Brown is in danger of turning into a figure of fun

Howard

Brown did himself great damage. Marr knows something. The end of the interview, when said the cabinet was split, was very revealing.

I thought Brown blew it. He did not freely admit mistakes and blaming it all on the US will not wash. If that is the line he takes this week, his premiership is over. People want leadership not a blame culture.

oldtimer

I think our Prime Monstrosity has also become a National Embarassment.

ken from glos

I have been laughing at Brown and his "Brownies " for years. Its the only way i can cope!

As for the Marr interview .Total bias in favour of Brown but what do you expect?

golfwidow

The only funny thing about GB is the random grin and strange giggling which are both appearing ever more frequently. Where are the men in white coats with the straitjacet?

golfwidow

Oops! That should of course have been straitjacket!

Bernard from Horsham

Figure of fun. more like loathed. One usually respects other politicians even if one violently disagrees with them. Gordon Brown is in a different league. I loath him more than I could possibly say

Teledu

Thought he had an easy ride (no surprise there then) from Andrew Marrshmallow.

mitch

Its embarrassing to watch him gurning his way through those tedious tractor stats after any question.
An object of pity rather than fun I would say.

Keith

Seems to me there's a lot to come out, judging by some of the comments on Guido this morning.

strapworld

The best comment was telling us that 'I am just an ordinary guy'
Obviously being trained by Alistair Campbell who has run out of new idea's!

Jon

Even Bruce Forsyth was taking the mick on Strictly Come Dancing. Said he rang him last week asking him to be a contestant, Gordon said he was busy, Bruce said we don't start for another weeek!

Austin Barry

Gordon is now a pantomime figure: an amalgam of Widow Twankey and Charley's Aunt. Also these days I half expect him to break into a Frankie Howerd impression "Oooh, no missus, don't mock, oooh, no, it's wicked to mock the afflicted."

simon s

In the Brown 'narrative':

The recession of the early 90's was global but tory mismanagement made it worse.

The upcoming recession has purely global causes and has nothing to do with the post 2000 uk credit, spending and - above all - housing boom.

Cameron's speech need soundbites which explicitly state the nonsense of the above.

simon s

Brown in his interview with Andrew Marr said he went to an 'ordinary school' and was fortunate to go to uni.

Brown was the son of minister who was in an accelerated secondary school stream. ie he benefited from 'selection', even if he feels he didn't. Harman - privately educated - is now banging on about equality - but she chose a selective grammar school and the posh london oratory school for her sons. Equality for thee - but not for me.

Roy Simpson

It really is time you stopped writing about "Brownies". They are lies and should be referred to as such.

Ian C

We were at least amused at the sight of Michael Foot and his donkey jacket, hair and specs. Nobody is amused or even interested, still less imprssed, with the sight of this ridiculous, self-deceiving, dishonest, fatuous, "ordinary guy" politician.

Paul Williams

Usually I agree that Marr can be soft with Labour especially over the EU, but this morning's interview left me with 2 impressions.
1) Marr probably thought it was better to let Brown wobble on, which automatically puts himself in a bad light i.e. give him enough rope...
2) It was noticeable that Marr's questions got more vigorous when talking about Brown's future. Perhaps Marr realises that keep pressing Brown on the economy will just result in shed loads of tractor statistics being recited which probably can't be challenged at the time. (so far it's taken the Spectator a few hours to report back on the Brownies)

The Huntsman

As well as the 'Brownies'. you might also count how many times the word 'global' was used by this dishonest shyster. It got to the point where I very nearly chucked the TV out of the window as he desperately tried to convince us by repetition of the word that this is a case of 'Not me, Guv!'

Keith

Brown is in danger of turning into a figure of fun, you say.

He's about as funny as a packet of vomit!
I'm seriously thinking that the people of this country have had about enough of this gurning oaf.

Fraser Nelson

Roy, a Brownie is not quite a lie. We had a CoffeeHouse session to work out what to call them - some suggested McPorkies, which I quite liked, but we went for Brownies in the end.

The characteristis about a Brownie is that it's normally derived form something tecnically true, but twisted. Brownies include various twisting mechanisms: the Year Zero, the False Proxy, the Metric Switch etc. Various statistical devices for misleading the public. ie when he said inflation went from 10% to 2% he was comparing RPI with CPI. Was that a lie? Using two figures, but falsely comparing them as like with like (it was a Metric Switch). Another apsect of Brownies is how he will readily sacrifice honesty for trivial statistcial advantage.

Augustus

Brown says he borrowed, or brought forward, 1 billion pounds of spending in an effort to revive the UK economy. Brought forward? From where? What he is actually doing is taking money from renters and solvent homeowners to help other people live in houses they can't really afford.

There really isn't much difference between communism and socialism. Communism aims at enslaving people by force, socialism by means of the ballot box. It's the difference between murder and suicide.

Frank Pulley

"Brown is in danger of turning into a figure of fun"

That's a bit like saying "Spring 2008 is almost here!"

Anyway, who cares? Until we get a licence to slaughter the blind bumbling ox in 2010, there will be no laughter, just frustration and further descent into the abyss. Such is democracy - particularly the Labour Party's interpretation of it. I'm bored with taking the piss out of the obnoxious twatt. Putting his old rosettes on him at the auctioneers at the County Market and pretending he's prime beef isn't gonna wash. Nobody's buying - moreover, he's bleating like a lost lamb for Chrissakes. Is this blog ever going to change the subject?

Victor, NW Kent

I am quite sure I heard Brown claim that the government share of "the National Debt" is lower than in 1997. That was on the way to his usual lie about taxes being lower than in other major economires.

I mistyped that but I'll let is stand, a great new word invention - The Economire.

David McEwan Hill

Fraser Nelson has Brown about right. The guy is an artificial construct and always has been. This "son of the manse" stuff and "values" is the key for copious doses of a sanctimonious claptrap and any politician who repeatedly uses a devastating family tragedy for political benefit is completely unscrupulous. He has made a career of being absent when the sh*t is flying about,has built a reputation on carewfully scripted soundbites, has plotted continuously against those around and has always avoided public examination live on TV till now where his present position gives him no choice. It is easy to see now why he spent all those years avoiding robust public scrutiny. Any haslf decent interviewer soon has him struggling and the banality of his responses under pressure expose him as the man of straw he always was.