Brown at it again on party funding

jo

Exactly so. However, it is the Opposition's job to ensure that Brown is not allowed to get away with these statements. One should be able to rely on the media to point out these misrepresentations but with a few honourable exceptions this is unlikely to happen. Brown will continue to say that black is white and vice versa (read Tom Bower's biography of GB for chapter and verse) for as long as he is allowed to. Landing a few good punches at PMQ is not enough: the Tories need to deconstruct the GB myths at every opportunity.

Mike

The Conservatives need to get their "rapid rebuttal" service up and running asap to counter Browns blatant lies. Plus they need to show him up to be the spinner and liar he in

Mike

The Conservatives need to get their "rapid rebuttal" service up and running asap to counter Browns blatant lies. Plus they need to show him up to be the spinner and liar he is

GS London

Amongst the many recent criticisms of Brown, has anyone commented that he doesn't seem to be a very nice person?

Amanda Huggenkiss

I agree, Mr GS. Mr Brown does not seem to be a very nice person. I would be most reluctant to go on holiday to Disneyland with him. He looks like the sort of bloke who would just sit around complaining about the noise, the prices and the people in mice costumes.

Ed

Re GB: Hubris and self-delusion have always made fine bed-fellows.

Heyward Yerbloemie

Amanda Huggenkiss is talking rubbish. A friend of mine went on holiday with Mr Brown to Disneyland and apparently he was great fun. Mr Brown said he particularly liked EPCOT, until my friend told him that that was at Disney WORLD, and he looked a bit shifty and said something about having to go for dinner.

TGF UKIP

Brown gets away with it because the Tories allow him to. At a similar stage Blair, Brown Campbell & Mandelson were ferociously dismembering John Major. It was bareknuckle, eye gouging, below the belt stuff - and it worked, boy did it work! No use you Tories huffing and puffing in The Speccie or the The Telegraph (now promoters of Brown anyway) about his skill in "the art of misrepresentation" that simply by-passes at least 90% of the population. It,s time to do a "Gordon" back and get down and get dirty. Cameron, or someone very senior (my man DD would have just the right touch) needs to go on the BBC, ideally on Marr, and use the "L" word and when Marr responds "Are you really calling our PM a liar" the answer should come "Andrew, we're not just fed up with Browns lies and misrepresentations we're even more fed up with parts of the media and particularly the BBC not challenging him over what they know to be falsehoods." When Marr coughs and splutters Dave or DD should simply produce an impressive looking file and start on the examples. They won't do it of course because Dave, Boy George, Hilton and Coulson aren't Blair, Brown, Mandelson and Campbell.

Alex, London

TGF UKIP - Brown gets away with it because the Tories allow him to. You are wrong. Brown gets away with it because the partisan political media allow him to.

Fergus Pickering

I think Brown believes what he says. He thinks like this. I am the cleverest person I know. I have a first class fist calass degree and a Ph.D. to prove it and I went to Glasgow University at an age when posh Oxbridge people were still doing their O levels. There has always been a conspiracy to stop me taking my rightful place at the top and everybody is in it except those people who are my supporters and agree with everything I say. Tories are wicked people and the source of all evil. Some people, like Tony Blair, are secret Tories. In countering evil the good and the clever are justified in stretching the truth a bit because there mis a higher truth THAT I AM THE PROPHET OF GOD. In fact I am not just the prophet, I am.... The text to read is James Hogg's 'Confessions of a Justified Sinner'. But the Sinner gets carried away by the Devil in the end so everything will be OK for the rest of us.

jo

TGF UKIP and Alex - you are both right. The fact that the media are generally Nu Lab friendly means that the Tories must work all the harder to deconstruct these porkies. Of course the attacks on John Major and his govt were made in the context of a compliant media, so the situation here is not identical.

Jackart

Did you read me or did I read you?

Ryan Stephenson

I think the Tories should rise above this kind of thing. It is only Labour that is being investigated by the police and this will become apparent in the fullness of time. Labour tried to claim the Tories were just as bad during "Cash for Honours" but it didn't wash with the public. They knew that the police were only interested in Labour really and consequently Blair's popularity plummeted. The Tories really shouldn't climb in the gutter with this crowd. They WILL be the next government and they need to act like a government the people can trust and look up to with confidence. They will not achieve that if they stoop to the level of Mr Brown. Brown looks like a little boy caught doing something naughty and trying to say "well, my bruvver did it too!". The public will see right through him.

