In the name of God go

Steve

To be fair when Thatcher and Major were booted out of office they did very little as backbenchers and waited until the next election to stand down. I'm no fan of Brown, but can the blogosphere just let go of him. You've claimed your scalp.

HJ

10,000 words of tractor production figures every day! That's nearly as bad as when he was in power.

Nevertheless, I should not be rude. I wish him luck in his new career as a fiction writer.

Naomi Muse

Absolutely and totally agree, David.

Brown was re-elected to represent his constituents not to sit in Kirkcaldy typing a sub-editor's nightmare of verbal diarrhoea on fiscal prudence and the life of an ex-rugby player.

His behaviour, by not coming to Westminster, where all MPs work, is being awol and he should be sacked. It shows clearly that he is not to be taken seriously and not an honourable man.

With apologies to Tennyson:

'Dither, dither, by the river,
Will I go or will I not'

Whilst his wife tweets about the merits and demerits of chocolate in button form....

A planet akin to Golgafrincham inhabits the land of Brown.

pharbitis

Dithering? Maybe.
More likely, he's frit.

Wizard of ID

The man must be typing like a lunatic! I'm a writer and I would struggle to churn out 4000 words in a day. But another 4000 the day after? And again the day after, and the day after, and the day after?

Impossible! I suspect the rumour is exagerated quite a bit.

Even so, can you imagine what his memoir would be like? "The whole world was out to destroy me. My ministers were all incompetent and in league with the devil, or, at least, evil Tories. I was stabbed in the back by my MP's. The public failed to vote they way they should have. It's not at all the way it should hav been, and it's all your fault!"

Pity the poor publisher indeed! Everybody else can simply put the book on a shelf in the spare room -- or give it to the Oxfam shop -- and forget about it. But the poor editor is actually going to have to READ the damn thing.

Who says publishing is a glamorous business?

Catesby

If he really has been churning out 10,000 words per day we can be sure that whatever he is writing will not be very well written.

Rhoda Klapp

So it's approaching 100,000 iterations of "It was the right thing to do."

Chris lancashire

Whatever private hell he is in, it is richly deserved. An arrogant bully who wrought carnage on a once-strong economy brought down by an electorate who had had enough.
I fervently hope and pray that this hopeless, hapless idiot is not allowed near any public money from whatever source and, in particular, the IMF.

Sally Chatterjee

Given Blair ended up promoting peace in the Middle-East, seeing Brown at the IMF would be equally curious.

Roger Daley

Writing with them big crayons must have used up a lot of paper.

Osred

The man is so full of bile and fury he wont finish his Lord of the Whinge epic.

He'll be the 1st ex-PM to spontaneously combust in his bunker.

chris as usual

Despite the fear of the forthcoming economic cutbacks and the effect it will have on people's lifestyles, particularly the most in need and the overtaxed ordinary hard working citizens, in many ways this is more than offset by not having to see or hear this horrible person. He needs to try to get a life, not waste his time telling us how none of it was his fault. Take his kids out, go down to the pub, listen to what other people have to say. Surely none of the international organisations will want to touch him with a barge pole?

Sian allen

Shame on you! You do not have to be a Labour supporter to realise that Gordon Brown has an intellect that is head and shoulders above the current crop of Coalition ministers , including Boy George and Cameron, Parliament and democracy will suffer from the lose of him. Democracy needs a strong opposition and the crowing and sheer viciousness of Tory supporters on this site demeans our cause. Stop this Nasty Party nonsense or we will rue the day at the next election.

JohnOfEnfield

I can't wait to throw it in the bin.

It will be as unreadable as Marx. Or the 25th 5 year plan from the USSR.

PS. Did anyone see Gove answering a question about Balls' school building plan last night (ITV?)? He spat the name out and let it hang there as an epithet.

JohnOfEnfield

..who is Chris (Lancashire) talking about, Brown or Obamah?

Andre

Give the man a break for goodness sake.

Yam Yam

Look on the bright side. At least while he's typing up his voluminous memoirs he's no longer ramping up the national debt.

Indeed, perhaps by the time it's done the word count of his memoirs will equal the national debt he ran up during his time in office.

Chuck Unsworth

Frankly I hope he is in torment. He has done enormous damage to this country which will take decades to repair, if ever.

10,000 words per day, so what? It matters little that he hides at home rewriting history - except that he neglects his parliamentary duties in favour of his own hubris. Then again, when did this man ever have the slightest understanding of what his duty to the nation was?

