Can Brown change?

J H Holloway

I suspect, that like Blair, Brown has no reverse gear. Trouble is, I suspect he only has one forward gear and no steering at all...

Zan Leech

I feel that the majority of voters have NEVER liked, let alone supported Gordon Brown for many reasons, some of which are not often discussed in any public arena.
Most of the people I speak to consider Gordon Brown an 'unelected' PM (True of course) but the general feeling is more about how he gained control.
Many say that he 'winged' his way to power because he had an agreement with Tony Blair in exchange for his support in the last General Election.
Most people do not believe that Labour would have been re-elected under Brown, Blair was the elected winner and most people would have preferred him to see his term out in full.
The majority have distrusted Brown since he proved that he was NOT a man of his word, they sincerely believed that a referendum would take place, the simple fact that they saw Brown as an arrogant hypocrite meant that Labour was going to lose votes no matter what. When he failed to have the decency to say sorry following the 10p debacle he lost more votes than could be reasonably recovered.
The failure of the legal system, the lack of accountability, the refusal to disclose financial details of expense accounts and so on, the failure of our education system and the NHS problems. The deaf ear approach to an even wider range of topics, immigration, fuel prices (taxes) which many see as legalized robbery, the state of the refuse collection service, the state of our roads and of course local councils that suddenly believe they can do as they see fit.
All this and more have come together to give Labour a final warning from the electorate. Sort it or else, the General election is only a very short two years away.

Michael Davies

I think Brown is still in denial. They are apparently planning a relaunch on Tuesday with six policy packages and a consultation with what remains of his party. It is way too soon to be just pressing on regardless and shrugging off the message he's had from the electorate.

To survive, he will need to demonstrate a balance between contrition and confidence without looking either fatally weakened or arrogant. He somehow needs to communicate a vision with refreshed policies without looking as though he is spraying announcements in a panic displacement reaction. How Brown handles the next month will settle whether he can survive and manage a modest bounce (he'll never win an election) or whether the mood against him will feed on itself and bring on a catastrophic plunge, with Brown ridiculed by the Opposition, scorned by his party the public and loathed by his colleagues. I don't think he he has the personal leadership qualities to get himself through this and think he might just go under...
http://brown-out.blogspot.com

Whistle Blower

Brown is so supremely arrogant and socially inept that he has little or no chance of changing. My guess is that his political "friends" will be of the fair weather variety, whilst his enemies - assiduously created by Brown himself though the attributes I've described - will be after blood. Our unelected, dictatorial prime-minister is dead in the water, and the sooner he and his Party realise this and deal with it, the better for us all.

Vincent McKenzie

Its time for Brown to make the "right long term decision" and go forth and multiply !

Max Kaye

Brown is, and always has been, psychologically flawed.

He is the walking dead.

Look up everyone: the vultures are circling.

Ian C

Cats, chance and 'in hell' come to mind. Just shows how vital Blair (and Mandelson) was to the whole nu-Lab project, how shrewd they were in converting and disciplining the Labour machine. And when they finally handed it over to the one within their ranks who represented what they had to fight all the way, even though he was with them for some of it (especillay the personal ambition bit), the wheels came off. His wide reaching tax grabs and his control of the domestic agenda is what is unravelling the project, while Iraq unravelled Blair (wrongly in my view except that he wimped out once in there, but was almost certainly forced to).

Roger Davies

Everyone knows that Brown is devious and a liar, it is very unlikely that during the next two years, no matter what largesse he spreads, that the electorate will change that opinion.

Ian C

I have just read a summary of Reform's latest paper 'Blair Unbound and it says “In the absence of thorough-going public-sector reform, Mr Blair's premiership must be counted as a missed opportunity … Blairism was politics for the good times that it neither created nor helped much to extend. The ‘third way’ left Britain with a tax burden approaching Germany's, faltering productivity growth and a structural deficit”. They are absolutely spot on with this and Blair will be saying that he could have done so much if Brown had not prevented the reform need to make the spending productive. I was never a Blair supporter but this criticism is really about Brown. As Boris said last night 'If I were the Labour party I would get Brown to stand down and put Miliband in his place. But they will never do that'.

TrevorH

How can brown change?

Will he give us a referendum on the EU Constitution?

Will he repeal his complicated tax credits policy?

Will he repeal his policy on crime and punishment, will he abolish speed and parking cameras?

Will he miraculously reduce government borrowing whilst at the same time reduce the tax burden for ordinary people and keep companies from relocating abroad?

Just how can he reverse the economic mismanagement of the last decade? How can he preseve the value of people's houses and make life easier for first time buyers and give people more disposable income?

How can he do that, how could any replacement?

Indeed how can any new incoming government?

The fact is labour have failed and deserve to be booted out. Its not the point if any incoming govt can do better or not (they may) but that failure and ineptitude and duplicity and ignorance gets its just reward.

Kevin

I suppose, from a cynical, scheming perspective, Brown was right to be furious with those Labour MPs who protested the abolition of the 10% tax rate at this "sensitive" time. Perhaps we should be grateful to those MPs for acting in the interests of the country rather than the party.

Dizzy

He has not a single redeeming defect, and shall not grow an ounce wiser before he learns that much that he has done was very foolish.

Perry

Can Brown change?

Nope!

Nicholas

I suspect that, Mugabe-like, the more he is despised and villified the more stubborn and outrageous his actions will be. This is a seriously self-deluding individual who seized power by scheming, subterfuge and conspiracy and will try to hold onto it the same way.

Stalin or Mr Bean. Neither is an appropriate nor acceptable characterisation for a Prime Minister of Britain.

The country wants and needs real change. The courageous thing for Mr Brown to do would be to request Her Majesty to dissolve parliament and to call a general election. The cowardly thing would be to hang on to his dwindling power at all costs and to continue to inflict further miseries on the British people for as long as possible.

Danielle

Some of the blame for the election that never was does lie on the shoulders of Gordon Brown but you forget it was Ed Milliband, Douglas Alexander and Ed Balls talking it up to the media and trying to out fox the tories. Those three seem to have got off pretty lightly. I remember at the time channel 4 news reported that Alexander had said to journalists that an election victory last autumn for Brown would quote 'SEAL THE DEAL, END DAVID CAMERON'S LEADERSHIP'. Ha, how that now seems such a distant dream for them!

Victor, NW Kent

I expect his new policy package to include an attack on faith and grammar schools, an announcement on Iraq which will be untrue as ever, stories of a war on crime, a new crackdown on illegal immigrants, ramping up the 42 day Bill and plans for Alternate Voting for the whole of England & Wales.

None of those will cost him much political capital and he doesn't need to actually carry them out.

Stan, UK

What is that I hear...? The sound of Blair's Conservatives coming home.