Brown seems to have blustered his way through yet another potential crisis

Sally Chatterjee

Though he maybe deluded and cynical he reminds me of an armoured tank. He just ploughs through criticism and fires off repeated phrases ("right thing to do" etc) like shells and backs this up with a machine gun delivery of statistics. He's untouchable.

adrian drummond

"But the general tone of the front pages, and of the broadcast coverage this morning, suggests that Brown has emerged relatively unscathed"

Exactly. This is always the case.

The media makes a judgement but why is it always so far removed from what most of us think? I think the MSM have been an utter disgrace over the last 15 years...

strapworld

Mr Hoskin. If you place stooges, with no experience of questioning of witnesses, unable to react to answers because they have their written questions they are sticking rigidly to! (WHO is writing the script?), Chaired by a nice chap who is from head to toe establishment and who has played by the meaning of 'words' all his working life. What can you expect.

Brown answered the questions asked. Not 'Did you guillotine the defence budget"?
But questions that he answered honestly but tongue in cheek.

We can all get upset and hot around the collar. But it is this expensive whitewash that will exonerate all and blame no one and come up with the weasel words 'We must learn by the mistakes'

I reckon the final report has already been written

BGarvie

Brown's performance at the Chilcot Enquiry was not convincing. As an eminent colleague suggested,he is incapable of recognising the truth even if administered scopolamine. Having watched and listened to his testimony he seemed confused, agitated, rambling speech, denial, hallucinational and paranoid. Perhaps he was injected with some before the hearing???

Irene

A paper reviewer on the BBC said that Brown bullied the enquiry team into submission "am I allowed to use that word" he said. He was spot on IMO.

I think they would have perhaps gone in harder had it been after the election.

I have a feeling this is what the Leaders' debates will be like unfortunately.

It is quite worrying to see the level of negativity against the Tories across the board near enough.

The spin is mind boggling - if there is a chance of dodgy headlines in the morning papers, up pops some announcement in the morning to take the heat off a bit ie Jack Straw re the Bulger case! which then leads the news.

Even the Today programme this morning dragged the A affair into it and what is this the 5th or 6th day.

And the election hasn't even been called yet!

Neil Turner

Another example of the divide between the media on the one hand, and the common man on the other

The media take the view above. Most people know that are troops have been denied the kit they need, and that Brown lied

I track around 8 newspapers a day, plus BBC and Sky. You would almost think there was a conspiracy of the hard left to infiltrate these entities that has a deliberate policy of downplaying NewLabour's sins, and magnifying those of the opposition

I ask myself
- why do they do this ?
- what's in for them ?
- what's against their interest if the opposition come to power ?

Any ideas ?

Haldane

What was on display yesterday and, indeed , throughout the testimony of all the Blair players to the Chilcot Inquiry, was the quintessential characteristic of New Labour - the ability to never utter a lie yet avoid telling the truth. They call it spin.

TrevorsDen

Of all the things to cut to laughably contain fiscal credibility Brown cuts defence at a time when we are fighting two wars. Absurd.

But as long as the media tiptoe around Brown and his lies then he gets away with it. ITV deserve a medal for kebabbing Mandelson who admitted that he did not know the tax status of their non dom donors. No doubt ITV will be frozen out even more by the govt as a result and the BBC encouraged to continue its crawling.

Tom Pride

Sally Chatterjee
March 6th, 2010 10:47am

Trying to get Brown to admit his mistakes or to engage him in grownup debate is as much a waste of time as firing bullets at a tank. Ignoring the question, lies, Brownies, weasel words and a self-satisfied gurn is all you are going to get. But, a tank can be destroyed with an armour piercing shell and for Brown that means 11 million + crosses.

Don’t debate with Brown. Focus on lining up those crosses.

Austin Barry

Gordon "Gambino" Brown surely is the heir to the "Teflon Don". His pallid Chilcot placemen batted him questions with all the incisive forensic probing of Piers Moroni.

Brown's consigliere Pietro 'Finocchio' Mandelinni will be well pleased.

outthereintherealworld

again journalists are totally out of touch. Brown is totally mad

In2minds

Alistair Campbell was tearful and Tony Blair quivered with pain and looked hurt. However, Gordon Brown at Chilcot was, as Peter Hoskin says, "crudely hilarious ". So the idea that Brown comes out of this undamaged is also funny, he won't.

