Gordon Brown suffers a mysterious memory loss about Lloyd George
Last year, when Gordon Brown took his ministers on an awayday to Birmingham, he was described as the first prime minister to hold a cabinet meeting outside London since Lloyd George in 1921.
This was widely reported in the papers at the time and Downing Street itself was telling reporters about the meeting, which took place in Inverness because Lloyd George was on holiday in Scotland when Anglo-Irish relations reached a crisis point.
But Brown, who has a doctorate in history and an almost obsessive interest in 20th century British politics, appeared to have forgotten all about this when he was in Liverpool today and telling a meeting attended by members of the public about his decision to hold cabinet meetings outside London.
The cabinet has never before met in Liverpool. You might think that over three centuries someone might have brought the cabinet to Liverpool at some point. In fact, the cabinet never went outside London until a few months ago except on the occasion in the 1920s when Mr Baldwin was the prime minister and he invited the whole cabinet to join him at his holiday home in the south of France. So we are doing things rather differently. And it's right.
For all I know Baldwin and his ministers did meet up in France (although I can't find any evidence that they ever held a formal cabinet meeting on foreign soil. Does anyone know more?) But Baldwin certainly wasn't the only prime minister until Brown to take the cabinet outside London.
As political untruths go, this one is pretty trivial. Brown was speaking to an audience and he clearly felt that it would be better to contrast himself against a Tory (Baldwin) given to lounging around on the Mediterranean rather than a Liberal who holidayed in Scotland.
But, still, I would rather Brown got his facts straight. If politicians start taking liberties with their anecdotes, they can't complain when we find it hard to believe them on the big stuff.
And, while we're on the subject of getting the facts straight, I should point out that the cabinet also met outside London in 1966
Read entire article at Guardian (UK) blog
This was widely reported in the papers at the time and Downing Street itself was telling reporters about the meeting, which took place in Inverness because Lloyd George was on holiday in Scotland when Anglo-Irish relations reached a crisis point.
But Brown, who has a doctorate in history and an almost obsessive interest in 20th century British politics, appeared to have forgotten all about this when he was in Liverpool today and telling a meeting attended by members of the public about his decision to hold cabinet meetings outside London.
The cabinet has never before met in Liverpool. You might think that over three centuries someone might have brought the cabinet to Liverpool at some point. In fact, the cabinet never went outside London until a few months ago except on the occasion in the 1920s when Mr Baldwin was the prime minister and he invited the whole cabinet to join him at his holiday home in the south of France. So we are doing things rather differently. And it's right.
For all I know Baldwin and his ministers did meet up in France (although I can't find any evidence that they ever held a formal cabinet meeting on foreign soil. Does anyone know more?) But Baldwin certainly wasn't the only prime minister until Brown to take the cabinet outside London.
As political untruths go, this one is pretty trivial. Brown was speaking to an audience and he clearly felt that it would be better to contrast himself against a Tory (Baldwin) given to lounging around on the Mediterranean rather than a Liberal who holidayed in Scotland.
But, still, I would rather Brown got his facts straight. If politicians start taking liberties with their anecdotes, they can't complain when we find it hard to believe them on the big stuff.
And, while we're on the subject of getting the facts straight, I should point out that the cabinet also met outside London in 1966