Where it all went wrong for Brown: he's addicted to Brownies
Fraser Nelson 7:05pm
This is the third in our series of posts looking at where it all went wrong for Gordon Brown. The first and second are here and here, respectively.
Assessing Gordon Brown’s biggest mistake is like trying to name Elton John’s worst record. There are so many to choose from. But set aside the strategic blunders - like the bungled election - and you have what I think has proved his undoing: his reliance on dodgy statistics. We call them “Brownies” here in Coffee House – statistics produced using a variety of tactics. Sometimes exaggeration, other times simple concoction. But each of them undermines his best hope of success: portraying himself as a hardworking, no-spin man of the people.
A few weeks ago, when I was in Basra, I heard another example – from Brown’s visit there during Tory party conference last autumn. The military were pleased to see him, and prepared to buy into the idea that he was a dour, but competent man who had no interest in showbiz but would get on with the job. When he announced that 1,000 troops would be back by Christmas, there was utter confusion: what on earth did he mean? The officers asked the MoD in London, who didn’t know. No10 didn’t seem to know either. Turns out it was a fake figure he’d cooked up with a few of his aides. The 1,000 who would be home by Christmas included people who would be in Kuwait, and others coming home on troop rotation who would be replaced. The military were flabbergasted: you don’t mislead the public on such issues, they thought. And Brown had done just that. From that moment, the military’s faith in Brown was shattered. He was regarded as a spiv, even worse than Blair.
Brown hasn’t realised that the financial chicanery which worked so well for him in the Treasury can’t be used in No10. No one believes his child poverty figures any more – one week he says a million are “lifted out of poverty” the next week it’s almost halved to 600,000. He speaks as if statistics speak for themselves, as if the electorate is a computer that he's punching numbers into. “Low inflation” he says – and produces a CPI index to prove it. But no one believes him. Part of the reason strikes are back on the agenda is due to the collapse of faith in government inflation data.
Brown’s problem is that he believes his own hype: that he is responsible for ten years of growth. All he did was persuade some suggestible economics journalists of this, when, in fact (as the brilliant David Smith pointed out), since he took over British growth has been the worst in the English-speaking world. He lists facts like we’re supposed to be grateful. Highest employment, he says (80% of it thanks to immigration). The problem is that people are not stupid. They know vast swathes of our cities are on benefits, they can see prices going skywards. They see and experience higher street crime, and don’t believe data suggesting to the contrary. Brown’s statistics have ceased to wash.
And yet he uses dodgy figures as his first and last line of defence. It’s like, if he says them enough, they will be true. That we will believe Britain spends more on defence than China or Russia, that we’ve never had it so good generally. He has a statistic for everything, and believes they shut down arguments in themselves.
This dismays Labour people too: the Blairites hated how Brown would fight election listing off his greatest hits and telling folk they should be grateful. Brown is a one-trick pony, whose only trick has been rumbled by the audience. That is why they are getting restive in the stalls, demanding a new act.
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Bernard from Horsham
June 26th, 2008 7:29pm Report this commentDont foget the "three million homes" he boasted about at PMQ's on Wed(Q6)_ Just total fantasy... unless of course he was referring to repossessions.
PoliticiansStink
June 26th, 2008 7:41pm Report this commentBrown has done for statistics what AIDS has done for unprotected sex.
John
June 26th, 2008 8:31pm Report this commentFraser, I like reading your pieces but please, please, could you try using British English? You sound like a Valley girl. I am assuming, of course, that you are NOT a Valley girl - apologies if I am wrong ;-)
I am genuinely amazed that anyone ever bought his Brownies. I stopped doing so about 2 years into this utter charlatan's misrule of our economy. The man is a financial idiot.
He believes his own lies because he is divorced from reality, in the true sense of the word. Very sad on a personal level, but I don't want my train driver to be blind. Perhaps Harperson got him the job on the strength of his complete unsuitability to hold it (well, either of them).