Willie de Peepul

@Sally Chatterjee
March 6th, 2010 10:47am

Yes, but he still has to face the electorate within 3 months. What we have to do is to make sure that after then he's like one of last week's Russian T-85 tanks, abandoned in the forest, keys in the ignition, with kids crawling over it, local people nicking the fuel from the tank, as well as all the useful plunder that generally hangs around tanks, until all that's left is a hulk. (appropriately)

Derek

So once again, we see Brown exposed as the vindictive, lying Marie-Antoinette that he is and it illuminates Cameron's real problem. With due modesty I present myself as representative of a statistically decisive cohort of the former Tory core vote. This is my story...

I hate this Labour Government, viscerally and to my core. I have always voted Conservative. This election should be a no-brainer for me. Brown is literally wrecking this country and his reciprocal hatred for England and its attendant institutions, especially the Army, is palpable. I should skip into that polling booth to vote Conservative. I am middle class, have a family, good job; I'm Tory Mondeo Man (I have it for its huge boot, you snooty types with overpriced Audi Estates should check one out sometime anyway, I digress).My vote comes with the cornflakes.

But Cameron has lost me. I will not vote for Cameron because of his dissembling on Lisbon and consequent failure/inability to offer anything meaningful on immigration.

I am forced by my conscience to give my vote elsewhere. I do so with a heavy heart.

Richard

Although Strapworld and I come from opposite angles on this we both reach the same conclusion. It's all a waste of time money and effort. Noone ..that is "not one person" I know has changed their views as a result of this entrail raking.
The only reason these hearings are in public is to satisfy the media and give them something to report on.
Just look at them outside the conference center.....journos out numbering the crowds by 50-1. The people are not interested in this anymore. Once Tony Blair left the building all interest went.
I can write the conclusions of the report now and none of it based on any of the evidence. It will be the same as all the others that went before it.
The cost of this exercise is the only thing that will be remarkable when compared to the others. Well done the panel ...good work if you can get it. Oh and add the royalties on the memoirs and I wish the 4 knights and the noble Baroness a long and lavish retirement.

strapworld

OT. Watching Cameron speaking in Llandudno, live on Sky. Suddenly the picture goes halfway through the speech. Pressed the red button, it had a screen saying Cameron, But it was a blank screen. This is what the Tories are up against.

They have a useless organisation and no obvious person in charge. They are useless in tackling the below the belt punches from the Labour Party. They have, in my opinion, a man who is no leader and cannot inspire or think on his feet and now they have to take on a hostile media.

The BBC are biased from top to bottom and they need to be closed down and started again under a new organisation. Channel 4 another organisation reliant on public money is hostile and SkyNews is also hostile.

The tories need attack dogs our on the frontline giving better than they are receiving. Politics is a dirty business and by golly it is going to get a lot dirtier.

I do not think Cameron can fight a dirty fight (IF he can fight anything) so he needs to surround himself with people who can. Davis. Fox. Redwood. Raffkind. Howard. to name a few. Old heads YES but there are quite a lot of us oldies out here!

Take these media bigheads on and knock them down.

jon dee

That Brown would mislead by bulldozing his way through a rehearsed performance, incorporating a mass of diversionary statistics, should have been anticipated by the panel. Had they never viewed PMQ's ?

Instead, they froze under the barrage of his bullying verbiage, much of it untruthful or irrelevant, and their cringing performance screamed out, surrender.

It's to be hoped they show more courage when they write their report, otherwise yesterday's farce will merely confirm the exercise as another waste of time and money.

Frank P

He should sack his tailor; just lately he's been walking as though he forgot to take the coat hanger from his jacket before he donned it. What with that and the mincing steps ...

How much weirder can the twat get before someone hires him as a freak-show exhibit?

JONNY

No he hasn't.
Can't imagine why you think so.
All the headlines I'm reading are on the lines of:
'Defence Chiefs hit back at Brown.'
Much more toxic mixture than Ashcroft. Because it touches on Life and Death.
And his answers typical of Brown's eternal obfuscation.
Of course the cosy Chilcot coterie exposed again as pathetic.

