Public to decide? Has Brown named the day?

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): James Forsyth in the Spectator Coffee House congratulates Rachel Sylvester on a “great scoop” for blowing the privacy on the ‘Better Government Initiative’ in today's Daily Telegraph. She presents it as a device to return power to the Establishment. My understanding is that a prime mover is Andreas Whittam Smith who, for all his Church of England credentials, has always struck me as somewhat less established and more original than chaps are supposed to be. Hence his founding The Independent. Most striking of all is that Forsyth misses the real scoop in Sylvester’s story, repeated in her and Alice Thomson’s profile of the Browns in the same paper, namely: “On his first day as prime minister he plans to announce the creation of a constitutional convention, involving the public, to work what should be included in a Bill of Rights”. On HIS FIRST DAY: if this is indeed a scoop we are talking about 28 June folks. But no one seems to be very interested. Its about the future and this is England, where it seems much more exciting to talk about establishment cobwebs