Voters won't pay attention to Muddled Labour

Mark

Also, our Prime Minister and Chancellor have flown to New York to get in the news as dealing with the crisis. This would back up the message from the Labour conference.
Sadly, those who are really dealing with it - the US government and congress - have stolent the headlines.

And Ruth Kelly's resignation takes some of the newsworthiness out of the reshuffle planned for the end of next week to try to deflect attention away from the Tory conference.

BTW What should the Tories be saying about the credit crunch? They risk alienating Jo Public if they stick up for overpaid, reckless bankers. I think they need to explain in simple terms why it has happened and to include greedy, reckless bankers on the charge sheet. But they need to avoid arguing for over-regulation and ensure that everyone blames Brown too. A tricky task.

Verity

Matthew writes: David Cameron’s tree- and huskie-hugging photo-ops in the initial months of his leadership were widely mocked, but they worked wonders in cementing the notion that Dave was both new and green.

We didn't need to have the idea that David was new "cemented". He popped up on the radar. He was new. He didn't need to pose with Huskies on an ice floe to drive home the notion. His ineptitude highlit the fact that he was new.

"Green" as in the sense of a novice, yes. Green as in a one-worlder, non-progress political movement of the West, no. This was not welcome. It was counter-productive and turned many people off this public relations opportunist.

I will not be voting Tory, and I have never voted anything else in my life. But not with One Worlder, Mr Transnational, Anti-Progress Dave at the helm. No thanks. I can't even stand his vapid, empty little face.

What party trick is he going to bring to the conference this year? Give a speech without notes while hanging from a chandelier?

mac

Just as the abiding image of Gerald Ford is stumbling down plane step, Bush looking utterly clueless on 9/11 or, nearer home, Gummer with his daughter and the hamburger, Chelsea-shirted Mellor or sleeping Fred Mulley, Miliband is now defined by his banana and gurning-with Gordon-photos. They are guaranteed to appear time and again. No way back.

Polly and Alice's mum

The whole thing is a shambles, and makes one ashamed for one's country.
The trouble is that the overwhelming majority of people out there are simply not interested - it seems to me that most of my friends are not feeling the pain ...yet. And those who are, tend to believe Brown's hype that HE is the man to steer us through hard economic times.
I despair!!! Why dont any of them read coffeehouse?

JimBob

Everyone will have forgotten the speech and conference in a week or two and that will be the end of the bounce. Fortunately the bickering and bitching will continue until that great day when Broon is booted out.

Austin Barry

Quite why a man with simian features could be persuaded to pose with a banana is beyond me. I suspect that the malevolent hand of Brown may be behind the press officer's apparent insouciance.

Oscar

I think there's a real danger of underestimating Brown's ability to revive. Like most Coffee Housers I loathe the man and loathed (what I could stand) of his speech. Why anyone supports him is a mystery to me. But he seems to have a Svengali-like hold over parts of the media and as Polly and Alice's mum points out non-politicos tend to defer to the nonsense that he has the experience to lead us out of economic woes, instead of condemning him for leading us into them. The Brownies do work and I predict there is still a way to go before Brown is consigned to an ignominious history.

Bocephus

The Tories must make sure this economic shambles is pinned squarely on Brown. The last 11 years were built on unsustainable house price rises and credit. The Banks were irresponsible, but the loan offers were no secret, everyone new what they were up to. Brown could have reigned them in but did nothing. He enjoyed the tax revenues and everyone shopped like Posh & Becks. No more boom and bust!!!

dalesman

The only comment is......no comment. You said it all Mathew, voters will not pay attention to muddled labour.

As though things were not bad enough for GB we found out that the government leaders in US will not be meeting with him, so he'll just be meeting a few New York financiers.

So he won't be helping to sort out the worlds financial crisis after all. Just more muddle.

Forlornehope

Gordon Brown's evocation of "Typhoon" sums up his conference speech quite nicely. After all, Conrad's last words on Captain MacWhirr were "I think that he got out of it very well for such a stupid man".

Up until the news broke that we would be having a "Ruthless" government it seemed like quite a good fit(sorry I couldn't resist that).

marbury

I don't understand why there haven't been more calls for the head of Damian McBride in the press? He is serially incompetent, and a poisonous influence in No.10. Yet Brown clings to him as he once did to Whelan.

mac

@Oscar: "Why anyone supports him is a mystery to me". There's the rub. There'll be no Labour wipeout approaching the scale of the Canadian Conservatives train wreck, and the reason is that whatever Brown does great swathes of the Labour faithful will continue to vote socialist (that is for the party that they understand to be, and are told is indeed, 'socialist'). The old saw in my part of the country (the North East) that a red rosette on a whippet would ensure success in the most rabid Labour constituencies is still true (notwithstanding Glasgow East). Remember that despite the chaos and utter embarrassment of the Winter of Discontent Labour lost only 50 seats in the 1979 election.

Liz Brown

I never listened to the lying, thieving, control freak, self serving bastards anyway - why should I start now.......

John Page

Out here in the real world we're a lot less interested in the Labour conference than you commentators had to pretend to be. You know it is all sound and fury signifying nothing, but I suppose you are paid to go through the motions of pretending it might matter.

Oscar

mac - this is all too true. Old Labour tribal loyalty goes much much deeper than anything rational.