Simon Stephenson

Sally Chatterjee : 10.47am

He's untouchable as long as he maintains the myth of being infallible. This is because there's a large section of society who, although adult, regard society's leaders as father figures. It's just not mentally possible for them to imagine Brown, the Prime Minister, as being flawed to an extent greater than that to which he is prepared to acknowledge himself.

The tragedy for society is not that this large body of people exists, but that people such as Brown have seen fit to abuse it for their own ends. It's not surprising that this should have happened in politics, since it's no different, really, from the widespread gaming of the system that has become the commercial imperative throughout society. People, everywhere, are looking for the next way to grab more of the pie without having to go through the effort of making it any bigger.

Maybe we will one day realise that the gamers have utterly destroyed the process of reward for achievement, and that the whole structure needs to be rebuilt. The sooner the better ....... but don't hold your breath.

Frank P

Austin

Feed da fuckin' finook to da fish! Da fuckin' fag's finito! Fuggedabbadit!

Tom Pride

Neil Turner
March 6th, 2010 11:36am

An answer to your question is over on the Liddle blog (re the Guardian):
http://www.spectator.co.uk/rodliddle/5813808/the-guardian-loathsome-and-loathful.thtml#comments

'Desperate Dan
March 4th, 2010 12:32pm
The Guardian, and all who sail in her, are running scared . In their nightmare vision a Tory government will rob them of their major source of income - government advertising for pointless non- jobs. They've formed an unholy alliance with the gutter journalists of the BBC to protect their lifeblood of taxpayers' cash. Like the government, the Guardian's fight for survival is all-consuming. Sane and rational behaviour has ceased Their death throes are truly glorious to behold. '

Add in Labour MPs, Labour ministers, Labour quangocrats and placemen, so called charities and NGOs over dependant on Labour provided state funding, those on the receiving end of Labour’s big spend such as commercial media interests and ad agencies (benefiting from the government advertising spend), pollsters, and even management consultants and IT firms - and there you have the middleclass client state, sucking contentedly and profitably at the State Teat.

Boy are they going to fight, dirty and to the death, – like the German armies facing the invading Soviet hordes – so fearful of the vengeance of those they have mistreated so badly.

Ain’t no political principle here but a pervasive fear for the loss of that State Teat and its easy money.

J H Holloway

What time was Brown in front of the enquiry?

I ask because, at 13.57pm yesterday, two Chinook helicopters were flying over Wandsworth Bridge in west London, heading East.

Seeing two Chinooks in the UK is rare enough, but over London as the same time McDoom is being questioned on military spending?

Can't be a coincidence...

stephen

Sad but true Brown has got away with it again. The Tories led as they are, just don't seem to be able to land the punches Dave is becoming a donkey led by even younger donkeys like Boy George. I despair.

JONNY

Janet Daley's piece in the DT fascinating.
Tory polices (immigration, Europe et al) bang-on and popular.
But when they are seen to come from the Tories not so popular - in fact downright toxic.
Think your way out of that one genius.

Austin Barry

Eh, Franco P,you one helluva stand-up guy, any chance of a button from the soldati clipping Gordoni? Or maybe just giving the guy a turban? No? Hey, getouta here.

anthony rayner

As per Mr Garvie's adjectives & behavioral observations regarding Brown's demeanour the symptoms would indicate the unfortunate effects of the use of a truth drug - it wouldn't work on Brown anyway as he has perfected the art of subterfuge. I did like some words at the top of this article - 'crudely hilarious' - very good - describes Brown admirably!

Neil Turner

Tom Prde - thanks

I chatted with a graduate from a London University this week. Noticed he had a copy of the Guardian, and asked him why he read it

He told me that it's available for only 20p at University, and had now become his habit

I wonder how much this strategy of hooking young folk early is part of deliberate Marxist dogma ?

Any other examples out there ?

oldtimer

One question is whether the public believe what he said about supporting all defence spending needs. We may find out in a day or so because Politics Home ran an on line survey on this yesterday evening. My reply to this question was to say I believed the generals vs G Brown.

So although some commentators say he has emerged unscathed, I think he will emerge with his credibility damaged.