Who will be bothered to buy this tosh anyway? He's gone - and good riddance. Least said soonest mended.

TomTom

So Brown is writing the lyrics, but who did you say is setting it to music ?

Simon Stephenson

Yes, Chris lancashire (11.05am), I agree with you. But I think we should keep it in mind that whatever incompetences Brown has, however strongly his narcissism prevented him from acting collegiately, however much this required confrontational behaviour that demanded never having to admit to being wrong, however much his lack of humanity caused him viciously to wreck the endeavours of others, despite all these things, the British political system still allowed him to become Prime Minister.

There must surely be something wrong with a system of preferment that allows such a character to progress to the top.

Grassmarket

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Frank P

Chris Lancashire

"brought down by an electorate who had had enough."

Really? Unfortunately, a very large section of said electorate voted for the cabal that he de facto led - in four successive elections. Thus we still have a large bevy of labourite fat arses on the green benches and far too many already on the red benches.

As for that section of the electorate that steadfastly voted against the New Labour project four times, they have been already betrayed by those that they did vote for.

The electorate 'who had had enough', therefore, is still a very diverse and confused animal. I fear Brown's ilk may be back in power far more quickly than you anticipate, as the public teat is dragged from the mouths of the those who have grown fat on welfare cheques and will not enjoy being weaned on to the work ethic. The others will be far from pleased as Cameron's diabolical deal with the Queer Party is gradually exposed. You grossly overrate the wisdom of 'the electorate'. The Good Ship Brown and all who sailed in her was a marked symptom of their stupidity - a disease for which there is no cure, I'm afraid; it just manifests occasional, partial and very fleeting regression, as history shows.

Frank P

Andre

"Give the man a break"

Where would you like it - neck, one leg or both?

Chris lancashire

JohnOfEnfield: Oh, most definitely Brown, Obama hasn't wrecked the US economy (yet).

Moraymint

Chris lancashire ... hear, hear!

toni

@chrislancashire.
Well said as one of the Tory cohorts who made a good living and whose business benefitted from the policies laid down by GB until 2008, the same policies that the Tory party and likes of you didn’t complain of until the world wide financial crash.

Unsurprisingly, in Tory world perception after the fact is a wonderful thing, Uturns to be recommended, and advocates of it about as nauseating as the ‘in the name of God go!’ brigade.

As for the IMF suggestion, good for him if he’s wanted, he’s well qualified. Surely there’s nothing better than previous Labour PM’s striding the world stage and respected for their many talents as opposed to striding the world to…. watch cricket,

Jock Strapped

...preferably in the neck area.

Mycroft

It's really rather sad; he simply can't face the humiliation of appearing in parliament when someone else has taken control, while in his writings he can continue to set the narrative. Shows the danger of coming to regard yourself as utterly infallible. It's surely improper, though, that he should remain an MP.

Yarnefromhorsham

Well lets hope its a Scottish university - we deserve some pay back - and he is a Scottish problem, why not let them suffer.

Greenslime

Andre, No.

This man does not deserve any breaks. He is the main cause that this country is in the state it is in. His actions and inactions as Chancellor directly led to this country's banking crisis and its concomitant inability to deal with that crisis. He, almost single handedly and against the advice of his advisers, all but destroyed one of the best pension schemes in the world (except, that is, for public sector workers). He is the one he controlled the purse strings, first as Chancellor then as unelected prime minister, of a government which continued to spend spend spend when he should have been more careful.

He should be in jail for gross incompetence. So, no breaks for this guy please.

The Laughing Cavalier

Most fiction writers consider 1,000 words a day to be a good output. What on earth is this man doing churning out ten times that? As to suggestions that he go to the IMF, with his record would they have him?

Richard of York

Speccies like the thugs that kick a man unconcious and then continue even when they know the victim is not fighting back.
No wonder the Spectator readership are compared with Pirrahnas by Michael White.
Give the man a break you baited him for years and tortured/humiliated him like a school bully.....let it go and focus on getting your man to run the country in the interests of all the citizens.

Lola

Re Andre @11:44

No.

bernerlap

Given the quality of the average Scottish Labour MP and hence the quality of the likely replacement, I think I would much prefer to have Brown there doing bugger all, and being as mad as box of frogs, than having to pay for a by-election to choose the numpty that will replace him.

In2minds

"Brown is considering ‘lucrative’ visiting professorships at several universities".

Is this proof that standards are going down? I'm glad I went to a 'bog standard' comprehensive then onto a polytechnic to do a degree, how I sympathise with my younger relatives!

