A shameless but plucky effort

Simon

It wasn't good enough to ensure his political survival.

It will unravel quickly enough. The gimmicks of the introduction by his wife, the 'I won't use my children' section, the 'eye' story will not go down well.

It was not big on any real substance. Nor on his ability to change or deliver change.

That is what will really kill him off

TrevorsDen

Ad hominem attacks on the opposition

Unfunded spending pledges

Tortuous bleeding-heart appeals to accept his nonexistent human personality.

Absolutely no indication that anything wrong with Britain now might be the responsibility of his mistakes over the last 11 years.

Absolutely no indications of any plan to combat the deteriorating economic situation.

kinglear

.. and die he will

Joe Mooney

Can coffee housers come up with a name to describe this conference. How about The Labour waffle conference of 2008.

oldtimer

Typical Brown smoke and mirrors speech which will not survive close scrutiny. Apparently he misquoted George Osborne (per the FT) and the Conservative party legislated most of the extensions to the suffrage - which he claimed for Labour.

I cannot see it convincing many outside the conference hall. There were no numbers on how it will all be paid for. No reason to believe that this government`s bungling incompetence is a thing of the past.

Mike. Brighton

Is this the best he can do to save his career? He's dead

graham garrod

No doubt you will get your dream leadership of Tory toffs in a couple of years. What will it give us? 18 more glorious years as we had from 1979? WAKE UP for Gods sake.

John de Finchley

I would hope so, Graham, yes. Those years were golden and glorious. I miss them and I'm thrilled they're coming back, with David Moribund in the role of Neil Kinnock.

LSS

They weren't ad hoc attacks against the opposition they were lies. George Osborne's quote was twisted and edited, this has been noted already by the FT and his comment about Labour giving working men and women the vote against Tory opposition!!???? What an idiot. He clearly needs to employ better reseachers. It was a conservative government that gave working men the vote and tory/liberal coalition that gave women the vote. Nothing to do with Labour! Peddling this junk and then having the gall to say he's the man we want to lead this country is insulting.

Angie Croft

He certainly called Cameron's bluff and showed the Tories for the chancers and spivs they are. And not having to pay for my cancer prescriptions is not waffle for someone outside the conference hall.

Bernard from Horsham

It was the sort of speech that made me think maybe for two secs, then the huge holes appeared and I realised what a load of nothingness it all was. What price Gordo offering free dog leads to all dog owners? I suspect the BBC will give it the thumbs up(no surprise there), but it'll be all forgotten in a week. We will still be in the proverbial.

Keith

Graham garrod...
I think it's you who needs to wake up to what this shameless gurning oaf has done to this country. He sold our gold reserves at silly prices because he wouldn't listen to sound advice. He removed the 10p tax band..having created it.
He has refused to give our troops the proper equipment they need....I could go on.
BTW, I'm a tory and I'm working class..if there's any work left after Jonah's had his way.

Thomas Cussans

It is near invariably the case that whatever the Great Gord says, the precise opposite is true. This is why he wrote a book on courage.

This speech was no exception. Note for instance his properly nutty claim that he is going to restore democracy to Burma.

Otherwise, it was neither 'the speech of his life' nor a disaster. In short, it will make no difference. His political demise remains assured.

mac

"WAKE UP for Gods sake". OK, Mr Garrod, and do what, precisely? Re-elect those political luminaries Brown, Darling, Smith, two Millipedes, Balls, Harman, Cooper, Flint, Hoon, etc etc? A merciful God can't want to inflict this on us for a 4th term. Leave off the nitrous oxide, it's doing you no good.

william

On his way up he relentlessly critiqued and attacked the tories and then conspired against and undermined Blair. As pm he says - i am full of virtue of wisdom - follow me. But he is Crassus - in the top job he is utterly devoid of ideas. And no one will follow.

Watching from Singapore

Return to Margaret Thatcher, Graham? So she was a Tory toff? Oh, I do love spurious NuLabour class war. It really doesn't frighten us any more...

I don't think you understand just how many people loath our idiot Prime Minister, and Labour, and all their apologists, with justified passion. The whole Blair / Brown "narrative" was a lie, as has now been so painfully exposed. And people don't like being conned. The great sadness is that it took so long for the Labour fraud to be exposed.

So yes please to the Tories. Short of famine, how can they make a worst mess than Labour? And you might look at your own unemployment and invalidity benefit statistics before you start sounding off about the Tories. Moreover, the Tories didn't utterly wreck the public finances, unlike some I could mention.

So we will wake up indeed - from our Labour nightmare.

cuffleyburgers

Mr Garrod

Those 18 years had their ups and downs, but in that period we had the first prime minister since the war who actually understood the problems facing the country (and caused mostly by the kind of socialist crap that labour are still, uselessly peddling) and brought solutions, so successfully that for example, most countries emerging from behind the iron curtain adopted them and are now doing better than the sclerotic old EURO countries. Great Britain too flourished in general, Blair was smart enough to copy the same policies for several years and it is only since Brown was given his spending head that the economy has started to turn pear shaped.

Get a life.

Kevin the Gerbil

Splendid and brilliant, eh? Speech of a lifetime?

I'm sorry, Mr D', but I've said it before and I'll say it again. For all your academic brilliance, I sometimes wonder whether you would get the point of a needle if it jabbed you in the a*se.

David

"He certainly called Cameron's bluff and showed the Tories for the chancers and spivs they are."

Yeah, before we know it the Tories might be trying to win popularity on the backs of cancer sufferers or something else disgraceful like that.

Mark

Democracy and peace will come not just to Burma, but to Zimbabwe. All thanks to Gordon.
Sorry, Matthew, but this speech was devoid of real content - wild, wide promises to achieve great things but no idea how to achieve them.

TrevorsDen

'shameless' -- indeed its a word that should be used ad nauseum by the Conservatives.

And they need to plan on how to deal with his replacement and not hope the dissembling toe rag hangs on.
Its better for them to be able to have claimed that they toppled him not his own party.

Max Kaye

The Delusional Conference.

TrevorsDen

Come off it Angie Croft - why has it taken so long to impliment?

As the telegraph report points out prescrption charges are mainly needed because treatments which would have been given intravenously in a ward can be taken as tablets at home.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/health/3067670/Gordon-Brown-promises-free-prescriptions-for-cancer-patients.html

Brown only realises this when his job is on the line.

Robin

Can coffee housers come up with a name to describe this conference?

The Self Preservation Society

Arthur Dent

Ms Croft in the vast majority of cases your cancer treatment is already free (i.e you don't pay for it directly). Picking out cancer patients was just a gimmick, much more beneficial would have been t promise dementia patients access to the drugs currently not recommended by NICE on the grounds of cost.

In addition, shall we wait and see the colour of his money. Most of Gordon's high profile spending committments have turned to ashes in the subsequent light of day.

anthony a

I doubt anyone in "the real world" was even aware he was making a speech and couldn't give two hoots either.

Keith

Robin
September 23rd, 2008 5:44pm

Can coffee housers come up with a name to describe this conference?

Without wishing to cause offence, more like The Dead Prick's Society

Familiar Clown

For a fleeting moment I got a gentle feelgood feeling, thinking of him meeting all those ordinary people who were so intent upon 'making a difference', and then...he lost me with yet more Labour spin. Still, he made a play for the NHS staff votes. Quite a few there, I suppose. People like to be thanked. Cheers in hospitals up and down the land etc. Cameron can only echo that, and possibly add that without the extra beds provided by the private sector for the NHS bed shortages, the waiting lists would be longer than they now are.

Dirty Euro

The elites won't let him get away with a good speech they will pick his speech apart like they would not do for a tory.