"Welcome, Mr. Brown, it's a pleasure to have you here for dinner."
"It is my pleasure, Your Highness."
At the villa in Richmond Park, Barron invited Gordon Brown to come here.
The villa, part of the estate left to Barron by Lady Emma, is located next to the quiet Richmond Park. It was later renovated by him and used as a secret meeting place for Barron - the last visitor here was Colo President Jammeh Bongo.
Gordon Brown is an important figure in the Labour Party. Together with the current Prime Minister, he reformed the Labour Party to become the New Labour Party.
In June, Brown, 53, broke the record for consecutive terms set by David Lloyd George nearly a century ago.
George served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for seven years and 43 days between 1908 and 1915.
At the same time, Brown is widely considered to be the favorite to become the next prime minister in next year's British general election.
However, Barron knew that the introverted and elegant Mr. Brown in front of him would stay in the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer for a full ten years - from the beginning of the Labour Party's rule in 1997 until the resignation of the current Prime Minister in 2007, when he would take over.
Yes, Blair will still participate in next year's general election and be re-elected...
Speaking of Brown's relationship with the current prime minister, it is also very delicate. The two were once "rising stars" of the Labour Party and even shared an office. They were close collaborators, but now their relationship has begun to become complicated.
This is why Brown came to Barron's villa today to meet him.
Last year, Britain filmed a TV series called "Gentleman's Agreement", which tells the story of how Blair became prime minister. It mentioned the "Gentleman's Agreement" between Blair and Brown.
Simply put, in early May 1994, John Smith, then leader of the Labour Party, died suddenly of a heart attack, so the Labour Party needed to elect a new leader.
At that time, the Conservative Party was in power in Britain, and the Labour Party had been in opposition for 18 years.
In the competition for the leadership of the Labour Party, the most competitive candidates are Blair, who serves as Shadow Home Secretary, and Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
They reached a gentleman's agreement in a London restaurant that Brown would give up the leadership race so that Blair would have a better chance of winning.
In return, Brown will have great power in Blair's future cabinet, and if Blair becomes prime minister, the other party promises to support Brown to become the next leader of the Labour Party after two terms.
This is the so-called Blair-Brown deal. Although the two parties have never admitted it, the subsequent development of the matter was generally based on this.
In the subsequent Labour Party leadership election, Blair won because his biggest rival Brown gave up.
As soon as he came to power, he pushed for the abolition of the nationalization line that the Labour Party had adhered to for many years and implemented centrism that could be either left or right.
He called the Labour Party the New Labour Party to emphasize that his approach caused strong dissatisfaction among traditionalists within the party, but won a lot of support from the public.
In the 1997 British general election, Blair led the Labour Party to win a majority of seats with an overwhelming advantage, ending the Conservative Party's 18-year rule. At this time, Blair was five days away from his 44th birthday, making him the youngest prime minister of Britain in nearly 200 years.
Immediately after coming to power, he appointed Gordon Brown as the second-in-command in the cabinet and Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position he holds to this day.
"In fact, we have a lot in common, Mr. Brown. For example, we both like Chinese food. At the same time, I also think that China is a force that cannot be ignored in the future. Maintaining good relations with them is based on the interests of Great Britain."
Barron smiled at Brown and said,
"Yes, the interests of Great Britain should be the principle for our actions, not other fancy things. Even our alliances with the United States and Europe need to be based on this. I don't want to follow suit."
It is no secret that Brown likes Chinese food. For more than ten years, the restaurant he frequented most often was a London restaurant called "Xin Ma Xing" that served Cantonese cuisine and catered to the working class.
Every time he would order "pineapple chicken" and steamed rice, and he was very handy with chopsticks. Influenced by him, his wife Sarah and children also became regular customers of this restaurant.
For this reason, for this dinner, Barron specially asked his Chinese chef who specializes in Cantonese cuisine to prepare a table of meals for Brown, including "pineapple chicken".
Judging from the current picture, it is quite interesting to see two British people skillfully using chopsticks to taste a table of Chinese food.
In addition, Brown is a British Prime Minister who is relatively friendly to China, which is very different from Blair. After he took office as Prime Minister, he attached great importance to the relationship between the two countries, and after leaving office he also spoke highly of the "Belt and Road Initiative".
Barron's words to Brown at this time expressed his objection to the current prime minister's following America too closely and, to a certain extent, not making decisions based on Britain's position.
This is also a kind of hint that Barron is making to the other side now that the discord between the Prime Minister and Brown is becoming increasingly clear.
Since the beginning of this year, rumors of the two people's discord have been constantly reported in the media.
Some media even described the infighting between the Prime Minister and Brown as being close to being "out of control" and that their relationship had reached "mutual hatred and contempt."
According to the "gentleman's agreement" between the two, the prime minister took office in 1997, which was his second term.
He should have resigned as leader of the Labour Party before next year's general election and handed over the qualification to run for election to Brown - British elections are different from American elections. In the United States, the president is directly elected, while in Britain, political parties compete for the majority of parliament. The leader of the party that wins the majority of seats becomes prime minister and forms a cabinet.
But Blair has been misleading Brown since last year about whether to resign...
He first promised to resign as prime minister this autumn and hand over power to Brown when his situation became difficult.
But what Brown didn't expect was that after a while, when Blair found that his approval rating had risen and his re-election prospects were bright, he immediately betrayed this promise...
Barron got more detailed information than those media, and in this meeting with Brown, Brown also mentioned some details...
For example, last November, when the Prime Minister was having dinner with Brown, he said that he had painfully realized that he had lost the trust of British voters because of the Iraq War, so he decided to resign before the general election and hand over power to Brown.
At the time, he stressed that he needed Brown's help to get through the difficult years ahead.
Then, over the following weeks, the two men had a series of discussions about the transfer of power, including strategy and timing.
Then, in March this year, the prime minister promised Brown that he would formally announce his resignation in the autumn, after Parliament adjourned in mid-April.
However, after expressing this idea, the prime minister's many supporters in the cabinet prevented him from resigning and helped him through the difficult period.
From that time on, the other party never mentioned resignation to Brown again.
Brown gradually realized that what the prime minister said might not count.
Especially after the results of the local elections on June 12 this year were announced, the Prime Minister found that the Conservative Party led by Michael Howard was not as strong as he had imagined, so his confidence increased and he believed that he had a chance to win the general election.
After that, his attitude towards Brown obviously changed. How could Brown not feel this?
Barron knew that according to the development of the original time and space, Blair would participate in next year's general election and win.
However, in 2007 he was forced to resign and give his position to Brown.
Brown was also unfortunate. After three years in office, he became one of the shortest-lived prime ministers.
However, this does not affect Barron's investment in him to a certain extent, especially now that his hopes of "taking over" the prime ministership seem to be getting slimmer and slimmer.