Gordon Brown: At Last They Get It

The only thing I really care about in British politics is Gordon Brown. I don't think Blair has been much of a Prime Minister and I find it hard to form any clear views on Cameron, but I have always known intuitively that Brown would be a hundred times worse than either. The man's instincts are vengeful, punitive, tribal and, when it comes to money, distinctly tricky. What I have never understood is why, given his persecution of their core readers and the polls that consistently show his deep unpopularity, the press has given him such an easy ride. I suppose it's our economic success, but the more you look at that, the less it seems to be his doing. Furthermore, try as I may, I can find no evidence whatsoever of the supposedly great Brown intellect. In some addle-headed way, he seems to want to create a monstrous political chimera out of Neocon moral and old Labour economic attitudes, out of, in short, two of the most comprehensively failed ideologies to be found on the shelves of the Kwiki Mart that is contemporary political thought.
But, at last, it seems, the tide has turned. My own paper has written a wonderfully scathing leader about the man. Hamish McRae in the Independent on Sunday has taken apart his dodgy figures. And with characteristically cool brilliance, Vicki Woods has quietly exposed the rank injustice embedded in Brown's attitudes. The 'libertarian' bloggers can shout and scream, the political columnists can rant and the Tories can shake their tiny fists, but Woods' infinitely subtle, indirect style gets to the heart of the matter. Brown hates our guts.