“As Gordon Brown has said, we can be the world’s innovation nation, and he’s right, we can,” Burnham told Labour’s conference on Tuesday, saying the U.K. could be “an honest broker” in the debate on regulating AI. “Just as Gordon did in the financial crisis in 2008, so Britain will do it again — step forward, and bring people together around what’s right for the future — securing our prosperity, but also our safety.”

Burnham served in Brown’s government as health secretary until Labour lost power in 2010. He has picked colleagues who served with him in Brown’s ministerial team for key jobs in government — including Ed Miliband, the new foreign secretary, Chancellor John Healey, and Douglas Alexander, the Scotland secretary. 

In interviews at the POLITICO Pub during Labour’s conference in Liverpool this week, the extent of Brown’s contacts became clear. Miliband, who was an adviser to Brown during his time in the Treasury, said they had spoken by phone while he was in New York at the U.N. General Assembly earlier this month. “I had a late-night phone call with him actually last week,” Miliband said. “They come thick and fast. It’s a great email to get, honestly.” 

Healey, the chancellor, disclosed in an interview with the Sunday Times that he receives emails in bold capitals from Brown, who was Britain’s longest-serving chancellor of modern times, before he became prime ministers in 2007.

Alexander, the Scotland secretary, told POLITICO he, too, was the recipient of messages from Brown, who represented a Scottish constituency during his time in parliament.

“Yes, it took me great restraint when John Healey revealed that he was receiving emails in Bold Helvetica 14, as I remember, from Gordon Brown, not to send him a message saying ‘the first 35 years is the worst, and then you get over it.’”