Oil-and-water politics

Verity

"Powerful stuff." Surely you jest! It's pompous, windy, verbose, self-justifying, empty quangospeak. Notice he doesn't refer to a single fact. It's just a great gush of hot air.

Pete Hoskin

Verity: it was a bit tongue-in-cheek! As I hope this post - and previous ones of mine - demonstrate, I suspect Brown's words on reform are just as "empty" as you say they are.

madasafish

"but also empower both the users of services and all the professionals who deliver them to drive up standards for all." Like NHS dentistry? As Verity said, your "powerful stuff" comment is clearly inappropraite.. loads of ##### is perhaps more relevant

Pete Hoskin

madasafish: see above!

Mike

It's just about closing down areas of political debate with the Tories. See! We're all for public sector reform. That NuLab won't do anything other than talk about it is beside the point. More lies.

Slim Jim

Brown mentions the 'third stage of reform'. I can't say I'm familiar with the first and second stages. Could it be: Stage 1: Take a public service that works; Stage 2: Break it, yet claim it to be a success, and even convince the media & public. Maybe Stage 3 is when they try to put it back together again whilst mumbling about change, growth, choice, accessibility, etc. Oh, and blaming the Tories...

CS

Powerful stuff, my lower colon. What is the tendency in recent weeks for The Coffee House to report the most futile and facile announcements by anyone in politics as if it were earth-shattering news? Brown hires a new PR team - SHAZZAM!!! Brown makes a meaningless speech on the public services which says nothing and ties him down to even less - KAPOW!!! Are you afraid that, if you don't constantly bombard us with opinion for its own sake, we'll lose interest and go elsewhere? The converse is more likely.

Tiberius

So tomorrow's fish and chip paper won't be pink as it's full of content unfit for contact with food. Peter, it is sometimes difficult to convey irony or even sarcasm on a blog without smilies.

Madasafish

It's clear what he means:"no backtracking on reform, no go-slow, no reversals and no easy compromises" ID cards are coming. He's going to let there be a major super casino in Manchester. Oops sorry those are reforms that appear to have been backtracked...

Pete Hoskin

Tiberius: point duly noted!

Chuck Unsworth

What in God's name does it actually mean? Reform of what? Third Stage of what? Backtracking on what? This man speaks in cliches. I'd guess he thinks in cliches, too. He doesn't actully understand what he is mouthing. These platitudes, revolutionary slogans etc mean precisely damn all. Sorry Mr Brown, would you please just go back to the beginning again? I've lost track of the narrative. This is total, unfettered, unadulterated, Grade A testicles. About time that he and his colleagues learned to put some simple english (yes, English!)sentences together which actually relate to reality. Just tell me what you've done with my cash - apart from record tractor production or whatever it is you're blethering on about. Over a decade in office - for what, exactly? Is Brown seriously of the view that everything is getting better all the time? If so why have we had to have a state of constant Cuban revolution? Where and when did the grandiose NuLab Scheme start to fall apart?

Ted Tedford

'His' articles read like they've been written by someone using the Westminster wonk version of fridge poetry magnets. I bet you could take the FT article, cut it up into separate subordinate clauses, pull them out of a hat at random and arrange them into sentences. You could produce an almost infinite supply of articles that would read at least as coherently as anything under the Brown byline.

TrevorH

"...there can be no backtracking on reform, no go-slow, no reversals and no easy compromises. " Come on everybody, when Brown says this he really meansd the exact opposite. Does ANYONE really take anything Brown actually SAYS seriously? Does anyone believe that when Brown opens his mouth it is to communicate, rather than obfuscate? If so tell us which planet you have just landed from. Two words, "smoke" and "mirrors".

Themisive

When a person is elected to Parliament, he/she is elected on a set of promises to THEIR electorate, NOT to toe the party line. Why cannot the Government - all the parties, not just Labour - allow more free votes. It brings to mind that song from HMS Pinafore "He always voted at his parties call/never thought of himself at all"