

Brown’s response to the incidents — in which a group of foreign-born doctors living in Britain allegedly plotted to detonate car bombs — has suggested a subtle but important change from the Blair era. After bombings here in July 2005, Blair proposed major changes in terror laws — notably outlawing speech “glorifying” terrorism — that many Muslims regarded as a generalized attack on their religion.

Mohammed Shafiq, 28, spokesman for the Ramadhan Foundation, a national Muslim youth organization, said Blair’s response to those bombings “demonized Muslims.” He said increased powers for police to stop and search people were used largely against young Muslim men. And he said Blair’s attempt to change laws to allow terrorism suspects to be held for 90 days without charge was an unfair proposal aimed at Muslims. Parliament eventually agreed to a 28-day limit on such detentions — a major defeat for Blair.

“Brown’s government has not had the knee-jerk reaction like Blair’s,” Shafiq said. “Brown has been trying to bring people together. The contrast is amazing.”

In a low-key BBC interview Sunday, and in other public statements on the failed car bombings, Brown has not used the word “Muslim.” A Brown spokesman said that was deliberate, just as Brown intends to avoid the phrase “war on terror,” which some Muslims see as a euphemism for targeting Islam. The spokesman said Brown was modifying his language to encourage a “strong consensual approach in relation to all the communities.”

Brown described al-Qaeda as “a terrorist cause that is totally unacceptable to mainstream people in every faith in every part of the world.” And he has been at pains, analysts said, to frame the problem of extremist violence not as a struggle against Islam, but as a struggle against individual criminals.

Smart. Such positive early signs indicate that, when it comes to combating terrorism, Brown may be much more effective than his recently-retired counterpart.