Fade to Brown

The oddest of things can provoke my mind and send it crashing the wrong way and generally off course from where I'd like it to be.

Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister from Tony Blair on Wednesday afternoon after a ten year wait. The pundits spoke of how frustrating a wait it must have been for Gordon Brown - which I suppose it must have been. However at least after waiting ten years he got what he wanted.

I grew up knowing nothing but a Conservative Government and as a youngster never quite understood why my grandfather, on my mother's side, would begin to rock in his chair, wave his newspaper and swear at the television every time Margaret Thatcher appeared on the screen.

He behaved much the same way when the Queen popped up on the tube too and would curse even more mightily if he couldn't turn the volume down before "God Save the Queen" started to blast out it's first mournful notes.

In fact my grandfather got me into a lot of bother when I was younger with this behaviour.

Other than my grandmother the family were all lapsed Catholics, my sister, who may have been about five years old at this time, was a member of the local Rainbow troop (baby Brownies) at the local protestant, Church of Scotland, church hall.

One Sunday the Rainbows were having some kind of church parade thing and all the children would march about the grounds of the church and wave flags and what not else before attending a service. Duly I was dragged along - most likely the first non-Catholic ceremony I'd ever been at and I was not entirely sure what to do. Certainly there was a lot less singing and standing up and down, kneeling and getting out the pews to go here there and wherever - which appealed to me I thought.

As the service finished the Minister unfurled a Union Jack and it was draped proudly behind the alter before the organist piped up with "God Save the Queen."

I rather loudly followed my grandfather's protocol much to the mortification of my mother as all our neighbours were packed in the pews around about us.

"Dirty Orange Bastards!" I cried at the top of my nine-year old lungs and swiftly received a clunk from the back of my mother's hand around about my ear before being marched out the back of the Old Parish.

I had no idea what I'd said I'd just copied what I'd heard my grandfather say umpteen times when I heard that song in his company but it illustrates how strongly things like religion, politics and the monarchy were debated in my family and how dearly held certain values were.

Which brings me back to Mr Blair. I was at my grandparents' house on May 1 1997 - I was staying over - and normally I'd have been tucked up in bed for at the very latest 11pm - yes I know I was 16 years old, but grandparents have rules and besides I was never a surly or rebellious teenager.

But tonight was different - I remember my grandfather being anxious but excited, he told me this could be quite an important night - I kind of figured that out myself anyway - but I didn't quite understand my grandfather's depth of feeling about the whole scenario.

We stayed up all night - right the way through the night, my granddad, my granny and I. We were hooked and got totally sucked in watching the Labour Party wipe the Tories out in Scotland and cruise to the historic landslide victory.

My grandfather was ecstatic - the grin hardly left his face all night as each Conservative loss rolled in. He cheered and done a wee dance when we watched Michael Portillo lose his seat to Stephen Twigg. I'd only seen my granddad behave like that when he was watching football.

The only disappointment about the whole event for my grandfather was that it hadn’t been Maggie Thatcher that had got the complete drubbing as she'd been politically murdered by her own sort earlier in the decade.

On the Friday of May 2^nd 1997 after having watched Tony and Cherie Blair march triumphantly along Downing Street, out and about on the streets there was a genuine feeling of change in the air.

Folk were smiling bizarrely at one another, like they'd all just been at the same orgy and had shot their load at the same time and were, quite frankly, pleased with themselves. I remember a physical feeling of freshness as if we'd had days upon days of humid heat and a thunderstorm broke clearing the air.

I remember this feeling quite well - if I close my eyes I can still summons up the feeling in my stomach and chest that I got that day. The enduring message I got from that - and at 16 years old it was quite a powerful one, was that you can achieve anything - you can overcome any difficulty and obstacle.

Tony Blair's brave new Britain provided me with fire in my belly and I genuinely did think I could achieve whatever I wanted. And if there was any doubt there were the icons of my generation supping tea and champagne with the new PM who would open the door and allow us limitless ambitions, hopes and desires.

And this is where Wednesday's handover between Blair and Brown sent my brain spiralling back to my default setting of miserable, cynical bastard. Because if I was to match up Mr Blair's reign in power with my own life it's kind of a bit shit at all the same times he was shit.

Now I'm not blaming him - not for all of it anyway - but it has made me think has my life and my outlook on it been directly correlated to Blair's premiership? Is it a bit like the way the moon affects folks behaviour?

Working in papers in the early days I had worked hard to get stories, I chased them as relentlessly as I possibly could, I put a real effort into understanding people and the people that made the world of my newspaper tick, and hopefully got under their skin enough to have got decent stories and hopefully results for those that needed them.

Some of the joys of working in a local newspaper is often you can directly and quite quickly see a difference as a result of something you've written.

Working in Government in the early days Tony made the cracking "People's Princess" speech and helped the Queen out of her PR muddle and endeared himself to the nation.

He equalised the age of consent on homosexuality, introduced a national minimum wage, helped single mothers and put Northern Ireland on the right course. He got to understand people and the people that made Britain tick.

I imagine working in Government you can see quite quickly the direct difference you have made to people's lives with the policies you implement.

It was the tail end of 2002 and early 2003 that as the Father of the Chapel (Union official) I was taking on management with the help of the NUJ as TrinityMirror tried to make redundancies and merge offices. The fire in my belly, the belief that I could achieve anything really pushed me to the fore.

At the same time Tony Blair and George W Bush were on the march to war in Iraq.

I became vocal and a damned nuisance to the company's management and fought as long and as awkward a campaign as was humanly possible against redundancies and mergers. I was getting politically active too, and as many others, was increasingly worried about the prospect of war.

It seemed we had the company on the ropes - they couldn't merge the offices - they'd breach Health and Safety laws if they put all those people into one office.

It seemed Tony Blair and George W were on the ropes - they couldn't go to war I marched with tens if not a hundred thousand in Glasgow on February 15, 2003 and nearly 10 million others did around the world - the biggest protest in world history telling them they're wrong. And besides they couldn't get a UN mandate.

TrinityMirror solved the problem on not meeting Health and Safety rules about merging the offices. They made some more people redundant so the merger would comply - regardless of how many staff they actually needed.

Tony Blair and George W Bush solved the problem of not getting a UN mandate - they eventually didn't ask for one and ignored the millions around the world telling them they were wrong and invaded Iraq anyway.

Of course that's a rather crude simplification of both scenarios but in both cases it was a reminder.

A reminder that you can make logical arguments all day long, have the whole world on your side if you like. You're not in charge - you're still the little man - and this is how we remind you of it.

So Wednesday just past rather depressed me - it was the passing of a turbulent decade - a decade of great hope and mild achievement - but ultimately dashed hopes leaving us all in a bigger mess.

In 1997 it was New Labour, New Dawn, New Britain with Mr Blair.

In 2007 it is simply New-ish Labour, New Veneers, "New Brush for my hair" with Mr Brown.

The fire in my belly is as dormant as Vesuvius, but certainly not extinct - I just hope I don't fade to Brown.