Monday - September 22, 2008

Please sir, it wasn’t me sir, it was those Americans who got us into trouble.

The reference in the heading re. it was those Americans, appeared in the hard cover edition of The Telegraph.
But not in the online version.  So I put it there.

Mr. Brown apparently is in some trouble within his own party and the public in general on many issues.
Be interesting to see when and even if, the electorate return the conservs. (Tory Party) to office.  And will it make much difference?

Chris and Lyndon are two who don’t think so.

Labour party conference: Andrew Gimson’s sketch

Gordon Brown sounded like a schoolboy who has failed his exams but has devised a preposterous story which shows that but for one or two unfortunate events which are not his fault he would have come top of the class.


By Andrew Gimson in Manchester

Andrew Marr, who was interviewing the Prime Minister, sounded like a fair-minded head teacher who was trying to get Brown to admit that it has “not been a good year” and that getting record low marks constitutes a crisis.

But Marr started by posing some questions about economics, which for many years was Brown’s strongest subject. Brown said the Americans had let him down very badly with his economics: “A great deal of irresponsibility...has come out of America.”

(My very Brit wife had a comment on this statement which was.  “And he was where exactly, while things were happening here?  On the sidelines most likely saying, givememine,givememine,givememine, “ with regard to the market money tree.  She is quite cynical about politicians generally and believes nothing Labour says. Ever. )

But help is at hand for these reckless people: “I’m going to New York on Wednesday.” This is wonderful news for the Americans, but Marr ventured to doubt whether Brown will be able to do anything, whereupon Brown admitted: “It’s not easy. These are testing times.”

The ominous observation that “these are testing times” was one to which Brown returned again and again as he sought to persuade us that nothing which has gone wrong is anything to do with him. He also informed us that “the world has changed” and “politics in this new digital age...is going to be quite difficult”.

But Brown’s problem is surely that the world has not changed anything like enough: there is still, we find, a business cycle, which mocks his claim to have abolished boom and bust. Brown himself volunteered at one point that “these are cyclical things”.

As the interview proceeded, a forlorn and pleading note entered this errant schoolboy’s voice, as if he knew his excuses were not passing muster. He promised Marr, “I always want to do better and I will do better”. As in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, so in Gordon Brown’s Schooldays a high moral tone is conveyed for the benefit of the youth of today. If there is a latter-day Flashman in this tale, his name is David Cameron.

(Have any of you folks read the Flashman series, by Geo.McDonald Fraser?  Great reading but “Flashman” was not an honorable man and so this isn’t exactly high priase for Mr. Cameron either.  BTW ... if you enjoy history even a little, the Flashman series is a must. And it’s fun too. Flashman of course is a fictional character.  But the way the late Mr. Fraser wrote the series and used his notes at the end of all the books, some professional historians started quoting Flashy as though he were real.)

Brown portrayed himself as a man of the people: “I’m a pretty ordinary guy that managed through an ordinary school to get to university.” The Prime Minister even gave us once more his school’s motto, which is surely a pretty odd thing for a 57-year-old man to do, even if “I will try my utmost” is an admirable sentiment. This was perhaps designed to remind us that Brown did not go to Eton, and his motto is not “Floreat Etona”, but somehow it seemed to suggest that when Brown comes under pressure, he falls back on the dispiriting pieties of his youth.

This is one of Brown’s great weaknesses: his inability to cheer people up. In hard times, a leader has to convince people that tough though things are, if we all pull together we shall win through to happier days.

Brown knows this, but although he can be very good with audiences who he knows already like him, on the wider public stage he comes out with awful leaden formulae, as when he told Marr: “We’re a team and we’re facing difficult world conditions.”

Even for Brown loyalists, the effect of actually listening to his public performances is to induce feelings of despondence rather than hope. It is easy, at this conference, to find dogged declarations of support for the Prime Minister, but when did we last hear anyone express unforced enthusiasm for his leadership?

Marr wondered if Brown was “absolutely sure you’re the right man for the job”, and Brown naturally insisted he is. But by this stage of the interview, one had the feeling that if Marr had said, “You’re in denial”, Brown would have retorted “No I’m not”.

Brown was subjected to one last insult, when Marr asked if he would still be here at Christmas. “Yes of course,” the Prime Minister replied. So that’s all right then: Brown is going to try harder this term and it will not all be over by Christmas.

http://tinyurl.com/53h9vg

Posted by Drew458     on 09/22/2008 at 09:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics • UK •  
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