Premier Gordon Brown has been busy building bridges with the regional press ahead of the expected May general election.

The Prime Minister this week hosted a reception for regional political correspondents and their editors at No 10 Downing Street which was attended by most of the Cabinet.

Ministers present included business secretary Peter Mandelson, chancellor Alastair Darling, home secretary Alan Johnson and culture secretary Ben Bradshaw.

Northern Echo editor Peter Barron subsequently blogged on the gathering, saying he had raised the issue of job losses at Corus on Teeside with the Prime Minister.

“You never get very long at these things but I did get chance to discuss the Corus crisis with Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, Peter Mandelson, and Redcar MP Vera Baird,” he wrote.

Peter revealed in his blog that Mr Brown had told him: “We are doing all we can.”

Earlier Mr Brown had given exclusive interviews to the Western Morning News, Exeter’s Express & Echo and The Herald, Plymouth, ahead of a planned Cabinet meeting to be held in Exeter.

However the proposed Cabinet meeting was eventually cancelled due to the bad weather.

Comments

Onlooker (15/01/2010 12:07:19)
Suddenly, Mr Brown can find exclusive ‘face time’ for everyone who might be useful to him come the Election. How depressingly predictable. Stalin would be proud of so many useful idiots in the local press.

Chris Youett (18/01/2010 15:40:32)
Gordon should be doing this every three months or so – and he should be speaking to the Editors of the Top 20 business and trade titles every month as they have been out-scooping Fleet Street for over 30 years now.