Dorothy Wilson

"Give the man a break for goodness sake"

But he didn't give us one did he? What goes around comes around.

sinosimon

as heis only typing 'all work and no play makesjock a dull boy' on loop(hat-tip stephen king) it's really not that much of a worry.....even the labour luvvies in the publishing world won't burden us with that.

TrevorsDen

Brown never gave us a break.

It terms of what Brown might write and how he might write its may be instructive to look at the correspondence of his years as rector at Edinburgh University. It would make a hugely amusing TV sitcom.

This is the section which deals with 'The Brown Report' - otherwise the Rectors (unofficial) Commission on the role of the University.

If anyone still wonders why and how our education system degenerated under labour I strongly suggest you run through the Rectors correspondence as he attempted to turn a hitherto esteemed place of learning into a social engineering laboratory.

Personally - within the enclosed collection - I love the Head of German's demolition of Browns 'Report'
http://www.archives.lib.ed.ac.uk/cgi-bin/view_img.pl?item=ruc&img=1

The letter on page 156 from the Director of the School of Community Studies does give I think a good view of the ... err, 'bigoted' way Brown operates.

The whole gamut of correspondence can be found here.
http://www.archives.lib.ed.ac.uk/gallery/brown.shtml

Sir Compton Valence

@ Steve 10.35

"can the blogosphere just let go". Not a chance. Not after watching that talentless bully wreck public life over nearly two decades and damn near wreck the economy. Thousands more blows will fall on him, and he deserves every one of them.

How any book publisher could be prepared to take his self-justificatory clap-trap (what else could it possibly be?) beats me. One now reads that doors are opening in the academic world. Pray God he goes through one - though not in Britain - and is never heard of again. Personally, I wouldn't trust him to count the spoons at the Fife College of Bricklaying.

JohnPage

We all know the book will be a flop, but some publisher will oddly pay megabucks for it.

What puzzles me is why a university would want a liar on its academic staff.

General Zod

Why on Earth should he be given a break?

With luck, the French will block him from any shot at the IMF job, one that he is negatively qualified to do, in light of his performance as Chancellor and Prime Minister.

Victor Southern

Whilst his MPs salary is paid for by the taxpayer.

Dave Lowry

It doesn't matter what we think - it's up to his constituents.

Hugh

Why should we give the man a break, he hounded us for thirteen years, we haven't even reached thirteen weeks since the elecetion. Just to remind those of you who would fergive him so easily, this is what he did:

Sold the countries gold at the lowest price for many years.
Introduced stealth tax after stealth tax.
Destroyed private sector pensions.
Allowed mass immigration.
Employed an extra one million public sector staff.
Refused to tackle the issue of six million people of working age living on benefits.
Gave taxpayers money to banks so that they could continue to pay annual bonuses to mega rich staff running into billions.
Presided over saw the sleaziest government in living memory.

Gordon Brown took care of the political classes, public sector employees, mega rich bankers, the work shy and immigrants and to pay for it all he taxed the working people of this country into years of austerity.

Give him a break! Are you kidding?

Austin Barry

Be fair.

Gordon could be on a winner if he sparks-up his bio. with some salacious gossip, particularly about his bachelor days and the frequent vacations to the louche bars and beaches of Cape Cod.

If he takes Tom Driberg's racy 'Ruling Passions' as a template for political biography I, for one, will be buying a copy and the good citizens of Hay-on-Wye should brace themselves for its launch.

I can just see Mariella looking appalled as she draws Gordon's attention to the Chapter headed "Burns Night in Provincetown and why the Haggis covered its eyes."

Neil Wilson

Well the good men and women of Kirkcaldy will soon be able to exercise their right of recall on their MP should they wish.

Frankly it is up to them.

John Mounsey

Oh he he's writing a book is he? I'd assumed he was lying down in a darkened room wearing a canvas jacket with straps and buckles. (Mind you, the real maniac will be the publisher who decides to put Brown's turgid tome on sale. Sell any shares you have in that company immediately.)

And sorry Andre - Brown never gave anyone else (friend, foe, woman or bulldog) a break when he was b*ggering up Britain, so why should we lay off him now? He and his clique formed not only the nastiest and most unscrupulous government in my lifetime(and I'm about to be 60), but also the most profligate and incompetent. The man entirely deserves a kicking: in truth, he's lucky it's only the verbal sort.

Paddy

I can't be bothered to reply to the 'Richard's' of this world anymore.

Life is so lovely without him.

Why spoil a nice day!

