Gordon Brown has always believed that if something is worth saying once, it is worth saying many, many times. So it is no surprise that parts of his announcements over the past five days have had a familar ring, as the Tories have protested.

The Conservatives are feeling aggrieved now because they are being squeezed out of media attention as a result of the Labour leadership election.

They complain that Mr Brown is being given uncritical coverage. But all Opposition parties moan, just as Labour did about David Cameron’s honeymoon. I very much doubt whether the voters take any notice either way.

But how much is there to the Tory charge about old announcements being recycled by Mr Brown? It is true that none of the ideas are entirely new. Ministers, including Mr Brown, have talked before about numeracy education, eco/carbon neutral towns and strengthening the powers of Parliament.

The respinning charge sticks most on numeracy since, only two months ago in the Budget, Mr Brown talked about helping a further 300,000 underattaining pupils a year in maths.

The new element is an extra £35 million a year for those needing the most intensive training. The eco-towns idea has been around for the best part of a decade, but Mr Brown has firmed up the commitment by announcing five towns.

Mr Brown has talked in the past of strengthening Parliament’s powers, notably over peace and war decisions, but he went further last Friday to include the Ministerial Code and some involvement in major public appointments. Jack Straw, Mr Brown’s campaign chairman, yesterday reversed Tony Blair’s opposition to formalising a vote by MPs on war powers by announcing a review.

The Brown proposals may not be all new, but they do reveal his priorities for government. Mr Brown has a big team working in the Treasury on his plans for Number 10: his council of economic advisers and others, with the economic very loosely defined. Not all his plans will appear before June 27, but some will.

The game of hunt the old initiative is good fun for the Conservatives, and a necessary corrective to treating everything Mr Brown says as new. But it is naive to expect total novelty. After all, Mr Brown has been the co-architect, and often more, of the Government’s policies since 1997, and there is not going to be a sudden break in policy in six weeks’ time. There is bound to be a large elment of continuity.

So Mr Brown perhaps only deserves a yellow, rather than a red, card at this stage, a caution against excessive enthusiasm.

Recycled initiatives

— Eco-towns March 2006 Yvette Cooper announced that 10,000 homes at former RAF site in Cambridgeshire, would be first “exemplar” development with high energy and water efficiency standards

Past week Brown announces five eco-towns containing 100,000 new homes, powered by locally generated energy from sustainable sources

— Numeracy March 2007 Budget earmarks £150 million a year for one-to-one tuition in English and maths for failing pupils

Past week Brown announces £35 million for one-to-one numeracy tuition for the most struggling pupils a year by 2010

— Parliament Mar 2004, Feb 2007 Public Administration Select Committee and Lords committee call for rethink of royal prerogative to declare war

Past week Brown indicates he is ready to hand some prerogative powers, including right to wage war, to Parliament

— Health March 2002 Budget states that spending on the NHS will rise from £65.4 billion to £105.6 billion in 2007-08

Past week Department for Health announces that NHS is benefiting from an extra £8bn, extra 400,000 outpatients and 390,000 operations

— Appointments 1992 Brown’s Charter 88 lecture: “I favour certain public appointments made subject to the scrutiny of a House committee, so reducing the prime ministerial power of patronage”

Past week Brown says he will examine the possibility of appointments hearings

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