Premierships

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 49. Chapters: British premierships, Indian premierships, Premiership of Gordon Brown, Premiership of Margaret Thatcher, Premiership of John Brownlee, Premiership of Tony Blair, Premiership of Thaksin Shinawatra, Premiership of David Cameron, Premiership of Najib Tun Razak, Premiership of Stephen Harper, Premiership of Benjamin Disraeli, Premiership of William Gladstone, Premiership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Premiership of Lal Bahadur Shastri, Premiership of Morarji Desai. Excerpt: The Premiership of Gordon Brown began on 27 June 2007, when Brown accepted the Queen's invitation to form a government, replacing Tony Blair as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and ended with his resignation as Prime Minister on 11 May 2010. While serving as Prime Minister, Brown also served as the First Lord of the Treasury, the Minister for the Civil Service and the Leader of the Labour Party. He was succeeded by David Cameron. Brown's style of government differed from that of his predecessor, Tony Blair, who had been seen as presidential. Brown rescinded some of the policies which had either been introduced or were planned by Blair's administration. He remained committed to close ties with the United States and to the Iraq war, although he established an inquiry into the reasons why Britain had participated in the conflict. He proposed a "government of all the talents" which would involve co-opting leading personalities from industry and other professional walks of life into government positions. Brown also appointed Jacqui Smith as the UK's first female Home Secretary, while Brown's old position as Chancellor was taken over by Alistair Darling. Brown's government introduced a number of fiscal policies to help keep the British economy afloat during the financial crisis which occurred throughout the latter part of the 2000s and early 2010, although the United Kingdom saw a dramatic increase in its national debt. Several major banks were nationalised after falling into financial difficulties, while large amounts of money were pumped into the economy to encourage spending. Labour was also press ganged into giving Gurkhas settlement rights in Britain by the actress and campaigner Joanna Lumley and attracted criticism for its handling of the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only person to have been convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Brown was also dogged by allegations of bullying. Initially, during the first four months of his premiership, Brown