Pete

I distinctly remember that during the election campaign, when asked what he'd do if he lost, he replied (with that sudden, peculiar grin that seemed entirely disconnected from any sense of joy or cheer) that he would go and work in the charity sector.

Which doesn't rule out earning vast sums I suppose - although it was obviously meant to convey that impression.

Clear Memories

No Steve, we cannot just let him go.

This malevolent Scot brought this Country to its knees financially and deserves to be harried into an early grave if the establishment is not prepared to put him on trial for malfeasance and war crimes.

The left still maintain a spiteful bigotry towards Thatcher but, when the full picture of Browns ineptitude is finally revealed, his vilification will spread across the political spectrum and beyond these shores.

Simon Stephenson

Richard of York : 12.21pm

The important thing for this country is that no one like Brown ever gets within 100 miles of any office that has it in its power to wreck the well-being of other people. If following this objective cannot be done without humiliating Gordon Brown, then I'm afraid that humiliation is what he must have.

After all, it's not as though he himself is above arranging for such treatment to be meted out to others. Far from it, in fact.

Naomi Muse

A little thought - if he really is holed up at home then he cannot be running up any expenses, can he?

ollie

who on earth would WANT to read anything written by this mendacious sociopath? Unbalanced he was, is, and always will be.

Steve

Sir Compton Valance,

I was making a point about when big names step down from office they tend to do very little as backbenchers. With a few notable exceptions. Brown's record is appalling and considering the pain ahead stomach churning. But it will do little good to keep knocking him. Hopefully Brown will emigrate to that cosy little spot in Massachusetts he is so fond of and maybe start working for President Obama. If Obama needs anymore advice on how to hate Britain and run your economy into the ground he could find no better advisor than Brown.

Tiberius

He isn't writing 10,000 words a day. As usual he's telling a Brownie.

He's actually sitting at his desk for 8 hours a day, with an ink pad and a rubber stamp saying "Tory cuts" in hand, banging it down on cheap recycled paper, and spitting out "f**king Bullingdon Boys!"

It's just his way of getting through the day.

J H Holloway

I think it's pretty obvious what's going on here....

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."

Churchill, however, had a case to make for saving the world.

Brown, doesn't.

Would like to see a few chapters on the Cape Cod years, though.

Verity

Simon Stephenson 12:01 - Well said that man!

Penfold

I didn't realise that Parliament allowed MP's to take a sabbatical. In any event I'm agin public servants taking the piss like Gordo is.
He's paid to be an MP, so he had better start turning up at his place of work and take the flak. He's not being paid to write full time, either by the foolish voters of Cowdenbeath or the poor looted English taxpayers down south who have bank-rolled the whole affair. His writing should be during his own time, not on ours, when he's being paid squillions to be a representative at Westminster. No doubt a locale that he does not find conducive any longer.
He should be sacked or forced to attend and atone for his actions, which has resulted in the worst economic situation that thye UK has ever found itself in.

Tarka the Rotter

"Speccies like the thugs that kick a man unconcious and then continue even when they know the victim is not fighting back.
No wonder the Spectator readership are compared with Pirrahnas by Michael White.
Give the man a break you baited him for years and tortured/humiliated him like a school bully.....let it go and focus on getting your man to run the country in the interests of all the citizens."

Bwahhhhhaaahhhahhhaahhhaahhhaaaaahhhaaaaaaa

Don't bully the bully you mean, Richard of York? Please, give us a break. The man who unleashed his pack dogs to smear reputations and spin vile rumours???? I think Brown is reaping what he sowed. We should start a national petition to have him indicted for maladministration, malfeasance and good old fashioned treason.

Liz Brown

he should be forced to resign and pay back the money he has stolen from us since May 6th - not to mention the £bns generally over the years

Bluebottle

The man does deserve one break.

At the end of a rope.

lescam

Only the other day I read that political memoirs don't generally sell, apart from rare exceptions like Roy Jenkins' "A Life at the Centre", or Denis Healey's "The Time of My Life", which are both still in print. These are both seriously good reading.

I found Thatcher's first book, "The Downing Street Years" turgid and unreadable, although I am a fan of hers. So was John Major's effort. But regarding Brown's masterpiece, it is only a matter of time before you see the signs in your local Waterstones, "BROWN'S MEMOIRS, formerly £25, now with £5 off", soon followed by "now half price at £12.50" and finally in the bargain basement of the remainder shops for "only £2.99". Or even more humiliating, for £1.99, like some I have seen.