Michael Booth

Derek - please don't malign Marie-Antoinette by linking her with Brown. Poor woman, what has she ever done to you?

seb

And 'various figures' in the meejah have either ignored or "re-interpreted" the news that Kirkcaldy's Leading Autist has been shown up for the mendacious whack job he is. Luvvy Simon Fanshawe was "reviewing the papers" for the BBC news this morning and you'd never have guessed that a former Labour Chancellor had been criticised by armed forces top brass by callously skimping on military equipment.

Moraymint

It's quite baffling how Gordon Brown gets away with it. Every day my view is reinforced that a critical mass of the British people and the mainstream media really do think that Brown is the proverbial dog's nob. What the hell are they on?

Maybe it really is time to hunker down and standby for the post-election convergence of catastrophes shortly after Brown re-enters No 10 Downing Street. Our world will fall apart.

Boudicca

Tom Pride
March 6th, 2010 12:44pm

Spot on.

The left-wing media (particularly the BBC), Quangos, Unite Union and all the rest of the taxpayer funded 'establishment' is fighting for survival. They are like rats feeding on the people of this country and what is left of the wealth-creating sector.

Cornered rats are dangerous. They are going to fight dirty - and the Tories, I'm afraid, have no 'bruisers' ready to take them on.

jon dee

Brown, dancing to the Mandy/Campbell tune, follows up his devious performance yesterday with an opportunist photo-op with our poor troops.

Still, Sky and BBC will be on hand and the timing could be good for the Sunday's.

Oh, the cynicism that drives this dreadful individual to use our soldiers as election props.Sick.

Joesph Alan Jones

I agree with the negative comments above re. the poor Tory conduct. Maybe they are waiting for the date of the election to be announced before they roll their sleeves up and get stuck in. IF THEY DON'T ?!~*X?|/@*** and that is if we go soft in the head!

SUSAN HILL

Derek. With you all the way. I cannot vote for Cameron because he is indistinguishable from Blair and Nu Lab though the rest of his team are not necessarily so. The Tories are still unelectable. Cameron had a great chance and blew it. We will get another 5 years of NuLab without Brown - Balls probably. If I were younger I would go and live somewhere else.

The Laughing Cavalier

In an act of he most breath-taking cynicism, just a day after his dissembling performance at the Chilcot Inquiry, the potty-mouthed bully has gone to Afghanistan for a photo opportunity. He had better hope that the troops around him are not carrying live ammunition.

Roger Daley

A monotone monologue from a monolith.

Minnie Ovens

Sally Chatterjee
March 6th, 2010 10:47am Report this comment

I would say borderline sociopathic.
Stalin without the intelligence.

ashley

And now he is in Afghanistan praising our troops.
He disgusts me, beyond belief, but this guy is a very, very, good politician.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Tankus

Utterly shameless Brown is now out in Afghanistan , while at the same time the MOD announces that the snatch landrovers are going to be replaced .

Meanwhile Cameron has a keynote speech in Llandudno
Funnily enough Gordons kodak moment seems to have been arranged for the same time .

@strapworld ...Ive seen the feed be cut a few times when the cons get up to speak.

The man is beyond SHAME

Ganpat Ram

To see so many depressed and rattled Tories makes me grin.

I am beginning to think good old Brown can win, after all.

He's done lots for ordinary folks.

Chuck Unsworth

Well the military are deeply unimpressed, both with his evidence and his subsequent grandstanding. How many times is it now that he's told us he's going to provide replacements for the Snatch? Four, five? Still it'll be nice to see them being put through their field trials just as our people return from Afghanistan.

golfwidow

The BBC bias is beyond belief. This week's Any Questions was an absolute disgrace. J Dimbleby always points out that the audience is not scientifically selected. This latest offering suggests that it's high time it was.

Dorothy Wilson

jon dee: Actually, I see the hand of Mrs Brown.

Tom Pride

Ganpat Ram
March 6th, 2010 3:40pm

Would that be doubling the starting rate of tax for ordinary folk from 10 pence to 20 pence just so he could pull a fast one over the Tories and milk some Parliamentary applause? Or, abolishing “Boom and Bust” and tipping us into the worst recession for 60 years with all the associated economic pain for ordinary folk? Or, introducing a pension tax which has seen the end of most Final Salary Pension Schemes for those not in the State Sector? Or, a minimum income guarantee which exceeds the amount of the “earned” state pension and which therefore penalises those ordinary folk who have bothered to save for a small extra pension and which is now a disincentive for those ordinary folk on ordinary incomes to save anything at all – leading to penury in retirement? Or, the avoidable injury and death of the sons and daughters of ordinary folk because he cancelled a helicopter order and took us into two wars? Or, the inadequate banking regulations he introduced which together with a flood of cheap money, which he permitted, allowed his friends, irresponsible bankers from Scotland, to make huge losses which were then transferred on to the State’s books and which will have to be repaid by the taxes of the children and grandchildren of ordinary folk?

