Brown still believes

seb

It's all bunkers! Brown's plan to enlist Obama in some grand scheme to re-start the Binge Economy at the G20 summit can only remind us of a certain mustachio-ed Austrian's faith in the invention of a super-weapon that would miraculously route his enemies. The Obama Bomb? Oborne's article is a must.

P Collinson

All priminsters have to say that they are condfident of winning the next election and it is a another repeated mantra that the only real problem is not getting their message across to the nation.

strapworld

Hitler believed he could still win the war whilst the allies and russians were knocking on Berlin's door.

There is madness and stupidity.
The real disgrace is that whilst the lame, discredited cabinet ministers, allow the prime minister to talk such tosh our beloved country is going to the dogs!

What comes first, Country or Party?

or is it now self, country or party?

Phaeton

All the people who re-subtitle the bunker scene from Downfall would have probably been more accurate by leaving the original subtitles. And replacing the pencil with a mobile phone.

Marbury

It's impossible to conclude, from that anecdote, what Brown thinks his chances of winning are. He's doing what any leader ought to do, must do, under these circumstances, which is to display utter confidence in victory, even if he's not feeling it. Imagine what the story would be if he'd done anything other than that.

Tom Pride

Rolling the eyes – the sure sign of a relationship beyond recovery.

oldtimer

Brown, as PM, needs to believe in what he is doing; it is all that keeps him going. The moment he stops believing in himself he will be reduced to quivering jelly. It looks as though that will only happen if enough senior Cabinet Ministers summon up the gumption to tell him to his face - and that otherwise they will resign from his government.

Given their obvious addiction to ministerial salaries, cars, expenses and sundry other perks of office we can expect that this will not happen. They will hang on in there as long as possible.

As for Brown`s view that the government is finding it hard to get its message across this, of course, is rubbish. I suspect that most people who still bother to listen to what Brown and co say are unconvinced by the message - always assuming that they understand what it is they are trying to say. There is now enough accumulated evidence to show that what they say,what they mean and what they do have only the flimsiest connection. And when they do do something you can be sure they will bungle it.

Dan

The Hitler analogies are pretty interesting. Claus Von Stauffenberg also spring to mind - the man who realised that getting rid of the deluded madman would save Europe from utter destruction and Germany from annihilation. Who is Labour's Von Stauffenberg - soemebody who could Britain from another 15 months of Brown-induced meltdown and the Labour party from years of weakness and division (like Germany)? I'm fine with the latter, but somebody has to step forward and save the country from this idiot.

Rhoda Klapp

James, if you are not still outraged by stories like the Smith expenses fiddle, you should consider the possibility that you have gone native, and need a spell back in the real world. Do you not realise the anger ordinary people feel at stories like this?

frank goddsrd

Strapworld:
You only have to look at Bliar and his wealth creation to realise that its now endemic in the Labour Goverment,SELF,PARTY,COUNTRY.You are quite right of course.

Mitch

We watch the Downfall parody of brown and laugh but I would bet that the real thing is much funnier.

Trumpeter Lanfried

"Brown thinks he can still win the next election even if many of the Cabinet do not."

Wrong. Not one of them believes it. They know, in the bottom of their hearts, that they are beaten.

Polly Toynbee still believes it, of course, but then The Guardian has a policy of not discriminating against the clinically insane.

Slim Jim

I think Marbury is right. I remember listening to the speech IDS made prior to losing the leadership election a few years ago. It was embarrassing frankly, because most people knew he would lose.

Brown waited a long time to get the Precious; it has now turned into a poisoned chalice. I still think he will do the decent thing and resign this year to avoid the grey suits (or white coats) when they come a-knockin' at the door of No. 10.

The Laughing Cavalier

NoT getting the message across? Bunkum, his problem is that he IS getting his message across and the electorate doesn't like it.

Kevin Barry

It's still not totally inconceivable that Labour will win the next election, just increasingly unlikely.

