Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Brown the Wildebeest
I thought this was a story about the Tory wildebeest, but, after Brown's embarrassing cock-up over the troops who aren't actually returning from Iraq, maybe it's Labour's. Brown's addiction to spin is more serious than Blair's. It seems to be getting the better of him. This ill-advised stunt has echoes of the Laura Spence affair. Perhaps his greed for spin will get the better of him.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
The psychological flaws are showing. I was struck on Monday by how long it has taken us to hear much from our new Chancellor, but as soon as the Tories mentioned taxing non-doms he was all over the media rubbishing the policy. I rather hope this is a turning point in the opinion polls for the new administration.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Bob (if I may), it's not so much that one wants the Tories, but one emphatically does not want this very sinister man.
ReplyDeleteNotwithstanding the inevitable 'bounce', I am genuinely baffled by, and deeply uneasy with, the media at large's feeble handling of Brown so far. I find it impossible to trust the word of a man so corrupted by a decade-long lust for ultimate power.
ReplyDeleteI like Cameron, by and large, but his party is utterly unmanageable as long as the loopy dinosaurs like Tebbit remain. But really, please, anyone but Brown.
Yes a massive - and very revealing - cockup by Brown, who shld have known (or been told) that he doesn't do these Visiting Our Boys stunts at all well, and if he insists on doing one he'd better have something of real substance to say. Blinded by his determination to torpedo Dave out of the water.
ReplyDeleteAs for those wildebeest, I look forward to seeing that in the next interminable wildebeest documentary on the BBC.
Disagree they're unmanageable Johnny. To get John Major out on Brown's case yesterday was pretty smart. Last week they were written off but so far every day has gone their way and left Labour looking complacent and rather empty of ideas. Also, watch IDS's speech yesterday - a perfect riposte to the nasty party tag and the audience roared. Also, I think William Hague is now widely liked and rather statemanslike. The problem they have is they are now an English rump party. The further you get from the South the less popular they are. The Scot Nats will drub Labour in Scotland, but no Tory gains there or the Northern cities. The Tories will also struggle in Wales. Be interesting to see Cameron and Brown head to head. I think Cameron can expose him - he's not used to being challenged and the Commons is good at exposing character. Agree with you about Tebbit though, and what was Maggie up to?
ReplyDeletenot all bad news then.
ReplyDeletecome on, be realistic! the current tories are the monty python team of politics! cameron is palin, davis is cleese, hague is gilliam, letwin is jones, and all the rest are idle. and now for something completely different isn't a good reason to vote for them in my view.
Like the idle comment ian. Some of the other analogies are a bit wayward. I think Letwin is more of a Terry Gilliam figure. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown resembles Herman Munster, without the social graces.
ReplyDeleteGranted that Brown may be very well read and, we are told, is highly intelligent, but it is becoming quite clear that he hasn't got a thought in his head. Oh, except one: destroy the Tories.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm afraid this is reflected in his Cabinet. The Millibands and Balls might be bright and sharp little buttons, but they represent nothing more than the takeover of government by a political class that has had no experience of anything other than the quest for power.
And as for stammering Darling's blatant use of Treasury civil servants and resources in a rushed attempt to rubbish the Tories new tax proposals, words fail me. They really have no shame and quite clearly cannot distinguish between party and public interests.
Ed Balls really troubles me. He's like an inverted version of Harry Enfield's Tory boy. And he's Brown's closest ally - which speaks volumes. Milliband is more acceptable, but callow.
ReplyDeleteWith the qualification that i barely even live in the modern world, the impression i get of politics & politicians is that however they start off they end up interested in power for its own sake; and they'll smash things just to flex their muscles.
ReplyDeleteGore Vidal said of JFK that he had absolutely no 'politics', except the desire for power. That seems true of men like Blair & Brown, and seems to sum up New Labour - the desire for power, no policies, no morality, no ideas, except how to get more power.
The Tories at least tended to include people who had some interest in our culture (i.e. John Major & cricket). They may have wanted to make the rich richer, but no more than New Labour have.
oh no, no... you're making me feel queasy. who said democracy was a good idea?
ReplyDeletespongebob, you have to work with the material you get given, and that goes for politics too I guess.
I'm with Elberry on this.
ReplyDeleteWho was that minister Paxman tore to pieces on Newsnight last night? Sums up the Labour Party for me. I wouldn't have trusted him to organise the bingo at a working man's club.
Spongebob - I agree, the transformation of Hague is remarkable. It's a shame he won't be at the ballot box to bruise Brown on PMQs days.
ReplyDeleteCameron's shadow cabinet is not the problem - it's the backbenchers' ability to remain publicly 'on-message' at crucial junctures. At present, it's all too easy for New Labour to goad them into making predictable, clumsy statements that distract from the core message and, frankly, make them look positively amateurish at times.
I am amazed how little certain MPs have learned from their decade out of power.
I watched Alan Duncan on Newsnight the other night aftert the succesful Osborne speech. I felt the balloon of Monday's message being deflated as his smug grin grated. However, Michael Gove seemed to shut up Paxman over his immigration gaffe. This is revealing. They're getting kinder treatment from the meejah. Whether media indulgence will persuade all those public sectors workers to vote Tory is another thing.
ReplyDeleteMs Spence in the affair you refer. Did she display the zip which would make her a resistance fighter. Because that is the real Q. Not the ability to answer.
ReplyDeleteThe dreary evasive minister was called Ainsworth. Gove was rather good just by being honest. Brown's trip to Basra was shameless.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about Gove, Captain B. He cocked up and said so leaving Paxo with nowhere to go. By evading the obvious truth they look more stupid and annoying. Brown's not yet been tested directly - but he's the King of gobbledygook and evasion.
ReplyDelete