Ben

Practise? As a noun?

Tiberius

But isn't New Labour's current meltdown in part due to the holier-than-thou standpoint adopted by Blair and his boot boys? There is no need for the Tories to get all high and mighty as they did - New Labour is quite capable of imploding by itself without the Tories risking setting themselves up for a fall some years down the road.

Caroline

Goodness only knows what you're wittering about - Cameron's been caught bang to rights. To suggest that he wasn't aware of illegal cash in his own constituency is 'beggaring belief' all over the internet and press. I suppose the name Dobbs would have rung a bell with most people interested in politics, especially if it wasn't the right christian name. It also 'beggars belief' that Regents Park and Kensington North accepted £25,000 of 'impermissible', that had to be returned and that Joanne Cash (!) 'knew nothing about what was done in her name' either. This is a very sticky area for all parties, and Cameron would do better and have less egg on his face if he shut up, got a bit of courage and went back to the table to sort out funding with the other parties, instead of doing his disreputable 'holier than thou' act. Talk about irony - you couldn't make it up. Lucky he's out of the country, because having to listen to his pathetic excuses would be sick making.

john sheppard

Caroline Take you head from your nether regions and grow up. If you can't see that in addition to be completely incompetent the labour party have form .Need I remind you of Mandlesohn, Blunkett , Ecclestone , Jowell,Harman, Hain, Alexander and many others yet to be revealed . This is a stcky area for one party, Zanu Labour

Fraser Nelson

Caroline, I'm interested - why do you think funding needs to be "sorted out"? Shouldn't we expect everyone (tories included) to just obey the law like the rest of us do? And if that means less money to spend carpetbombing marginals with junk mail at election time, isn't that a good thing?

Julian the Wonderhorse

Don't you think Gordon Brown is a bit like the cleaner in Hi-De-Hi, always wanting to be a yellocoat for all those years; and then when she (he) did get promoted the camp started to close down? I would love to see a montage of that on TV. Just remember, media babes, I thought of it first.

tory boys never grow up

Questions for Dave when he eventually surfaces - when did you know about the "mistakes" by your Constituency Association? - why didn't you tell the Press about them straight away? - what other "mistakes" by the Conservative Party are you aware of which are not yet in the public domain?

Caroline

Fraser - like any member of the public I'm sick and poisoned with every party's 'dodgy donations', and of course they should all behave within the law - but unfortunately there are so many 'accidents' aren't there? Virtually weekly. There should be less money - period. But Cameron doesn't help by walking out on discussions about party funding because he can't have it all his own way. I would rather pay a tenner a year or whatever - make a fresh start - and try to rid ourselves of this cynical posturing. And John Sheppard - have a word with yourself and don't bother with the list - we've all been there, done that. 'Zanu Labour' -and you tell me to grow up!

Lola

Brown is essentially deceitful. I think it may be due to his upbringing. A need to have facility with excuses and to shift blame from himself. He has used the facility, consciously or unconsciously, ever sinec he began in politics but most sinec 1997. Ultimately it makes him completely unsuitable to be a Prime Minister. It is also why many women seem to dislike him. They being better at reading people than us semi autistic blokes. He is doomed.

Margaret Young

Another important matter Fraser are the non dom millionaires who bankroll the Conservatives, Ashcroft and Laidlaw. I seem to recall Hague when leader indicated Ashcroft would return to the UK and pay income tax. After writing to Tony Blair at Downing Street, saying that the then Mr Ashcroft was prepared to forfeit tens of millions of pounds a year in taxation, Mr Hague wrote to the chairman of the honours committee, the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Thomson, insisting his party's treasurer had met all of the committee's concerns. Lord Thomson then wrote to Mr Blair asking him to ensure that Mr Ashcroft was resident in Britain before he took up his seat. In March 2000, when the peerage was finally confirmed, Downing Street issued a statement that "in order to meet the requirements for a working peer, Mr Michael Ashcroft has given his clear and unequivocal assurance that he will take up permanent residence in the UK before the end of the calendar year". We are still waiting and both Cameron and Ashcroft avoid answering this question directly. There is something distinctly unhealthy with the influence Lord A exerts within CCHQ and a marginal seats campaign, which exploits a loophole in electoral law.

lola

Neither Ashcroft's or Laidlaw's contributions are made illegally, which it looks like those made to New Labour were. And anyway NL is in financial thrall to another minority group - the Unions - which is arguably just as problematic.