Gordon's Company

Onto his new Business Council goes Damon Buffini, boss of Permira the private equity fund. Whatever one thinks of private equity, a guy who’s had a career like Buffini’s must be something else.

Then there’s one of Brown’s best chums, Sir Ronald Cohen, founder of Apax, the venture capital firm. Again a guy who’s done it the hard way and still has values.

Out go a couple of flaky lady Cabinet Ministers and the flexibly principled Attorney-General.

OK he didn't manage to bag up Paddy Ashdown and Lord Stevens but that's not for want of trying. They're definitely in the solid citizen category. When it comes to people, Brown goes for quality.

So different from Tony Blair, whose exit from parliament was appropriately accompanied, for a play-actor, by a standing ovation.

Blair was notoriously unchoosy about the company he kept - asking ropey ‘celebs’ to No.10; holidaying with a Bee-Gee, cosying up to Silvio Berlusconi.

He reminds you of that Scott Fitzgerald’s character John Unger in The Diamond As Big As The Ritz who thought: ‘The richer a fella is, the better I like him.’

The trouble with Blair's charm-school approach is that it means nothing. You’re terribly flattered when the charm's first applied, but when you see it applied to everyone, it is seen to be a bit of a con.

And then his words meant nothing. Misrepresentations, half-truths, untruths tripped lightly off the tongue. He smiled and smiled and stayed a villain.

It was interesting that both Brown and his chum Ed Balls said, on the day they took over the government, that one of their first jobs would be to build trust in government.

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