No surprises – and much Tory-bashing – in Brown's Big Speech

Prodicus

"He caricatured Cameron & Co. as a party of privilege and wealth, who are more concerned about fox-hunting than reform"

(a) undignified from a Prime Minister

(b) hilarious from a PM who blocked out the Parliamentary timetable with **700** hours of debate on foxhunting so that he could force the Lisbon Treaty on an angry electorate which was thoroughly opposed to it.

Question for The Prime Minister: 'Would he care to define the words 'fair', 'democratic' and 'ludicrous'?

Time's up. Out.

Ghengis

Well, he's given our wonderful language another almighty mauling. If I hear him expound "WE HAVE GOT TO -----" one more time, I may be minded to re-enter politics.

Paddy

Attacking the Tories:

It really shows how bitter and twisted he is.

patently

Its time for Gordon to stop telling us how great he thinks he is. It's time for us to have the chance to tell him.

Just call the election, Gordon.

denis cooper

A powerful speech, with powerful arguments which many will find persuasive and which the useless, unpatriotic, anti-democratic, corrupt, deceitful, degenerate and incompetent Tory political gang will find difficult to counter.

golfwidow

"if you put partisan point scoring before a consensus" - this from the most tribal, mantra-spouting PM ever!

wonderfulforhisage

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. But, with the help of A.Campbell and Lord M. you can avoid making a pig's ear of it.

welease woger

Labour seem intent on not making it a referendum on their record but inevitably it will be.

Take a look at both Labour and Conservatives? That's a message the Tories can live with.

Nash

If the British electorate votes in Labour, they only have themselves to blame for what happens. Gordon Brown certainly has no shame - in better times he would have fallen on his sword and resigned.

brogan

The question is whether to fight fire with fire or not. Can this vainglorious man be allowed to get away with his slurs, smears and transparent mendacity? So far, he mostly gets too easy a ride - only answering one question at press-conferences, not answering at all at PMQ's, soft-soap interviews.
Undoubtedly, the TV debates will be skewed so that he is still unchallenged.
How to nail the easiest of targets, that is the issue for Cam's back-room team. Thus far, they have largely failed. It's pointless using the likes of Theresa May or those bland wonks such as Dominic whatisface. We need articulate attack-dogs! To blazes with focus-groups and all that rubbish; it's only playing their game and their game is clearly past.
Time to lead, Dave.

oldtimer

The BBC reporter (1pm news) described it as an appeal to the core Labour supporter to get out and vote come the GE. If so, he in in desparate straits. Labour lacks troops on the ground (ie local councillors) where it matters as is revealed by Bunnco`s perceptive post over at politicalbetting.com on what is going on in the marginals.

At the GE I think the will to be rid of Brown and co will be much stronger than the will to keep him as PM.

PaulK

What did you expect from a Labour government that ran out of steam long ago? Nothing new from them - not now, not later, so don't expect any pre-election manifesto surprises. We've had Brown "re-invent" himself more times than Dr Who while the Dark Time Lord aka Lord Mandleson waits in the background...

Diane C - London

So .... he's suggesting the country should have a FOURTH look at Labour. Does he think we are all fools ...

JONNY

Can he win?
Probably depends on how many denis coopers there are on the ground.

Phil

"A future fair for all" is everyone's aspiration but voicing it after being the incumbent party for well over a decade rather beggars the question "After 13 years how much bloody longer are you expecting us to wait or do you think that we really are that thick?"

Liz Brown

is gormless going to tell us the date of the election or is it a secret that requires an FOI for the date to be revealed.
By "launching" a campaign without a date reconfirms his cowardice

toco

Any person who is close mates as Brown is with the Smeargate trio of Damian McBride,Charlie Whelan and Derek Draper is neither to be admired nor trusted.As for the economy, we were all better off under the Conservatives so the increasingly dysfunctional Brown is playing a dangerous game here.

Nick

It's interesting that he thinks giving Labour a second look is actually going to encourage anyone to vote for him.

As the scale of the UK's economic problems become known by, and impact upon, a greater number of people then a "second look" will surely put off many who might otherwise have voted Labour unthinkingly.

Dorothy Wilson

There was a facinating juxaposition of pictures of Cameron and Brown in yesterday's Mail [page 7]. Cameron looked relaxed and enjoying himself. Brown looked as wrinkled as a walnut and simply past it. Also he was pointing towards himself with both hands - me! me! me!

The harsh truth, Mr Brown, is that, if by any remote chance, you managed to win the next election come the next crisis, which would arrive pretty quickly, you would be facing a leader challenge.

Irene

"take a second look at us"

We have taken a long hard look at Labour for 13 years and we don't like what we see.

inigo jones

Another brilliant piece of Mandelson party propaganda spouted by Gordon Brown. I particularly enjoyed the supporting 'pop~ups' that preceded the triumphal entry of the Great Leader. MORE of the same Please! : The more we see of him, the less we like him.

Pramston

We all know who Gordon came into politics to represent - himself. The electorate need to take a second look at labour, they have got away too lightly, that 30% still intend to vote for this dishonest, moribund party is a sad reflection of modern Britain.