One could go on.

Yes, we worry about the result of the oncoming Election, but not just because of what it might mean for us and our families and friends, but, for what it will mean for ordinary folk if Brown continues his destruction of the once sound economy he took over responsibility for in 1997.

Moraymint

ashley says, "He disgusts me, beyond belief, but this guy is a very, very, good politician."

Yes, if you start from the assumptions that politics has been so utterly debased over the past decade or so, and that the term "politician" is now purely pejorative, then Gordon Brown is an absolute master.

The man is an unashamed, incompetent megalomaniac. The scary thing is that, as yet, no politician - be he a fellow socialist or a member of an opposing party - has barely laid a finger on him. Nor has the mainstream media; it's as if they don't want to.

Yes, ashley, we really do need to be afraid. It's like watching one of those action movies where the bad guy keeps getting the upper hand, until the last moment when the good guy eventually pulls off a stunt and flattens the bad guy.

The trouble is, the good guy is nowhere to be seen right now.

Tom Pride

Mea culpa – I omitted, driving down the wages of ordinary folk and transforming the communities in which they live by a deliberate and secret policy of massive un-restrained un-controlled immigration, just so he and his party could rub the noses of the “Right” in the consequential irreversible multicultural society, no matter that he drove many of his former core supporters into the arms of the BNP.

Robert Williams

"He should sack his tailor" Frank P 12:25

His tailor disguises a considerable girth. Today in Afghanistan his media advisors have got him into shirt sleeves. But it seems that they have also had a hard word with the Sky News chaps, as all shots are either from a distance or if close up hide the belly by one device or another.

Moraymint

As usual, Wat Tyler hits the bullseye:

http://tinyurl.com/yzlkpqe

Simon Stephenson

Ganpat Ram : 3.40pm

Tories or not, there is a body of opinion that thinks it could be the best thing for this country if Brown/Labour is re-elected with a small majority. This despite complete disagreement with everything Brown stands for and outright disgust at his approach to the reasoned discussion of choices that used to be called politics.

The reason for this apparently disintuitive belief is that Brown and the mini-Browns in opposition are very likely to wreck the chances of the UK being able to do what is economically necessary, voluntarily, under any alternative government. As things stand our society is just not grown-up enough to ensure that such determined wreckers are prevented from achieving their aims.

Under a re-elected Labour government, however, we would within a few months be at the mercy of international finance, and Brown and his henchmen would have no option but to do as they were told. Serious members of the opposition would be very much in agreement with what the professional financiers required, and would be able to bite at the ankles of Brown/Balls etc. to ensure their conformity with these requirements.

If the infantilising of society had been addressed as a problem 30 years ago, we would in all likelihood have avoided making the nonsensical decisions that have landed us up where we are. We'd certainly be able to deal with our own problems, instead of needing the big boys to make our decisions for us.

Marcher Baron

"Gordon Brown argued that he curbed defence spending to prevent the public finances from spiralling out of control" He failed on both counts, then! The public finances are in dire straits and defence of the realm is threadbare. Will no one rid us of this turbulent Scot?

jon dee

Dorothy Wilson @ 4.48 pm.

Spot on.Remiss of me to ignore the importance of Sarah "Magda Goebbels "Brown in the formation of her bully's itinerary.

Having settled in well with the Downing St goons,it's twitters all-round for her part in today's insulting abuse of our armed forces by her cowardly husband.

Paddy

I have great faith in the British public. I haven't met anyone who thinks Brown is doing a good job.

I believe the Tories will win with a good majority and then the media will come down on Brown and say he was the worst leader ever - and then he will "slink" off into the wilderness and be a very lonely, sad old man because no one will hire him as an after-dinner speaker.

Have faith he will get his comeuppance for all the suffering he has caused.