They won in 2005 with 35% of the popular vote to the Tories' 32%. Whilst I'd expect the Tories to top that vote-share next time around, I am not sufficiently confident I to predict how that national increase in the popular vote will translate into an increase in the Tories' 30% of Westminster seats. Answers from any anoraks out there?

Barbara

"Their" goes another one?
Tsk, tsk.

TrevorsDen

Correct Collinson and Correct Klapp.

Von Stauffenberg ended up being strung up by piano wire from a butchers hook (all right I know he was shot) - this is not a fate (even an allegorical one) many cabinet ministers aspire to.

Would an alternative leader have an alternative policy? They all sleep walked through Browns inept handling of the City and Bankers, hie profligate spending and borrowing, and believed his end to boom and bust.

Tiberius

I don't think we can conclude that Brown is being courageous when he says he can still win. He is simply unbalanced.

TGF UKIP

Careful now, chaps and chapesses, Kevin Barry gets it right.

While the Tories are strongly favourites at the moment the polls consistently demonstrate two crucial factors.

Firstly there is no great appetite for a Cameron Tory government and crucially, in the economic shit we seem to be in Dave and Boy George are seen to be no better than Gordon and Darling at dealing with it. Secondly the Tory headline poll lead is entirely misleading since it is so heavily skewered by Dave's massive lead in his heartland South whereas in the North it's either neck and neck or a Labour lead. Furthermore, the most recent YouGov marginals poll gave the Cameron Tories a lead of only 7% (once again likely to be geographically unbalanced.)

In short while Dave is favourite, Gordon still does have everything to fight for and given the Tories proclivity for scandal and cock up Gordon is entirely justified.

Thomas Cussans

Rhoda: Spot on.

James: Wake up!

These slime balls are systematically screwing us. They must be held to account.

The Home Secretary thinks there is nothing wrong in claiming for false expenses and your reaction is to shrug?

What have we been reduced to?

HFC

'Brown Still Believes'

Yes, he probably does, like the gambler who hopes that just one more roll of the dice, one more poker hand, one more favourite backed will restore all his past losses.

Unfortunately for us, Brown has funded his gambling habit with our and our children's money.

Perhaps Brown's final throw is the G20; but what if that gamble fails, too?

TGF UKIP

Not entirely James' fault, if he's never been outside the academic/journo/politico bubble, why should he be expected to view matters like the Jacqui affair as an "ordinary" might?

Meanwhile, an excellent point in a letter to the DT today in which the correspondent points out that irrefutable evidence as to the amount of time Smith spent at her sister's house is easily obtainable from her mobile phone company's technical data, records which they are obliged to retain as a result of this government's citizen surveillance legislation.

Delicious!

Given his only too evident reluctance to investigate Smith can I suggest Coffee Housers write to John Lyon the parliamentary watchpoodle to point this out.

The full address is:

John Lyon CB
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards,
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

zaki

WHY hasn't there been a public outcry over Brown's policy on pn punishing the poor?

2 million council tenants in England will see their rents rise by approx 6.2 per cent, at the same time he is protecting homeowners.

The Labour Govt. are betraying the very people that they are meant to represent.

Good job Gordon- now you have ensured that traditional voters will turn their backs on you !!!

You have protected middle England and the home owners and are punishing the poor !!!

Congratulations- Gordon Brown- you have chosen to spit in the eye of the poor people of this country.

Augustus

Gordon Brown is no longer engaged in a standard political battle to lead his party's re-election. Instead he is fighting to avoid going down in history disgraced completely. Throughout his incompetent chancellorship he turned on the fountain of cheap money and encouraged the country to swim in it. The same bankers Brown now claims to criticise he once wooed, travelling to the City to give speeches praising their financial innovation. He Boasted throughout of the beauty of his regulatory
structure while those in charge of it were failing to ask the most basic questions of financial institutions. Britain, thanks to New Labour and to Gordon Brown in particular, now stands on the precipice of possibly the greatest economic disaster in its history. It has been brought to its knees in utter humiliation.