It will probably make quite a good coffee table book. Just screw 4 little legs to each corner - presto, a coffee table! Or of course, used as a doorstop. Or even a footrest. I certainly can't visualise anyone actually reading it. They would have to be masochists to try that.

I have a lot of political memoirs on my shelves; in addition to the ones mentioned above, I have biographies or autobiographies of Blair, Douglas Hurd, Clement Attlee, Neville Chamberlain, Churchill, Shirley Williams, Paddy Ashdown and Betty Boothroyd. All are entertaining and enjoyable in differing ways. But I can't see Brown's effort being in that class. It will be like readig Chekhov, without the jokes.

David Bouvier

"You do not have to be a Labour supporter to realise that Gordon Brown has an intellect that is head and shoulders above the current crop of Coalition ministers".

No, but you have to be a bit deluded. he went to an OK grammar school, got an experimental hot house school education he hated, and got a first in politics at Edinburgh. OK relative to the man on the Glasgow Omnibus, but nothing special amongst the middle classes.

While he apparently went to univeristy at 16, he only graduated at 21 - not sure what thats all about. Perhaps he was too immature or just took 5 years to do a 3 year degree.

And he took 10 years to get a PhD that is basically about one Scottish socialist loud mouth (most famous for calling a Tory a "murderer" for withdrawing school milk). I know that kind of PhD. Not a great work of the intellect that. Not a great work that.

Then as a chancellor he decided he had ended the economic cycle (a fool for sure) and has a reputation as smart because (a) his cohorts claim he is probably because it flatters his overwheening vanity and (b) Ed Ball's once made a reference to Post-NeoClassical Endogenous Growth Theory.

They then just taxed and spent until the money ran out.

The current cabinet has plenty of Oxbridge 1sts and several (proper) PhDs. Most of them went to schools that will also have pushed them hard. Some of them are very smart. Few of them seem to have the vanity to require minions ot remind people of this.

Victor Southern

R.O.Y. Still here are you?
"Give the man a break you baited him for years and tortured/humiliated him like a school bully". News for you Dicky - he was the school bully.

David Vinter

Any employer expecting his/her secretary to type 10000 words per day, would be done for cruelty! I don't believe it.
As to his political past, had he on graduation, done two years on a building site and learned about the real world. Then his political career would likely have been more successful.

TheEye

Are any of the words "Sorry"?

ndm

This was an uncharacteristically stupid post.

MaxSceptic

TomTom asks

So Brown is writing the lyrics, but who did you say is setting it to music ?

Surely the Arctic Monkeys.... his favourite beat combo.

BTW, those complaining that we should lay off Broon obviously do not appreciate in what contempt he is held. My true feelings about him - and how I wish to celebrate his eventual departure - would probably be 'moderated' from these pages.

Richard of York

Yep Right on all counts "rabid right wing lunatics"
All around me I see men and women who have done very well under the 13 years of Labour administration. I see home owners who enjoyed the extraordinary growth in the value of their over leveraged homes. Small and medium size businesses did very well under Labour. Large multi nationals flourished in this land of light and beneficial regulation. The longest period of growth in the history of this country.
A record that history will show of making the right choices over the risks this country faced during the world wide banking melt down.
Even the most blinkered Thatcherite will admit to her faillings.
Brown was and will always be remembered for the hours when we faced financial collapse he stood up and dealt with the issue head on.
The last two PM's are both held in very high regard abroad, both received honours that I cant see Cameron ever being offered.
I doubt very much any Speccie would survive the scrutiny and focus on their lives Brown/Blair had to endure.

Still at least the average age of a speccy means we wont have to put up with them very long.

strapworld

Well, we can look forward to the BBC helping Brown publicise his History of the Scottish Peoples- Volumes 1-36.

Book at Bedtime. Womens Hour. Top Gear where he will be interviewed by his friend Jeremy then take a punt round the race track in the reasonably priced saloon. Then, of course, Sky will insist Maria Fogstop will interview the great man at teh Hay Book Festival followed by every newspaper in the land having one to one's with Brown and lovingly telling us all what utter crap The History of the Scottish Peoples volumes 1 -36 really are!

Give the man a break- he wants to ensure he can say he has created jobs!!

yank

Can't really claim to know much about Brown, other than the headlines, which often mislead, but he seems to remind me of a type we sometimes find running around hereabouts: "A stupid person's notion of what a smart person is".

