Live by the spin, perish by the spin

Nicholas

Déjà vu. Brown keeps pulling rabbits out of his hat, albeit dead ones, and the MM keep speculating how far this will let him rise in the polls (the 'bounce'). Can't you all see how facile this is? As long as observers like Oborne are in the minority nothing will change and we will be along for the ride on Brown's ghastly bandwagon of lies and deceit.

Every time we think the bull has finally had it he rallies and the bullfighters scatter, speculating how much strength he has left and how long the spectacle will go on. What will the next dead rabbit be as Brown lurches from headline to headline? We need courage and a very sharp sword to put this dangerous beast out of its misery, and the misery it inflicts on all of us, once and for all.

Chuck Unsworth

"The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones"

So, here we have duplicity exposed. People are now generally more prepared to think ill of others, particularly politicians. Thus Brown's words will be immediately seen as yet another attempt to manipulate and lie to the public.

Markets are not stupid. The traders knew that there would be a bounce - and have now taken their profits. This is a long haul and yesterday's headlines are already chip wrappings being blown around the arid dust bowl of another Great Depression.

Peter

The question is surely why Brown is getting any good headlines if it is all spin. How is this not a culpable collusion by the media? When and how do we get to dump them like all the other liars?

Gil

James, aren't you (or Oborne)being a little too harsh? This isn't a very good analysis more a game of 'catch the liar out'. If it is true that peoples' lives will not improve then surely the results will be seen in the opinion polls and eventually at the ballot box. It seems that come commentators had made their minds up even before the summit had convened - that it was going to fail. And so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy for them.

As I understand it (I'm no economist), unemployment is a lagging indicator and so it probably obvious why people are still losing their jobs.

What did you expect the leaders to do, not talk about hope? Do you want the doom merchants of the far left and the BNP to have a field day with the ensuing collapse of public confidence in the leadership. There is room for some hyperbole at these sort of events. After all, wasn't the symbolism of the Monarchy invoked in this event too? In my opinion, some of that was over the top too.

Governments must give hope to people and show them that there is a brighter future ahead otherwise democracy itself is in peril.

This endless carping about Brown is beginning to sound a tad unreasonable. Would Cameron have behaved entirely differently in similar circumstances?

Colin

Well then, let's see how the MSM handle this...

If the G20 is just a gigantic con trick, as Peter Oborne seems to suggest, the stakes are indeed high.

The media hold almost all the cards here. The potential consequences should transcend party politics and traditional loyalties. There should be no place for the government's cheerleaders in the MSM to do anything other than provide expert, objective reporting of what has taken place, along with the likely consequences – regardless of the impact on Brown and his comrades.

However, already and predictably, two clear, but almost polar opposite views have formed amongst political and economic commentators. Both sides can't be right.

If Mr. Oborne turns out to be even half right and the MSM fell in behind him, standing shoulder to shoulder with the rest of us, calling the government to account for the deception, how long do you think this rotten regime would last?

A week?

Ten days?

Less?

If Peter Oborne is right and the MSM don't do the right thing at the right time, I'm not sure we will forgive them and forget as easily as we have in the past.

That said, what would we replace them with? More of the same, in the form of the current conservative party...

oldrightie

I commend your giving Oborne the publicity his article deserves. You might also push the child poverty scanadal breaking, as well.

Tiberius

A sound summary of something that Brown is too lacking in self-awareness to realize; that in satisfying his political vanity, he costs ordinary folk, who are fortunate enough to live above the "x" axis, huge amounts of money, pleasure and happiness, while those who live below it suffer ever greater amounts of disappointment, misery and relative poverty.

It is the fact that Brown is incapable of realizing what he has done and continues to do that one stops short of branding him some of the worst names provided by the English language (and the fact that some of them wouldn't get past the moderators).

Ciaran

Actually the piece exposes Oborne for the shrill propagandist and failed spin doctor he is. The world's stockmarkets went into reverse? So that is why the Dow closed up?

I know you Tories desperately want the recession to go on for ever, but you have to do better than this rubbish.

mac

"This endless carping about Brown is beginning to sound a tad unreasonable."

"Endless carping" in response to endless lying. That's reasonable, surely?

Jim

Gil, democracy in Britain died a long time ago. You are right in that Brown and Cameron are trying to put confidence into the system, but it is a rotten system. We have just lived through the final bubble of the fiat paper system. Anything they try to do to prop it up will just cause further problems. The quicker people accept that reality, the quicker we can move on and begin to rebuild.

Slim Jim

Gil - 'James, aren't you (or Oborne)being a little too harsh? This isn't a very good analysis more a game of 'catch the liar out'.'