John Page
June 26th, 2008 8:39pm Report this commentFantasy targets too, as if they constituted a policy - that's what some people are saying about the wind energy targets already, on the day they've appeared. At least 3m homes lasted a few weeks before ridicule set in. Maybe there should be a fantasy targets category as well.
john miller
June 26th, 2008 9:03pm Report this commentYou just have to look at his leutnants (sorry lieutenants)on the Child Poverty Action group Ed Yvette Dave Tim etc). This is from Simon Carr - they admitted that they had missed their targets 2 years in a row - but had no idea whatsoever as to how they could change that - and were reduced to Brownian platitudes : it is essential that we change this, it is a moral imperative that we achieve these targets.
Not a frigging clue. All that expensive public and grammar school education in the cabinet gone down the drain.
Shame.
Chuck Unsworth
June 26th, 2008 9:12pm Report this commentBrown has spent all our cash and been equally profligate with our trust. Once it's gone, it's gone....
What the idiot didn't understand is the story of the little boy who cried 'wolf'. Maybe they didn't do bedtime stories in The Manse.
Perry, fearing a sleepless night as he ruminates on this list
June 26th, 2008 9:13pm Report this commentThe Supreme & Beluverd Leaders’ Biggest Mistakes? Could there have been others?
Well let’s see,
LIES, arrogance, control-freakery, profligacy, waste,
ARROGANCE, control-freakery, profligacy, waste, lies
CONTROL-FREAKERY, profligacy, waste, lies, arrogance
PROFLIGACY, waste, lies, arrogance, control-freakery,
WASTE, lies, arrogance, control-freakery, profligacy,
AlexM
June 26th, 2008 9:24pm Report this commentThese are not "brownies" but downright bared-faced lies, undoubtedly concocted in advance and memorized, not mere slips of the tongue or 'exaggerations'. They serve to emphasize the utter contempt in which this pointless government holds the electorate.
I do wish Cameron would call him a liar to his face at PMQs. Of course, according to parliamentary rules, he would have to withdraw the remark and apologize but it would be bound to make headline news which might then encourage more of the press to expose Brown's lies more widely.
John Page
June 26th, 2008 9:35pm Report this commentI don't think he does believe them, Fraser. It's worse than that. He thinks we're all terribly stupid, except him. Brown knows best.
The unmissable Philip Stott had a post the other day that was excellent even by his standards.
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/6/22_Weeping_Into_Their_Cappuccinos.html
nigel jones
June 26th, 2008 10:33pm Report this commentHe's PM at the third term of a government, and that has to be dodgy, the public are ready for a change and there's accumulated damage.
He has poor political judgement at the top and can't carry an audience, as Blair could. The election that never was, was a disaster for him. With his reputation for making himself scarce and cowardice, he doesn't look like a leader.
However, it goes deeper than that. His idea that the state can and should solve all problems doesn't work. Reality is catching up with Brown and Nu Labour, and I venture to suggest it would have caught up with Blair, had he stayed.
They created the illusion that it could work by racking up huge debts, which merely meant they were due for a bigger fall. The PFI arrangements were ridiculous.
If he had the interests of the future of the Labour Party at heart, he would call a GE and take some pain now rather than a world of pain in two years time. The Tories would cop for the mess he's made.
I say the mess he's made because despite the attempt to pretend that he'd been parachuted in after Blair packed it in, he has been instrumental in the policies which have lead us to where we are and no one believes he wasn't.
David
June 26th, 2008 10:44pm Report this commentHe's a sexy dancer though...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00682/mandela-oprah-brown_682348n.jpg
salieri
June 26th, 2008 11:08pm Report this commentA fine and measured analysis, Fraser. 'Concoction' is a well-chosen word, lying somewhere between exaggeration and outright fraud: take your pick.
You hit the nail on the head when you say: "He has a statistic for everything, and believes they shut down arguments in themselves." This is the Stalinist notion of truth as a flexible, purely self-serving commodity, which again lies somewhere between mendacity and self-delusion - the distinction is not worthy of serious argument. It might be interesting, albeit academic, to analyse whether any British politician (at least since Ted Heath) has been so addicted to lies that the mere possibility of simple truths or direct answers has become both stifled and irrelevant.
In all his public statements Brown prompts the same response as the witness who protested to F.E. Smith that he had been "wedded to the truth in infancy": "Yes, but my question was, how long have you been divorced?"
