Good enough for Labour
Lloyd Evans 5:28pm
For Brown this was a doddle. He couldn’t fluff it. Expectations have sunk so low that all he had to do today was show up, try not to look too knackered, spout a few revivalist platitudes and make sure he didn’t fall over. The rebellion has stalled, the plotters are paralysed. Those who criticise won’t lead, while those who would lead won’t criticise. Mandy, like a protection racketeer within the cabinet, has enriched himself in the currency of ‘loyalty’ (which in these circumstances means a reluctance to coerce others to be disloyal), and yesterday he couldn’t contain his delight at the scale of his new-found wealth.
And so Mr Brown, Mandy’s proudest protégé, appeared at 2 pm today on the Brighton seafront. Frogmarching himself stiffly along the esplanade he paused to smile and shake hands with impartial members of the local Labour party who just happened to be there, cheering and waving at their leader. Alongside him toddled the curvy figure of Sarah, her figure rippling in a starburst dress which shared its colour range with a full pack of Opal fruits. Whoopsidaisy, Sarah. Wrong moment to discover your inner Cherie.
Inside the hall she took to the rostrum and warmed up the crowd with a character-assassination of her husband. He’s intense, messy, extremely noisy, she said, and he’s cursed with terrible sleeping habits. ‘And here he is’. As Sarah withdraw, the intense, messy and extremely noisy insomniac walked up to the platform looking like the personification of a yawn.
He started uncertainly in pseudo-prophetic style. ‘Fighters and believers,’ he announced, ‘change the world.’ Righty-oh. Then, quite unexpectedly, he hit his stride. A list of Labour achievements since 1997 had the hall on its feet, roared and whooping. This ovation calmed Brown’s nerves and he relaxed visibly, his efforts encouraged at every step by surges of applause from the audience. The hall was like some anxious parent spurring an uncertain toddler to walk.
Brown’s plan for Britain’s future has three prongs. Making bankers stop being naughty with other people’s dosh. Advancing the low carbon economy. And releasing talent so that the young can ‘lead and succeed.’
Platitudes aplenty there but his forceful delivery and his evident relish for the coming fight will have stiffened resolve in the Labour heartlands. How they love to be told that the NHS is ‘not a 60-year mistake but a 60-year liberation!’ Brown brightened his speech with a fistful of new initiatives and he offered some philosophical refinements for his opponents to consider. Too much government disempowers, he conceded. But too much government indifference does the same.
Compulsory ID cards will be scrapped. Hereditary peers will be removed and a new ‘democratic and accountable’ house of lords created. A minimum level of foreign aid, fixed at 0.7 % of GDP, will be carved in legislative stone. And the AV system will be referred to the people although Brown didn’t say which system the referendum itself would use. Most startlingly he announced that teenage mums will forfeit their right to a council house. Instead the knocked up madonnas will be kennelled in government quarters and taught responsible parenting. Sounds like a council house with a prefect.
Finally he turned on the Conservatives but he didn’t bother with the usual jokes. Once upon a time the mere mention of Tories would crack the Labour conference up. Now they threaten to crack the Labour party up.
Brown assaulted the opposition using one of his favourite tactics, the statistic with a false bottom. He announced that the Tories planned ‘a £200,000 tax giveaway to the wealthiest 3000 estates.’ He said Cameron’s scheme to reduce the Home Office budget would mean cutting ‘the equivalent of 3,500 police officers this year alone’. And he alleged – surely untruthfully – that the Tories will ‘scrap the right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks.’
He finished with a pick-n-mix of soundbites. ‘Because the task is difficult,’ he hollered, ‘the triumph will be even greater!’ Translation: ‘if defeat is inevitable let it be glorious!’ That will satisfy the Tories. It has always satisfied Labour.
Previous
Yawn
September 29th, 2009 5:45pm Report this commentYawn. Not, it should be pointed out, at the article above which is grimly amusing, but a huge, cavernous yawn at the prospect of the forthcoming electoral circus.
Disorganised1
September 29th, 2009 5:48pm Report this commentOoooh - another referendum - Labour always keep their promises on those !
Vulture
September 29th, 2009 5:59pm Report this commentGood enough for Liebour = absolutely terrible for everyone else.
drakes drum
September 29th, 2009 6:00pm Report this commentGoodness me, what a brilliant man Brown is.
What the writer has failed to mention that the policy Guido Fawkes calls 'Gulags for Slags', mentioned by our great and beloved leader is a BNP Policy!!
First Brown took British Jobs for British Workers from the BNP now this!! Sums this totalitarian party quite nicely.
Hysteria
September 29th, 2009 6:22pm Report this commentyes well taking a BNP policy merely proves the point as oft posted here - the BNP is a far LEFT party....
JONNY
September 29th, 2009 6:29pm Report this commentHanging onto Sarah's coat-tails like Little Boy Lost.
Red Rag
September 29th, 2009 7:02pm Report this commentAnd like night follows day, yet another predictable yawn inducing report from one of Camerons deepest brown tongues. Cannot wait for next weeks ejaculation fest at the policy free speech from your hero.
