Gordon's problems have come from trying to be too flash

Richard

Brown is said to have performed well during the summer floods. It is now almost a year since the first of these and locally there are still over 300 families not back in their homes - nationally there are well over 1,000. We also are finding that the Government is not providing money for the better maintenance of ditches and drains. In reality all flash and no substance.

AlanofEngland

What a stupid thing to say, that dour and rather private are refreshing. Competence, skill, intelligence, be they from dour OR flashy are attractive. But then, we were never asked about Brown, were we? Just as we are NEVER to be asked about the EU constitution, English devolution, citizenship of a foreign state, or anything remotely to do with our CHOICE.

Fergus Pickering

Well, Jackie you were wrong about that. We didn't much care for a stubborn, lying, cowardly, vindictive, invertedly-snobbish Scotch git. No, we didn't care for him at all. Bring on Dave and Boris, that's what we say.

PSJ

I agree. Brown has often tried to be too clever by half, in pandering to the Daily Mail group while hoping to split the Tory Party. None of his stunts have ever really achieved their aims, and most have backfired badly. He just seems unprincipled and untrustworthy, as well as spineless and incompetent. He just can't resist a quick political stunt, e.g.:

- Laura Spence and university admission
- blaming petrol retailers for keeping prices high when his Treasury takes 80% of the price in tax
- British jobs for British workers
- election speculation last year
- posing with troops in Iraq to upstage David Cameron's speech
- fiddling with income tax rates in his last budget
- trying to buy the Crewe by-election

etc., etc., etc.

David

Quite right, James. Ashley and other Brownites fundamentally misunderstand how Brown is seen by a large chunk of voters. To describe him as a "non-flashy, dour, rather private man" is inaccurate. Those things can be noble in their own way; I wouldn't consider Mrs. Thatcher to be a bundle of joy or an extrovert. But Brown is different. Where Ashley sees a lack of flash, we see indecisiveness and micro-managing. Where she sees dourness, we see a miserable bully. And where she sees a private man, we see a false smile and pathetic attempts to be like his predecessor. It's not that he isn't flashy or spin-obsessed; it's that he embraces these concepts to the utmost, but is rubbish at them.

TGF UKIP

Bang on, James, and the very start of his downfall came from spin - the trip to Basra in the middle of the Tory Conference and his usual dishonesty, immediately uncovered, over the false figures on pre-Christmas troop withdrawals.

john miller

Ludicrous observation by Ashley.

He dropped the "poor" in it for 5 seconds of grandeur. That moment when he announced at the despatch box that he had reduced the basic rate of tax. The only thing that mattered to him in his last budget was his reputation as a tax cutting Labour Chancellor and nothing- absolutely nothing - else.

Hubris isn't the half of it.

And this clown's finger is on the nuke button - except they've probably rewired it via O2 to Washington

A J Scott

The son of the manse deserves a spell in a mosque

kinglear

David - and not only at them. He's rubbish at everything - as are all his ministers

John

Isn't she the idiot who wrote that mouth-foaming attack on Melanie Philips last year?
I have never seen anything from her that didn't indicate that she lives on some other planet. This one is no exception. Completely misses the point. Shows total failure to understand where most people are coming from and why they detest Bean: his non-stop lying, for a start.

Water

I’m with AlanofEngland on this is a lot of rubbish. I've said it before and I will say it again, it's not his style (flash or otherwise) it's the decisions he makes, intelligence can even be appreciated in a dour fellow. Style didn't get him into his current predicament choices did.

Stewart

Don't worry john miller, Broon can't order a nuclear strike, he can only authorize CDS to use it should he (CDS) feel it necessary. For the Conservatives, it is imperative that Brown hangs on as he is a liability for Labour and only a five star international crisis that rallied the nation around its leader could possibly boost Labour's ratings to what they were under Blair. To this end it is good news as Labour party rules make it nigh on impossible to depose a leader, particularly one in office. Furthermore, I'm willing to bet that the public would not wear the coronation of a new PM with out having their say (which means general election). Even the Labour grass roots membership only get 1/3 of a say. Even a PM who had won a closely fought internal nomination contest would not cut it with the public whether it was constitutional or not. Brown must stay!!(Until we get the chance to kick the rest of the parliamentary Labour party out with him)

bt

Richard - re: flood victims. The forces blog reports a piece in Stern magazine saying that our wonderful government is trying to sequester funds provided by the EU for last year's floods/victims.

http://arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/t=97376.html

Aren't we fortunate with our caring politicians?

Chilly Perry, but determined to warm up

It’s the public - stupid.

It is clear that we, the public, fail to appreciate the sober, deeply reflective, and altogether wonderful Mz. Prudence. Furthermore, in socialista jargon, we need ‘re-educating’. Spin, having failed, - and yes, Mz. Prudence is very conscious of her public, - and she being unwilling to quit, - stand ready for a splurge of ‘progressive’ ideas. What might these be? Fascinating. The Beloved Leader is helpless without tax and spend, and there’s little room left now.

These shallow efforts will do anything but acknowledge the actualite : people are frightened and faithless. No faith in the Beloved Leader, and frightened of the looming kickback from years of public and private waste. Boris offers hope that something can be done to at least start to expunge the nonsense.

I suggest that those of us who can, while we may, sit back, pour another drink on this cold wet evening, maybe defiantly light up, and put another comforting log on the fire. You can be sure the po-faced champagne socialist toffs will, - as they debate our future and how best to remedy our manifold failings.