Sir Compton Valence

@ Steve 4.02pm

Your point well made and taken. I did think after posting this morning that we are all in danger of becoming the anti-matter to those Thatcher-hating ranters who make objectionable remarks on Guardian Unlimited or even, indeed, like the would-be time traveller and erstwhile Labour leadership hopeful John McDonnell. Heaven forbid. I shall try to resist the temptation to besmirch Mr Brown yet further.

yank

RoY: "The last two PM's are both held in very high regard abroad..."

You sure, R? Blair might be welcomed in a few salons here, perhaps, if the topic was "The Sexual Politics of Meat", or whatever global warming cup was being rattled that day, but other than that he's persona non grata over here.

And Brown is a non-entity. Nobody noticed that Obama ignored him, because nobody noticed him at all.

Which is probably how it should be. Howard stuffed his nose into US electoral politics, and Clinton smashed it in for him. The old saw in politics is "punish your enemies"... and best not to go out of your way to make them, as Blair did, stuffing his nose in over here constantly.

Marcher Baron

@chris as usual "He needs to try to get a life, not waste his time telling us how none of it was his fault. Take his kids out, go down to the pub, listen to what other people have to say." Well, when he listened to what Mrs Duffy had to say, that went down well, didn't it?

Frank P

It is hoped that he mentions in his book where he will eventually be interred, so that our grandchildren and theirs, still living in penury as a result of his vile and treasonous actions, know where to take a piss occasionally, just as I used to do at Highgate Cemetery, from time to time, when I was in the area (very discreetly, of course; it was a bit too close to Hampstead Heath to be too brazen about it).

Tankus

10,000 words a day ? I keep thinking of the shining with jack Nicholson's character

" All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" .........typed out 5000 times

Gordons got the manic grin , the isolation , the strange foreign land full of pine trees and snow in winter .....

All that's missing is the axe ....

Heeeerrrreeee's GORDON

Maybe he might be a tad bit embarrassed at his last and utterly vindictive ,nasty act of reducing the future Prime ministers salary by £50k a year ...
Has any other outgoing PM displayed such an act of utter pettiness against a new incoming one ...Unheard of ...The act just just shows how dishonourable the man is .

What company would allow such a length of paid time off , just because they feel like it ? disgraceful , and shameful that nothing can be done about it , he should do us all a favour and join lord Lucan tossing the caber somewhere in deepest Africa !

MikeF

I seem to remember reading that after leaving office in 1970 Harold Wilson knocked out his history of the Labour Government 1964-70 at a rate of 20,000 words a day. It is even a good read. Who on earth is going to bother with what Gordon Brown has written?

Tankus

Grassmarket @July 6th, 2010 12:02pm

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"

heh ... seems I had the same thought after grassmarket , Must read all before posting next time ! Sorry

.....but it all fits ..redrum ...redrum

Occasional Ostrich

Richard of York
July 6th, 2010 12:21pm

Baited him for years? Tortured/humiliated him like a school bully?

Get away, Richard; I bet he never looked at anything the Spectator might have produced using any media. Nor would his acolytes have drawn his attention to said comments; they're not so masochistic as to imvite a mobile 'phone in the teeth. (unless, with your proximity to the seat of power you know better?)

Perhaps, if he'd paid a modicum of attention to the views of Spectator readers he might have understood that a significant section of the populace wasn't buying his claptrap.

Alex

I know Harvard is based in Massachussetts - which is pretty left wing - but I do not believe they would want to jeopardise their status as the "world's best university" by having Brown anywhere near them.

Similarly I cannot believe that Edinburgh University would go anywhere near Brown. What does it have to gain for doing so?

The IMF - why would they want him? What credibility does he have in the world?

Other than helping our in the village charity shop I don't see Brown getting a paying job anywhere. What does he bring to any party he is invited to? Maybe lessons in how to stage a coup?

Verity

Frank P - Tee hee.

Yank - Interesting. I thought they were still inexplicably enamoured with Blair. He certainly makes enough from speaking engagements ... or has that dried up?

Terrible But True

'Catesby July 6th, 2010 11:01am
If he really has been churning out 10,000 words per day we can be sure that whatever he is writing will not be very well written.'

For any culture that confuses looking like you are working hard with actually working smart, perhaps the metaphor is entirely apt.

Not that it does the country much good now.