Craig Strachan
June 27th, 2008 12:23am Report this commentA quite unwarranted swipe at Sir Elton John, national treasure.
Fraser Nelson
June 27th, 2008 7:55am Report this commentJohn, apologies. I've been hanging around James Forsyth for too long - and he was in Washington for too long.
AlexM, I don't think they are all lies. Brown uses a range of devices, and you can actually separate technically-true-but-misleading Brownies from outright lies. When he says "inflation is 2% it's true - it's just that RPI was 4% and that was what the British have for decades called "inflation". How Brown managed to get the media to call CPI "inflation" thereby confusing their readers/viewers beats me. But another sign of Brown's incredible success.
Philip Wright
June 27th, 2008 8:51am Report this commentA good post Fraser - the same theme is echoed by Jeff Randall in today's Daily Telegraph.
It was good to see David Cameron use the Brownies angle in PMQs recently. If only he would do more of it.
Also I have seen on ConservativeHome a porkbuster game coming out of the McCain camp in the US (although I haven't yet tried it out). Perhaps the bright things at CCHQ who did the Balls v. Straw fight game could adapt this for the Broon's Brownnies?
Adam McNestrie
June 27th, 2008 9:20am Report this commentThe explanation of Labour’s humbling is fourfold. Firstly, Brown made a great deal of his non-partisan integrity, his spinlessness, before maladroitly revealing in the election-that-never-was that this was a pose. Secondly, Brown is suffering from the resentment of a commentariat forced to spend a lot of its time with its eyes focused on a deeply uncharismatic, boring man. Thirdly, Brown spent so long crafting his political identity in opposition to Tony Blair that when it became necessary to define himself against the Tories, he was seen to cynically reverse his previous positions. Fourthly, the economy has gone to the devil.
The answer to the question “Where did it all go wrong?” is that Brown adopted the wrong tactics in 2007, had the wrong character for a shallow entertainment-hungry commentariat, was hampered by his previous political positioning and suffered the ill-luck of the turn in the global economy.
To read more of my views read my blog, Just who the hell are we?, at:
http://adammcnestrie.wordpress.com/
Jim
June 27th, 2008 10:21am Report this comment4,000 turbines despoiling our beautiful countryside. What a legacy.
Local opinion - ignore it.
Tourism - forget it.
oldtimer
June 27th, 2008 10:24am Report this commentAs well as being a one trick pony, he has also been a squanderbug from the day he entered office as Chancellor. Starting with other peoples pension savings he has taxed and wasted our eanings and savings as if there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately for us tomorrow has arrived and there is a huge reckoning to be paid.
Trafalgar
June 27th, 2008 11:35am Report this commentInteresting article Fraser.
On this theme I think it is vital that the Conservatives have a frame of reference that they stick to in advance of being in government.
As an example when referring to "unemployment" numbers they should start to refer to "the unemployed plus those on incapacity benefit" which would be 5m rather than 1m as peddled by Brown.
This is key as if welfare is to be tackled it may lead to a bump in official unemployment numbers as people are moved from one column to the other if taken off benefits and forced to seek work.
Another example is on government spending - this should be framed as "spending plus borrowing" as Brown is currently cheating by merely borrowing to fund greater spending. Tackling borrowing is going to be tough and may restrict spending in the first term of a Conservative government and it's importnat that the public are made aware of this beforehand.
Fraser Nelson
June 27th, 2008 4:51pm Report this commentCraig, can you name Elton's worst record? If you say "Can you Feel the Love Tonight" then that means "Made in England" was not his worst record.
Craig Strachan
June 27th, 2008 5:06pm Report this commentNo, "Made in England" was definitely his worst. Maybe not objectively - but any manifestation of English nationalism, even in a crap pop song, leaves me cold.
lo
June 27th, 2008 11:47pm Report this commentTrafalgar is right. If you add up the unemployment, incapacity and those "studying" or in receipt of some kind of means tested thingy, there are probably more than 5m under what essentially is paid house arrest.
Hysteria
June 28th, 2008 3:08am Report this commentthe meaningful metric is - how many people are in paid employment - NOT including those paid by the public purse (eg the taxpayer) - this wouldhow how many are actually in wealth creation
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