The wages of spin is . . .

JimBob

Outstanding article by Jackie Ashley. All this hate for the man who single-handedly put an end to boom and bust

Water

Though Pickering is right "Bring on Dave and Boris, that's what we say."

salieri

And who exactly are 'we' in this nauseatingly lachrymose article? Not the royal 'we' this time, no, 'those of us who wanted a Brown premiership'. Well, now's the time to stand up, be counted - on the chewed fingers of one hand - and confess. It's good for the soul.

A real confession would be a start, too: not the self-pitying kind which blames this risibly described "personal tragedy" on global events and facile perceptions, but a recognition that for a decade Brown was a disaster waiting to happen.

It gets worse. Of this exiguous minority, it seems, there is an even tinier sub-sect who found the Pretender "serious, clever, often funny and surprisingly graceful". Bien je jamais. And there were the rest of us just thinking him a miserably incompetent git all along, with all the gravity and grace of a sea-lion barking 'Annie Laurie' to an audience of infants.

Thank goodness for the Grauniad, since otherwise this deluded, fissiparous groupuscule would have no voice at all.

May we now have fewer of the "highly regarded Jackie Ashley" introductions, please?

Perry, pondering the wonders of this socialist paradise, where things can only get better

And my final, groan-inducing, politically incorrect, indiscreet, alcohol-cum-smoke-fuelled, questions of the day, are . . .

is Noo-Lie-Bore Clutching at Straw(s)?

is Mz. Prudence but a Flash in the Pan?

. . . I think we witless, ignorant members of Jo Public, should be told.

Archie Wedderspoon

As a Catholic I have no time for the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. But what if, in regard to Gordon Brown, it is true? That it was predestined that this snot-gobbling neurotic would come to rule over us, presumably as a judgment for our sins? It's a gruesome thought.

Water

"is Noo-Lie-Bore Clutching at Straw(s)?" if that, most of the members seem to be vehemently against going for the spot.

Commondog

JimBob.

"All this hate for the man who single-handedly put an end to boom and bust"

Er...and our current economic plight would be the hallowed even keel would it?

DavidC

I agree with Allaanof England.
I must add that the effect of the EU treaty (non) Referendum is underestimated. To casually renege on a Manifesto Pledge because it was not politically convenient has damaged Labour severely.
In the teeth of all the statements from foreign politicians, Brown got up and told everyone who would listen, that Black is White. This may fade from the forefront of people's conciousness but this bare-faced lie colours how Brown and his Government is perceived.

Water

"I must add that the effect of the EU treaty (non) Referendum is underestimated." Without doubt, this event brought to the surface the current umbrage and events since then have just allowed matters to proliferate.

mitch

How screwed are the public finances when gordon had to BORROW the money to finance his tax cut?

Oscar

If you look at the opinion polls the real break moment for Brown's government came after Darling's budget. That's when the Conservative lead turned into a chasm. It was petrol and car tax wot done it.

Paul Linford

I think you and Jackie Ashley are both right, James. Yes, most of Brown's worst problems have stemmed from being too flash, or too clever by half, but the reason he hasn't been able to bounce back from them is at least in part due to lack of personal charisma.

Like Jackie Ashley I too thought we needed a different, more low-key style of leadership post-Blair, but I underestimated the extent to which our notions of what constitutes political leadership have changed as a society and the extent to which politics has effectively become a sub-genre of reality TV.

Talia

Of course Broon’s meetings with Beckham and Angelina Jolie, phone call with Shakira and appearance on American Idol clearly illustrated his desire to be a spin-free, celebrity-free zone of integrity.

David Parker

It is not solely Brown who is to blame for his party's unpopularity. Both he and the members of his cabinet (and that of Blair before him) have lied so flagrantly and frequently that public dislike and distrust, not just of Labour, but of politicians in general has seldom been greater, and with good cause.

The sheer self serving spinelessness of the Labour back bench MPs (with only a very few honourable exceptions)in endorsing their leaders lies over the Lisbon Con/Treaty, well knowing that this contravened both their manifesto and the wishes of the overwhelming majority of those who voted them into power, is merely one example of the contempt in which they hold their constituents.

Let us hope that, at the next general election, this contempt will be reciprocated by their former supporters, regardless of who may be the Labour leader at that time.

Oscar

Well said Talia. I suspect Paul Linford is in 'throwing the toys out of the pram' mood when he says politics is now only a branch of reality TV shows. It's Brown's sheer lack of substance and his endless resort to (often contradictory) short-term headline grabbing that is doing for him. To add to Talia's list he was even planning to do an Apprentice style show to encourage new politicans. And what could have been more flagrantly theatrical than Labour's C&N campaign? The electorate are responding to very real concerns - it's Brown's Labour party that are treating us like shallow fools.

Frank Pulley

Harking back to the caption to this thread: I've been waiting for someone else to say it in vain; so now I must!

Flash Gordon?? Hmmnn. I don't think so.

Incapability Brown would suit better, perhaps? Everthing in the garden is certainly not rosey and the landscape (for him, anyway) looks very bleak.

Travis Bickle

Actually it's all our faults that Brown thought he could walk on water

He must have been sitting in his #11 bunker as despite his gold sale, his pensions raid, ridiculously complex tax system with money leaking out through tax credit bungles and fraud, good money being thrown after bad on non reformed public service and STILL hearing near on everyone say that he was the best Chancellor ever. No wonder he started to believe the hype about his invincibility. Meanwhile his circle of sycophants continue to encourage him SIGH