It's fortunate that we have journalists with the calibre of Peter Oborne and Jeff Randall (as well as the Coffee House crew!) who tell it like it is. Are you happy with Brown's ridiculous boasts like 'no more boom and bust', or Britain is best placed', or the 10p tax fiasco, etc? The man is a lying, manipulative charlatan, and he has been found out! Again. Colin is right though - the MSM does indeed hold the trump cards. I will even agree with Polly Toynbee - the man is just like the Wizard of Oz, but who keeps closing the curtain back again?

StephenDC

Let's keep this discussion grounded in at least a small element of reality: the stock markets haven't gone into reverse!!!

Chuck Unsworth

Actually Ciaran the markets dropped 95.3 points during the course of Friday, having gone up during the course of Thursday, so it was a reverse. What's important is not the day to day change in the casino, it's the year on year performance. That's a very different story. This time last year the figure was roughly 6000 - compared with roughly 4000 now.

The Bellman

Gil: Yes, governments should offer hope, but that doesn't mean they should peddle delusions - the kind of happy, smiley, eternal sunshine, keep on shopping cobblers McSnotty and his cohort have been rehearsing. THAT is more threatening to 'democracy' than a smack of honesty.

If the next government wants to give Britons some hope, how about telling us that, although the next five, ten, whatever years will be difficult, the nasty, spiteful, joyless, pinch-paced, disapproving, controlling and infantilising attitudes of the 1997-2010 Labour government will be abandoned, and the associated exercise in ever-expanding State interference will be dismantled.

Then we can all get on living our lives, deciding for ourselves how many beers to drink, what constitutes an acceptable risk when at work, how our children should be educated, how much to pay our employees, how spend to our own money...

Fat chance, I expect some will say, of hearing that from the Tories - but it would at least be a foundation of genuine hope.

Ciaran

Actually Ciaran the markets dropped 95.3 points during the course of Friday

Actually, "the markets" did nothing of the sort. One market did, while the world's biggest rose, rendering Oborne's claim that "the world's stock markets, which on Thursday greeted the summit communique with elation, were going into sharp reverse last night" as nothing more than wishful thinking.

Like I said, if Tory propagandists like Oborne want to talk the economy down, that is their right. But they might try sticking to the facts if they wish to remain credible,

Gil

Jim: 'Gil, democracy in Britain died a long time ago.'

When exactly did it die and does this mean that elections are now abolished?

The Bellman:'If the next government wants to give Britons some hope, how about telling us that, although the next five, ten, whatever years will be difficult...'

Who says that the next 5-10 years will be 'difficult'? Some economists say that it will get better next year.

And calling Brown, McSnotty, McLiar etc. doesn't help either.

This summit was about giving hope to the East Europeans whose young democracies are still being tested. This summit was not JUST about the UK. As a supporter of Baroness Thatcher's policies I'm pleased that Brown wants to encourage the East Europeans' faith in democracy, just as Thatcher did. This is behind allowing the IMF to print its own money as I understand from the FT).

JONNY

'This endless carping about Brown is beginning to sound a tad unreasonable'
Nice one, Gil.
What do you suggest then - pat him gently on the head and murmur sweet nothings into his ear?
Personally I go a 'tad' further than 'carp'. I'd turn up the volume loud and clear. Cut out the niceties. And damn him for all the horrendous damage this oaf has done to the country.

JONNY

Boy are you impressionable, Gil.
I take it you're counting the days until they give you your lovely new ID Card.
And oh the thrill of having the most intimate details of yourself incapsulated on Brown's Super Date Base.

And talking about democracy, how effective are our elected MPs, do you think Gil, apart from lining their pockets? and waiting to be whipped into line by the overpowerful executive?
But I take it you've bought yourself a nice pair of rose-tinted sun shades for Easter.

Gil

Jonny, my intimate details will never be 'incapsulated' I can assure you. And what's wrong with a 'Date' base? Lovely fruit...

The Bellman

Gil: Leaving aside the fact that unemployment and many other problems that will attend this recession are lagging indicators, and the conditions that will accompany any IMF loan, however joyously de-stigmatised, will require changes that are unlikely to sit happily with the Prime Minister's ideas, I refer to the 'difficulties' involved in implementing policies that will be resisted by a lot of vested interests, but will be for the longer-term benefit of the country - of greater structural and social benefit than inflating house prices and getting people to take out another credit card.

Thanks to McSnotty, we are deeply in hock to the Chinese and Middle Eastern countries, hence the enormous sums involved in the bank bailouts that have been spent repaying the interest on loans from these creditors, rather than lending to businesses or each other. He has spent massively in an attempt to reassure them that eventually we'll repay them the huge sums they've lent, and that we were still good for further loans. I'm not sure how sucking up to Peking and Riyadh is good for democracy.

And calling him McSnotty might be 'unhelpful' - in that cherished phrase of the patronising puritan - but it is mildly cathartic, and easier than typing 'the Prime Minister'.