AndyinBrum

If he's not at the HoC he shouldn't be getting paid

Andre

Greenslime et al - it's always someone else's fault isn't it? I am no supporter of Brown and will never ever vote Labour again. However the British get the politicians they deserve. Spendthrift? For years we've been living on air, rolling up massive credit card debits. We've been buying now - not paying later. We buy property with borrowed money expecting it to soar in value. A quarter of us chose not to learn to read or write. We are in the main bone idle - two million either unemployed or off on the sick for spurious conditions like depression or back ache. We need double that amount of immigrants to do the jobs we won't. We came last in the Eurovision song contest, pirouetted through the world cup and fell over our bootlaces. Talent? Look at Britain's got talent or Big Brother. Is this the nation that gave us Cranmer's prayer book, Shakespeare, Elgar, the internal combustion engine, the television, - it was a long list. Yes this is still Britain but the populace are exhibiting all the terminal bestialities of the Romans, corpulent, idolatrous and sexually incontinent. Compared to the profligate malcontented electorate he tried to lead Brown seems quite balanced. The last stage of adolescence is to stop blaming ones parents and leaders. The song remains the same. Grow up, get moving and get ya plectrum out ya rectum.

toni

@David Bouvier 3:30pm
Before slagging off GB, you really should read up Osborne's education and 'working life' previous to him becoming the Chancellor. And pray.
And yank, usually much better to speak for yourself, not on behalf of the country. Embarrassing to have your veracity questioned.

Beer Moth

"580,000 words typed by a partially sighted man with maybe 30 years to live. Suddenly, life is beautiful."

Is such malice really necessary David?

yank

Verity, I'm certain Blair can still make a buck over here, with the right booking agents.

And yes, given that we all of us made the decision to launch all of these foreign wars, Blair's engagement while the boys were dying was appreciated by all of us here. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the action, a steady hand in the mix is a comfort, and he seemed to present that.

But mostly, it's always best for the Brit invaders to suit up clean, stand ramrod straight, act a touch above us all, and give us just a touch of forbearance for our wicked ways. That and a bit of charm and the so soothing accent... and we'll be at their feet. Blair forgot all that, and jumped into the muck, and I think lost his veneer with the mainstream.

School for Scoundrels

10,000 words a day? He doesn't know 10,000 words...

T

@TomTom July 6th, 2010 11:59am

"So Brown is writing the lyrics, but who did you say is setting it to music ?"

Why, the BBC, of course. Possibly with the help of Brown's biographer, BBC business editor Robert Peston.

Beer Moth

"Is this the nation that gave us...the internal combustion engine"

Nein.

James42

Don't give Brown any encouragement. He is still a danger to Scotland as long as he is in the political arena.

yank

Oh I don't believe anybody questioned my veracity, toni.

Perhaps you're seeking validation abroad, for one of your favorites. But even apart from the fact that that is a fool's game, and a certain eventual doom at home, approval abroad is fleeting, particularly when one courts it and seeks to profit from it, for special cause. See Mr. Blair.

Minnie Ovens

"Surely none of the international organisations will want to touch him with a barge pole?"

Nonsense, They love an incompetent fool who thinks he knows everything.
Look at Blair.

Austin Barry

I'm convinced.

This litany of invective against a rather forlorn, monocular, elderly Scotsman proves beyond doubt that we Coffeehousers really do miss Gordon Brown.

So let's join hands and sing:

'Will ye no come back again?
Will ye no come back again?
Better lo'ed ye canna be,
Will ye no come back again?'

Sing you bastards, sing (yes, that includes you Verity and Frank P.)

Tyransaurus

As he's writing this at our expense, will we all be getting free copies? New firelighers will be required for the winter in Dinosaur Caves.

lescam

School for Scoundrels

"10,000 words a day? He doesn't know 10,000 words..."

Oh I don't know.
How about "getting on with the job, making the right decisions, for the right reasons, because it was the right thing to do...." etc, repeated endlessly 10,000 times a day? Just like he used to drone on at us over the radio/TV till I personally lost the will to live.

David Bouvier

toni - I don't see your point. Sian Allen suggested that Brown was a towering intellect.

Osbourne went to St Pauls and Oxford, 2:1 in history - not entirely shabby. He went into politics through the wonk route.

What evidence would you put forward to demonstrate Brown's towering intellect rather than Labour factionalism and overweening intellectual vanity.

Frank P

Austin Barry (11.07)

You are right, we are all displaying Bruno Withdrawal Syndrome; needed to get the bile ducts flowing again. But just wait until they get the Milibeetle brat installed in the barrel; that'll cure it.

Snowman

Who’s going to read all that stuff. Someone should tell him that taking up knitting would be more effective use of his spare time. Who knows, he may be better at it.

Owen Morgan

I think that this is an example of Gordon's prose:

"Brown was and will always be remembered for the hours when we faced financial collapse he stood up and dealt with the issue head on."