"Dave walked onto the stage like a gladiator and all before him bowed....ahhhh.....anyone got a tissue"
English Guy
September 29th, 2009 7:24pm Report this commentRedrag - you're conveniently forgetting the tripe written by that tw*t Sion Simon after McDoom's last conference speech. Labour? You're lost.
RSimpson
September 29th, 2009 7:37pm Report this commentSo our estimable PM has decided that the AV voting system is the right one for us. I understand that, had it used at the 1997 and subsequent elections, Labour's majority at each election would have been increased. Surely that couldn't have been a consideration, could it?
Now, if David Cameron were to promise a referendum offering English voters the opportunity to have an English Parliament, that really would put the cat amongst Brown's pigeons.
Jeremy
September 29th, 2009 7:48pm Report this comment"Hereditary peers will be removed and a new ‘democratic and accountable’ house of lords created."
Personally, I would give back to the hereditary peers both their votes and their influence. What did Churchill call them? "The Home Guard". Our last-ditch guarantors against the kind of elective dictatorship represented by this government. Besides which, by virtue of their long (very long) association with this country the hereditary peers have a natural stake and interest in its wellbeing. They are perfectly suited to the task which they used to perform, and since removing their votes who can honestly say the House of Commons has not become an overweening monster? And who can say that the life peers - a number of whom have recently been mired in financial scandals - have added lustre to the Lords?
Moraymint
September 29th, 2009 7:57pm Report this commentA list of platitudes, tactical trivia and unachievable policy fantasies involving spending yet more vast sums of money that the Government doesn't have. True Gordon Brown stuff.
By 2011, we'll be cuddling £1.1 trillion of Gordon's national debt. By next year, just the interest alone on Gordon's debt pile will be running at £43 billion pa: more than the defence budget.
How come the First Lord of the Treasury had nothing to say about the near-guaranteed economic catastrophe that is now accelerating towards the British people like a steam train?
Piss, wind, puff, spin, theatre, propaganda ... all the stuff of Conference, whilst the nation slithers into a socio-economic black hole.
I really do hope that Cameron and the Tories have a game plan for dealing with what lies ahead; clearly the Labour Party doesn't.
Over to you Dave; it had better be good.
Oor Wullie
September 29th, 2009 8:09pm Report this commentCouldn't believe it when Sarah brown introduced him as "My hero"!!
Pass the sick bag Alice....
STRAPWORLD
September 29th, 2009 8:14pm Report this commentRedRag, you must be really pleased, Brown has signalled the return of that most hated, by the poor and downtrodden,institution the WORKHOUSE!!!
Jeremy
September 29th, 2009 9:11pm Report this comment"And the AV system will be referred to the people..."
Did the people ask for the AV system to be referred to them? Did they ask for it at all?
As I recall, what the people have asked for - and still want - is a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Perhaps the government simply misunderstood them...
Nicholas
September 29th, 2009 9:49pm Report this commentRed Rag. The flag of the comintern and the comrades still sing the song aspiring to keep it flying. It's red because its drenched with the blood and suffering of millions of victims of communism and socialism across the globe, from the execution basements of Stalin to the killing fields of Kampuchea. Me, I'd be deeply ashamed of its symbolism and wouldn't want it for a pseudonym.
Stephen Lark
September 29th, 2009 10:07pm Report this commentLloyd,
Great article about Brown's valedictory performance but just one thing: Frogmarching involves two other people taking someone by the armpits and making him walk forwards. One cannot frogmarch oneself.
Stephen
Nicholas
September 29th, 2009 10:09pm Report this commentJeremy: "Personally, I would give back to the hereditary peers both their votes and their influence. What did Churchill call them? "The Home Guard". Our last-ditch guarantors against the kind of elective dictatorship represented by this government. Besides which, by virtue of their long (very long) association with this country the hereditary peers have a natural stake and interest in its wellbeing. They are perfectly suited to the task which they used to perform, and since removing their votes who can honestly say the House of Commons has not become an overweening monster? And who can say that the life peers - a number of whom have recently been mired in financial scandals - have added lustre to the Lords?"
Absolutely. I agree with these words. I think Blair's tinkering with the Lords has damaged centuries of proven effectiveness in protecting us from the tyrannical government of the Commons sham. The word democracy is no good just as a thin veil for corruption and vested interests.
Cuffleyburgers
September 30th, 2009 7:46am Report this commentAn elected house of lords is the obvious solution, if you are a professional politician.
My opinion is that a politicized upper house, with "lords" worrying about being re-elected would be totally unable saisfactorily to be able to carry out its constitutional role (oh sorry I had forgotten Brown's intention that our constitution be managed from Brussels).
Having dismantled the hereditaries I suspect it would be unsatisfactory to try to put them back however it ought to be possible to invent a system some sort of cross party committee to nominate certain individuals as lords, no or low salary but generous expenses, with a view to having a properly functioning Upper house.
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