2trueblue

Another look..... why? You have given away our future, denied us our referendum on the EU, destroyed our culture, divided our society, allowed our child poverty to grow in numbers. The list is endless and Cameron must start listing it out loud and clear.
The election will be announced this coming week. It has to be soon before any really true figures on the economy come out.

Michael Booth

Mandelson said something about Brown being a leader at the peak of his powers... God helpt us if what we have seen for the last thirteen years is a leader at his peak...

wrinkled weasel

This is the third post featuring the gurning visage of the grand vizier of fruitcakeyness.

I am now going off to be Moby Dick.

emil

And of course the Politburu, er BBC, makes this the lead item on all their news bulletins, bit of an own goal though advertising that everyone should take a "second look" at Labour policies.

Sevo

Dennis Cooper: that was irony, right? You can't possibly be serious. But you were indeed just being sarcastic, yes? Please say yes.

RightSaidFred

I'll promise you this much Gordo, I'll take a GOOD, LONG, HARD LOOK at the £777,000,000,000 debt figure at the top of the screen and wonder why te hell I should help you get it to £1,000,000,000,000. I think even a dumb idiot like Brown can probably anticipate my response.

Willie de Peepul

Conservative social divisions?

No problem. How about the hard-working vs the indigent lard-arses? Or the sensibly moral vs those who think getting up the duff at 14 is a good life plan (AND the parent[s] who failed to teach them otherwise) Or how about those who wish to live peaceful lives providing for families vs those who (poor lambs) feel their religion has been so slighted that they think they have the right to kill or maim innocent commuters. Or indeed those who, though their religious faith may have faded a bit the Christian ethics underpinning it haven't, vs those who would force us into a one size fits all foreign faith (and I might just be referring to Marxism as well as another religion.) Or even those who have lived lives of financial prudence vs those whose profligacy has caused the present recession, and who now plan to release the devil of INFLATION to help erode away the true value of the debts they have incurred, while thereby thoughtlessly condemning a generation of savers to old age penury.
Oh, yes. Dave has plenty of social dividing lines to draw; good ones, that I wish he and his cohorts would just start shouting LOUD and CLEAR across the rooftops.

Willie de Peepul

Nash
February 20th, 2010 1:35pm

Wouldn't it be better if he just simply fell on his sword (not a metaphor)?

Willie de Peepul

Diane C - London
February 20th, 2010 2:41pm

Fools? We-ell, not you, personally, perhaps, but who voted them in the last three times? Sane people?

Major Plonquer

The REAL story of the forthcoming election will be the over-use of a tactic that is now 20 years old. Will it be negative campaigning? No. Will it be a return to the soapbox? No.

Today Adobe's flagship Photoshop software is 20 years old (Happy Birthday). Next week Gordon Brown will discover it for the first time.

michael

Negative campaigning?...nah not the PM surely.

hypocrisy hyprocrisy hypocrisy

Same old Gordon

Frank P

Willie de Peepul

"Wouldn't it be better if he just simply fell on his sword (not a metaphor)?"

He's probably more likely to sit on Mandybums pork sword - or vice versa, perhaps?

Frank Leader

Brown tells his people not to talk about their record over the last 13 years. A very wise decision. Their successes very few. Their Blunders very Many. Gold Sales, Pensions Plunder. Boom and BUST, BUST. Their very many 'achievements' are nothing to boast about.

yohodi

Dear Dave.
Thank you for plucking defeat from the very jaws of victory......I can see it now...

Barbara

Gordon Brown is quite right; the Tories are over privileged, they’re also totally clueless about everyday life, surely you haven’t forgotten the state Thatcher the Milk Snatcher left this country in? Living in the North East I’ll certainly never forget how she just about closed our part of the country down! Cameron is being worked by the Countryside Alliance and is more interested in repealing the hunting ban to please them and his hunting cronies, despite the majority of the electorate wanting the hunting ban to stay and be strengthened, than he is in bothering about health, education or law and order, there’s no way I’ll be voting for that lot. Labour is far from perfect but they’re the best of a bad bunch as far as I’m concerned.

logdon

Down to six points?

Brown is loathed.

Labour is despised.

An easy victory .

In the bag.

Bring it on.

Then the flip flop on spending, fudged marriage message, confused attack on HuT muslim school funding, no referendum on Lisbon, increase in foreign aid, an open door to African aids victims, not one jot about Neather, PC candidate edicts, no second look at climate change in view of recent revelations. We all know the score.

So as an extremely large number of our electorate are entitled to ask,’what’s in it for me, an indigenous white, born and bred in England, Englishman or woman, Mr Cameron?’

Or don’t I count?

We had enough of the bugger the Brits under Labour to last a lifetime. Why vote for more of the same?

Look to America. Electoral mood GOP moved to centre ground. Result? McCain annihilated. Now the Obama buyers remorse has set in and the Tea Parties are trashing that so called liberal consensus. Three local elections have established what Americans want and we’re no different.

We want our country back. We want less state interferance. We want equality for all instead of the minority favoured few. We want law and order rather than politics spewing coppers. We want a health service not a bloated superannuation scheme for Labour voters.

It’s that simple.

mhayworth

Lets get rid of the three main parties who have sold our country in the guise of a free market. I want my most basic right back and that is to elect those who legislate. I'll vote UKIP for the sake of the nation and will fight to uphold the hunting act, to ensure it is a civilised one!