A transcript of Rory Bremner impersonating Gordon Brown in his telephone conversation with Margaret Beckett when she was Environment Minister in May 2006.

RB: Hi Margaret? Hi it’s Gordon.

MB: Alright Gordon, what can I do for you?

RB: Have you been out and about today?

MB: A bit, yeah.

RB: I’ve been meaning to catch you actually, how’s it going?

MB: I think its going reasonably positively, you know, you’re always a bit sort of, we’ve been mostly with out Muslim community this afternoon, they’re always incredibly polite, but I mean, there seems to be a reasonably warm and friendly atmosphere, let’s put it that way.

RB: No surprises?

MB: Not so far.

RB: That’s good, that’s good. Have you spoken to Tony about next week or not?

MB: No I haven’t actually, no.

RB: Cos obviously he’s going to get Alan [Milburn] back in, and Steven [Byers], and I don’t know how you feel about that. Cos obviously we’re going to have to talk about the reshuffle over the weekend.

MB: Being perfectly honest Gordon, and I wouldn’t say this to anybody else, I mean I think Steven’s a bit of a risk at the moment because of being in the middle of that case, but, you know, obviously if that’s what he has in mind, that’s another thing. I mean, I would be happy to stay where I am, not least because, I mean we are right in the middle of the sugar negotiations, which everybody is expecting me to chair, and also we’ve got the first meeting of the parties for the Kyoto protocol, so that’s a big thing in the autumn, where of course we’d be leading for the EU and also on the Doha round. So there’s a huge amount coming up in the next six months or so, which, you know, as I say, all the rest of Europe is sort of confidently looking and saying literally, you know, we’re leaving that to Margaret.

RB: That’s fair enough, what about the other posts, where do you think the weaknesses are?

MB: In the team?

RB: Mmm.

MB: Well, I’m just mentally running over in my mind., You need a new chief secretary of course. I don’t know where’s he’s going to put David.

RB: He’s going to want to come back I think, but erm…

MB: I mean, a lot depends on how much John wants to hang on to, I mean you could create something useful without taking everything away from John [Prescott] , you could do something a bit different with that as a portfolio. You know, DTI is always…No disrespect to Patricia [Hewitt] , but DTI is always a bit of a handful.

RB: I think she’s a bit out of her depth there actually.

MB: Yeah. That’s what a lot of other people say to me. John Reid of course passionately wants to go into defence, let me think…

RB: What about Charles [Clarke] ?

MB: Well I am assuming that you will want to leave him, or that the two of you will want to leave him where he is, if you wanted to move him that would be another matter, but it would look like very much of a repudiation…

RB: My felling is he hasn’t had long enough yet to prove himself there and he’ll probably want to stay.

MB: That’s my feeling really.

RB: What about Alan, I mean I don’t know what you feel about him.

MB: Alan Johnson?

RB: Alan Milburn. Cos I think Tony wants to bring him back as chairman. And Ian’s not going to like that.

MB: No Ian’s [McCartney] not going to like that, and John [Prescott] isn’t going to like that either. To be honest Gordon, although I don’t really have anything against Alan, I haven’t really felt he’s hacked it as chairman. I don’t know what you feel but I felt…

RB: I felt that we lost about a week at the beginning of the campaign.

MB: I think that’s right I’m afraid.

RB: They were just running rings round us momentum wise.

MB: I think it just didn’t work.

RB: Ok, ok, I’m going to have to go, if you want to call me I’ll be in north Queens ferry tonight.

MB: Well if you want me you know where I am. Nice to talk to you Gordon.

RB: Ok, ok.

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