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The Chief Officers' Network - your business advantage / Management / Risk Professional / The Risk Professional: the Wikileaks the UK has been waiting for

The overall impression from the cables involving opinions of Brown is that the Americans found him irritating, obsessional and - increasingly - irrelevant.

One cable from the American Embassy in London inJuly 2008 to the State Department in Washington says "As Gordon Brown lurches from political disaster to disaster, Westminster is abuzz with speculation about whether he will be replaced as Prime Minister and Labour Party leader." Six months later, his party was described as "a sinking ship." Brown, however, would not surrender his position despite the damage his continued role as PM was doing "The man who has nursed his dream – and grievance – of being Prime Minister since 1994 is not going to walk out of Downing Street now," a subsequent cable said. Brown's underlying political purpose was also revealed - the proposed transaction tax to be imposed on banks was " "for domestic political gain but also for reasons of 'social justice'.... The Prime Minister's position is largely being driven by domestic politics, as a way to be seen as 'punishing the banks'."

That is as noted in yesterday's comments in our sister publication www.bankinginsurancesecurities.com about the forced disposal by RBS of its highly profitable WorldPay unit.

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