Yes, it's true: Dick the Dork is Gordon Brown. There can't be TWO people on the planet who can trot out that same drivel.

A. S.

10,000 words a day!

Wow!

And every single one is revisionist.

maddy1

Can you remember the pretentious "Gordometer" on Newsnight a few years back? Gord is typing "The quick Brown Fox jumped over the lazy dog" repeatedly, as in Nicholson's "The Shinning".

maddy1

The sad thing is that Brown's Book will probably be only be an economically viable product because it will be printed in China or the Far East!!!!!!!

Frank Leader

If the Book is as Thick as he is, it will make an excellent Door Stop. Buy it when it is in the 5 for a pound bin.

Suffolker

If he goes to the IMF, can we then expect the whole world to be made bankrupt by him? I wouldn't trust him to run the office biscuit weekly whip-round.

Remittance Man

Everybody else can simply put the book on a shelf in the spare room -- or give it to the Oxfam shop -- and forget about it.

Do what? Barring a few sadistic aunts at Christmas, everyone else is going to ignore the book completely. Virtually the entire first edition is going to end up being remaindered then pulped. There will be no second edition.

Greenslime

Andre,
Did that dictionary taste nice?

The point really is that Brown spent 13 years in charge, one way or another, and is directly responsible for much of what happened financially and politically during that period. The end result was a population which learned to expect the state to spoon-feed it on virtually every occasion.

This was deliberate. If everything is provided and controlled by the state, people will look to state for every answer.

Tax credits are a great example - take people's money away from them in taxes then give THEIR money back to them as if it were a gift. In the meantime, employ a swathe of seemingly useless civil servants at high additional cost and some more to work on the regular cock-ups which the system generated. The result? Recipients of the returned money believe they are in hoc to the government as does the workforce involved in the whole, inefficient, enterprise.

Anyone could produce a long list of these state sponsored controlling mechanisms - all with Brown's DNA all over them.

This isn't a blame game for the sake of it; Brown is directly responsible for the state that the UK is in right now. His little exercise in social manipulation has, and will continue to do so for years to come, cost us dear. And whilst doing all this he created, with some help it has to be admitted, a situation where the entrepreneurs who will eventually dig us out of this hole can't raise the cash in order to do so.

I agree, people have to take responsibility for their own actions but that is a separate matter and, no doubt, the next major exercise that we will have to conduct in this country will be to retrain people to think for themselves, rather than expect it all to be done for them.

PS. I don't play a guitar.

Steve

Sir Compton Valance

Thanks for the kind words. Just a thought but Blair's forthcoming memoirs should be even more stomach churning, infuriarating or maybe just plain hilarious than Brown's. It seems neither man has hired a ghost writer. Perhaps the task would be too difficult! Besides people forget that Blair is just as much to blame than Brown for the UK's decline, if not more. He was equally fond of the slogan 'No return to boom and bust'

Andre

Greenslime I agree with absolutely everything you say - particularly about G-Brown's social engineering stratagems. My gripe is with the general populace for falling for it. Forgive my assuming your musical prowess. The plectrum quip was directd more generally.

Fergus Pickering

It's a four year degree my old sport. All Scottish honours degrees are four years long, or they were then. I expect they still are. The Scots are canny at getting extra, expecially when somebody else is paying for it. Oh, and starting at university at seventeen was very common, after five years seconday school and seven years primary. I stayed for a sixth year, but I had my Highers and all I did was arse around acting in plays and playing cricket. Lovely! Sixteen is going a bit, I agree.

lescam

"It seems neither man has hired a ghost writer".

Hardly surprising that Blair hasn't hired a GW. After all he has probably read Robert Harris's novel "The Ghost", and been put off by what happened to the PM in it. As for Bully Brown, he is far too mean to pay a GW, because that would actually mean paying for it himself, rather than using the taxpayer.

N J Mayes

Surely the good folk of Kirkcaldy should have known what to expect when they re-elected him? I can't say I have too much sympathy for them.

Noa Zrk

He's in Scotland?

Can someone get him on to the moor on 12th August?

The man who came in from the all women shortlist

Richard of York said "All around me I see men and women who have done very well under the 13 years of Labour administration....."

And therin lies the problem .Many people have yet to come to terms with the fact that this period of prosperity was in fact built on sand. We only "Did really well" because the economy was being paid for on a massive credit card.

The Bill has now arrived I hope it was worth it !

brownedoff

He ruined my pension fund twice over and how much in his pension pot?