Brown needs to serve up some policy beef to the electorate

Sam

That's not even a new policy. The govt sent it to all secondary schools last October -and there was controversy over whether it was scientific or dogma. See here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm

Pretty poor by the govt - but also pretty poor by Rachel Sylvester for not remembering this.

Clive

The Gore film thing is not new either, it was proposed when Blair was around I believe. it may not have been formal policy, but it surely is not new.

But it does reflect the problem. This government has always assumed that to do something useful they must spend money and legislate the country into a standstill.

But the best policies at the moment would surely be those that demonstrate that you do not need vast expenditure nor legislation to be effective.

Good management, careful planning, less spinning, fewer targets, letting people get on with it.

David C

There are no policies because since the 'Election that Never Was' Brown is not in control of the agenda. Everything that he had done, all the political manouvreing in preparation for the election campaign, has unravelled.
Now he is running as hard as he can, just to try to stand still.
As the polls prove, he is losing.
His deeds are coming back to haunt him.

One interesting quote was from a No10 advisor, who likened the electorate and media to 'stroppy teenagers convinced that everything their parents do is wrong'.
Well, Mr. Condescending ******* Advisor, the electorate are not teenagers; the bunch of halfwits presently masquerading as HM Government, are not their parents, and when the next GE is over and Labour is buried, you and your ilk will be seeking another profession where you can all rise to the level of your incompetence.

Enjoy the ‘rubber chicken’, and happy networking.

Mark

Journalists seem obsessed with "the big idea". What the people want is a competent government, capable of reacting promptly and appropriately to events. A competent government will have some broad ideas - efficiency, reducing poverty/social exclusion/taxation, sound defence and law and order - but will not spend its time making endless policy announcements. The problem with Brown is that there is a new iniative every weekend as he struggles to win back votes. Last weekend it was knife crime. The weekend before it was wasted food. And the one (or was it two?) before that, it was increasing oil production.

Tom

James, you have fallen into the trap that almost all political columnists tumble into: assuming that the public is crying out for leadership and dramatic change from their politicians. They are not. Most people don't care about politics and that's a good thing. While the ecnomy tanks and oil and food prices continue to rise, there is little Brown or any political party can do. A better course of action would be to get out the way - stop legislating, stop trying to be seen to do something. Seriously, the world would keep spinning if Downing St. took a week off over the summer. The biggest failure most politicians have is the desperate need to be seen to be doing something when nothing can be done.

Ian C

You have rightly been got here James. This government is no different from the one led for 10 years by Blair. Blair at least tried to do some of the things their supporters expected, only to be thwarted by Brown.

Now Brown is in control he is trying to drive a vehcile but the power stearing has gone because he switched off the engine before he moved into No 10. Not being challenged for the leadership and then eschewing obtaining his own authority through an autumn election, and now having a bare larder with nothing coming in, means he cannot do a damn thing and is sititng there waiting for the waves to wash him away. It's entirely his own doing.

Ian C

I meant 'got at'

Nicholas

Agree with Tom. The last thing we need from Brown is "policy beef", especially if it going to give us "policy indigestion". The endless announcements and initiatives are barmy enough, but thankfully most of them will go no further than this week's headlines and the BBC spin machine. The less this government does the more I like it.

Look at the Jacqui Smith debacle over knife crime, was that one dreamed up in a supermarket queue?

Brown is pathetic, the more so because he takes himself so seriously. His "cabinet" of all the back-stabbing talents is irrelevantly puerile. A comeback is not possible, whatever the shallow, teenage oiks who advise him may think. He needs to go and to go soon. The long drawn out and overly speculative death scene of New Labour is, in the present circumstances, doing this country no favours.

Silent Hunter

Face it! We don't need yet 'another policy statement'

LABOUR ARE USELESS!

Getting rid of them (hopefully on a permanent basis) is the first thing that has to be tackled.

Then.....& only then......can we start to heal the damage that they have done.

Marcus Cotswell

We're in danger here of allowing ourselves to get confused. Coming up with a bunch of new policies does not an effective political narrative make. In fact, the narrative needs to come first, really, and the policies fit in around that: you do things that will enable you to emphasise the good stuff about you in your narrative, while trying to minimise the opportunities for the other lot to say good stuff about themselves.

wgaf

Survival is the only aim and the only policy. Gordon's vision was like a ladies' romantic novel. His ended as he entered no10, just as the novel ends when the happy pair walk up the aisle. But in a marriage, that's when real life starts. Ditto for Gordon's dream, it didn't go beyond getting the job, he has no idea what to do next, and he's probably wondering (as I am) whyever the hell he wanted it in the first place.