Brownism defined

Austin Barry

Tom Bowers other biographical subjects include Robert Maxwell and Conrad Black. The connecting theme seems to be that they are overbearing, charmless bruisers who delight in squandering other peoples money. The only difference is that Brown does it entirely legally.

Prodicus

Link please?

PSJ

In fairness, Brown doesn't always believe that the state knows best. He believes HE knows best, so when the state is run by other parties, or even his nominal colleagues, he always tries to undermine them.

Water

How unutterably devastating as you say.

William Norton

Fairly simple: "Brownism" is the valiant, and doomed, attempt to prove that Harold Wilson was right all along, and that if only it hadn't been for sterling devaluation/disloyal colleagues/trouble with the unions/Vietnam/13 yrs of Tory neglect/the class system (add favourite cheap excuse here) then it would all have come out right. Most of Brown's big ideas can be traced back to some half-cock gimmick that was tried in the 1960s. I mean, the blithering idiot has even turned his hand to an incomes policy.

As a matter of principle I don't mind resurrecting 40 year old policies - but why resurrect ones which are obviously crap?

john

Now come on: one is not automatically entitled to an '-ism' in the same way that a US President is entitled to a 'library'. Gordon is the heir to Blairism. His own experience of that legacy is so far an alarmingly rapid succession of cavings-in.

Perhaps History will have something to say, but it is premature to try to attach an iconic label to an unfortunate nullity.

AlanofEngland

Bower only found 7 dubious "achievements"? An achievement is an accomplishment, is it not, and Brown's major accomplishment is the ruination of this country within one year. Blithering idiot is right!!

Ian C

A record a Labour Chancellor/PM can be really proud of - one that is even worse than his predecesors.

Water

“Tom Bowers other biographical subjects include Robert Maxwell and Conrad Black” well there is irrefutably a salient theme emerging, it’s more then mere co-incidence that flashes name seems aptly ensconced alongside two fraudsters. Though it’s safe to say Gordon doesn’t possess the same touch, by way of the media, as with the others.

Water

Oh flash has added to the undoing of this country alright, but the buck doesn't stop with him by any means, as recent blogs have shown (hence why so many are paradoxically happy yet blue).

Hysteria

for a well written piece on the question take a look at this - scathing, funny and depressing - all in one go!

http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001788.php

Perry

What a sad, depressing control freak. A life that encapsulates, as perhaps no other British life, the aspirations and failings of the Control ‘n Command mentality. For this guy doesn’t just talk, or theorise. He has gained the reigns of power. And played havoc. Even Bliar, that slippery charlatan, could not, or would not, contain him.

All we need now, or at some time in the future, is the Damascene conversion and recantation.

Water

"As feared, Moving Britain Forward gathers into one painful volume ten of Gordon Brown's finest mumbles" haha, I might have to get that book (then again maybe not) but thanks none the less Hysteria.

ROJ

Brownism is perfectly well defined in his ghastly book “Moving Britain Forward: Selected Speeches 1997-2006” – no need to read it, I haven’t, just read the review by Dominic Hilton. And what Brownism comes to is this: East European Socialism, behind a Painted Smile.

atropos

Alan of England. Your sentiments are laudable but I take issue with your time-line. GB has been working on the ruination of the UK and the dissolution of the Union since he was a student. It took him 10 years to bankrupt the Nation: the fruits of his labour (no pun intended) have only become ripe in the past year.

john

I relent. He shall have his '-ism'.

Fiscal tricks and no big picture, sums it up so far.

Tapestry

http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-labour-gordon-brown-is-leninist.html