Yesterday's man?

Tiberius

I maintained throughout last autumn that Brown would not call an election, although I felt at times I might face losing my stake. Here's another issue for the sporting amongst us to have a flier on - Brown won't quit before the next election because he's content to hold the Office for its own sake. His vanity will not allow him to quit as a self-acknowledged failure, being one of the shortest serving PMs to boot. As for his removal, I'd say his tentacles have too long and tight a grip on his party to be levered away.

Austin Barry

Brown already has the air of a condemned man, his face a landslide of gloom split by a spasmodic rictus. His baleful and, frankly, frightened appearance is testimony to that awful paradox, the tragedy of realised ambition.

Seasurfer1

Brown didthered in the early days which resulted in him being trounced by Anthony Blair for the leadership.
One of his big mistakes today is taxing those under £18000 and hammering the middle earner with that discreet £500 pa national insurance hike. Both sets of voters are about to hammer him when they notice the tax in these coming weeks. Wait until the monthly pay hits the middle earner and we will hear howls of discontent.

Fergus Pickering

I will bet anyone a hundred pounds, well twenty-five, let's not get carried away, that the limpet will not be prised from his rock until his time is up. Who by? Balls? Balls!

Max Kaye

I'm surprised that the ever-loyal Caroline hasn't already posted here to tell us that The Guardian is a discredited, notorious Tory rag....

Verity

I agree with Tiberius and Fergus Pickering. Yes, he's frightened and always was. It was as plain as the nose on your face. But he never gave up his grasp on the Exchequer and he will not give up the premiership of Britain unless there is an almighty push from behind.

He's inadequate and frightened and all his colleagues, surely, know it. He was a failure as Chancellor. He is such a failure as Prime Minister that I am surprised there have been so few negative comments, right from the day he took over. He always looks scared to death.

Ann

The tragedy is not that of realised ambition per se: the tragedy is that he is simply not up to the job. He was not up to being a chancellor, not by a long chalk, but he was kept there by a PM who didn't give a toss about the country, only about keeping his rival where he couldn't harm him personally. As to ruining our economy and much else besides by being an incompetent chancellor - well, neither of those two appalling disasters lost any sleep over it.

I agree that the limpet will hang on for as long as he can. He will still go down in history as a complete failure as a chancellor, PM, politician and human being.

Verity

I'm in accord with Ann. Blair did keep an inadequate nitpicker who couldn't grasp the big picture on at the Exchequer to keep his chief rivalled corralled.

The sheer shallowness of character and depth of fear of this creepy individuall was there for all to see when he declined to wear white tie to a City dinner. And him the Chancellor of the Exchequer! He tried to present his weird decision as ... uh, what, exactly? Eccentric? Bold? The voice of the people? What? Right then and there, I grasped it: scared and chippy and feels inadequate.

Frank Pulley

Mugabe, despicable though he is, put his finger on it today. "Brown is just a little spot on de weld."

A little Brown spot, indeed.

Austin Barry

Brown: the epitome of Hamlet's insolence of office, although he is a dead man walking. And do Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper punch the air in cheerful anticipation of his end? Or do they sense that with his fall goes their ambition? Meanwhile, the empty suit that is the Brown premiership dithers and zig zags towards oblivion. What did we do to deserve this odd snapshot in the continuum of time?

Fergus Pickering

All Labour Chancellors are failures, except perhaps Roy Jenkins who wasn't a Socialist of any description. It's because their faith and their backbenchers both insist that they spend, spend, spend. No OTHER weasel would have done any better. But kick him, kick him, kick him to death by all means. We've waited long enough.

David Parker

Frank Pulley, Mugabe, as usual, was wrong. Brown is not just a little spot, he is a very large blot on the landscape of Britain.

Perry

But an even greater question presents : how to reclaim public service, education (at all levels), and health from the rampant control freakery that infests our land?

Ann

Vote 'New' 'Labour', perchance, Austin? And keep voting the same way when their total lack of fitness for purpose was there for all to see by November 1997 at the very latest? I plead not guilty, but the country as a whole deserves it.

Caroline

Max - been there - done that - twice. And I'm rapidly becoming bored with the same old, same old, re-regurgitated speculation and unsubstantiated comment by, as I've already said today, a Blair loving journalist and a failed ex Tory MP. But I expect it keeps all the regulars at CH happy nattering away to each other and ratcheting up the hyperbole.

Why don’t we talk about Boris some more? Much more fun. ;0)

Max Kaye

Caroline, Matthew Parris may be (even by his own account) 'a failed ex Tory MP', but that doesn't stop him from being an interesting and perceptive journalist and writer. I don't always agree with his opinions, but I respect him and them.

Alas, I can say the same about the writing or opinions of very few Labour (New, old or borrowed) supporters. (Does Frank Field actually 'support' Nu Labour anymore?).

As for Boris - I am an unabashed fan. I'd gladly support him for PM over any other British politician (excepting the sainted Maggie or Norman Tebbit). He is a believer in the rights of the individual; small, unobtrusive government; adds to the gaiety of nations; is intelligent, well-educated and perceptive; and, was a brilliant editor of the Speccie.

I do hope he thrashes the vile Ken (I was a Londoner once - a condition that left me with a visceral hatred for the man).

Now, do tell me what it is, exactly, that attracts you to the psychologically flawed Brown?

Verity

I thought Boris was a failure as the editor of the Spectator. It went downhill under him. The magazine under him - especially coming in after the witty, light-heared Frank Johnson - went south. Boris is lazy which, in a politician, I grant you, is a plus. But I don't see that he has many positive attributes other than instant recognisability.

Fergus Pickering

Verity, you are in a minority re Boris at the Spectator. He put on readers like anything and attracted columnists. As for being lazy, lions are lazy, all great men are lazy. The virtues of hard work are much exaggerated. Look at the man Broon.

Verity

Fergus Pickering, I'd like to see evidence that Boris added readers to The Speccie. It grew drab under his leadership. It just wasn't witty any more. If I recall, he was publishing articles by (I think) his sister, who really is not a writer. I stopped looking forward to Thursdays and eventually stopped buying it, with a yawn.

Ann

You did say it before, Caroline - and it was unmitigated nonsense the first time as it is now. Those 'failed' souls you deride are far more competent at their jobs than the amateur, useless, deranged Brown has ever been or will ever be. He simply has no clue and never did have a clue. He tinkers with things he has no idea about. He is like a slightly precocious 9-year old - which is roughly his true level of maturity - who's been given a loaded gun and allowed to go out and do with it what he likes.

Caroline

Ann. I'll take on board your first sentence, you think what I said was nonsense - fine. I think you lost the essence after that, and I'd rather not comment on guns and flying pigs, even if they are flying over your hedge. I like to think I've got a sense of humour but really....

Fergus Pickering

My evidence that Boris added readers to the Speccie is that Conrad Black said that he did and it was because he added readers that Black did not sack him for lying about staying as an MP. If you didn't like Boris's Spectator, fine, but other people in general did. I wish he was back.

Fergus sings the blues...

"My evidence that Boris added readers to the Speccie is that Conrad Black said that he did.."

Always good to get things from a reliable source, eh ?