Shriti Vadera goes global

Andrew Sparrow is in the lead on this latest spot of bad news for Gordon Brown. The overnight news was terrible enough – Obama’s snub, Tories looking good in the north, PM forced to deny health rumours – without adding a rats/sinking ship strand. Yet Lady V makes an unlikely rat. More than Ed Balls, she can claim to be Brown’s brain. She was the one who did much of the heavy lifting with officials on the financial crisis, and oversees his entire global agenda. The ‘Shriti the Shriek’ caricature is harsh but rooted in fact: she can be a nightmare to work with. But if her blunt approach has been hard to digest for some, she has also brought a forensic brain to the table, and an ability to manage Mr Brown. She is going on to do a job of work that Mr Brown considers vital, but it will leave a big hole in Number 10, with one less trusted adviser able and willing to speak plainly to the Prime Minister. This will have a significant effect on the internal dynamics of Downing Street.

Here’s Andy’s key update:

“12pm: This has taken a while, but the picture is now starting to look a bit clearer. It looks as if Vadera is going to a job with the G20. That’s not official yet, but that’s what I’ve heard from a well-placed Westminster source. Brown wants the G20 to have some kind of permanent secretariat, and it looks as if Vadera might be helping to run it. It would be a bit like being a financial regulator for the world economy. There have also been suggestions that she could be going to Europe, to replace Lady Ashton as Britain’s EU commissioner, or to the private sector. But I’m told the G20 job is the likely one.”