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Joanna Lumley's Gurkha campaign: Brown's Berlusconi moment

This article is more than 14 years old
At least the PM didn't offer to marry her or make her a minister, as his Italian counterpart might have done

Did I dream it or did Joanna Lumley's encounter with Gordon Brown really lead BBC news bulletins for at least part of yesterday's news cycle? Lumley's thespian performance thereafter ("I trust him, I rely on him") was a brilliant comic turn, but it wasn't a lead item and has melted away in this morning's papers.

Thank goodness. We can all agree that she's wonderful, the national treasure of cliche, but her treatment these past few days has been a little too Italian, yes? A little unserious. At least the PM didn't make her a minister or say he'd have married her if he was free, as Silvio Berlusconi would have done.

Of course, Brown should have called Lumley in weeks ago as the dysfunctional tide of pro-Gurkha sentimentality roared up the beach. At an event this week I heard a former public official describe how brilliant the prime minister can be in small private groups, with entrepreneurs for instance, yet also how untrusting.

Sensitivity to minefield issues is not part of the Brown mix. One story doing the rounds sums up this problem beautifully. It concerns the Obamas.

When the White House realised that the president's gifts to the visiting Browns – a set of 25 great American movies on DVD – had caused mockery or offence in the British media it took steps to correct perceptions.

It suggested that the Browns let it be known that they'd watched two or three of the films and really enjoyed them. Obama aides took a similar initiative when they realised that Michelle Obama's friendly arm on the Queen's back during the G20 reception at Buck House wasn't quite the protocol thing to do.

Why not tell the hacks that the Queen touched Mrs O first, it was suggested? Buckingham Palace took the sensible hint and duly obliged. No harm done; for all I know it's true. No 10 also promised to do the DVD deed – but didn't get round to it. When the Palace is ahead of No 10 in PR terms it is time to get alarmed.

Never mind. Brown has now been given the Lumley treatment ("I know him very slightly personally and I find him to be a man of integrity") and – as "the head man, the man at the top, the leader of our entire nation" – has promised to sort it all out by the end of the month, she says.

That's not quite how No 10 later put it. It wants to stick to its July timetable for any rethink, but has promised to consider the Lumley Plan: that all Gurkhas, regardless of length or time of service, be allowed to settle in Britain with their immediate families ie those excluded by the pre-1997 rule. Labour may give them a two-year deadline to apply so as not to make the commitment open-ended.

It's a complicated issue, as Afua Hirsch explains in her Q&A. But it's also a practical one, as Robert Fox, an academic defence buff, pointed out on Comment is free. Though nice Iain Duncan Smith is pro-Lumley – and challenged Gordon Brown at PMQs yesterday – he was never the sharpest captain in the British army.

If the Gurkha incomers cost the MoD £1.5bn as claimed they may price themselves out of the market as valued British mercenaries – it's what they are – as well as provoke the Nepalese Maoist government to ban their recruitment. Why should we lose so many bright young men, it might ask, says Fox. The money goes further and is very useful in Nepal.

Old military sweats, including a Tory MP with Gurkha experience who accosted me the other day, know this, but are as wary of taking on Lumley as everyone else. It's as if Vera Lynn was telling Churchill how to run the war, or the rather saucier Marie Lloyd doing the same to Lloyd George. He would certainly have called her in, possibly on a regular basis.

PS: After the flashing white teeth, the Flashman factor. The sketchwriters seem agreed today that David Cameron slaughtered Brown at PMQs, though the Daily Mail's Quentin Letts wondered if "the aggression started to feel overdone". That's what I thought too. Dave was very funny and insisted that Brown – not the recession, swine flu or Ms Lumley – is the issue.

But neither he, nor a string of backbench Tories, asked any questions of substance – in contrast to all the other parties and Brown himself, who repeatedly fell back on that point. He thinks the Cameroons will be vulnerable on substance as polling day looms. Take a glance at Hansard if you have a moment. I'd be curious to know your view.

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