Brown should have learned from Hillary Clinton's defeat

Matthew Blott

Spot on, I was discussing this with my brother a couple of days ago. He's generally warm towards Brown and he asked me what I would do if I was in Brown's shoes. Sack Miliband immediately and go on the attack, it would wrong foot his opponents and make him look bold. I also added Brown would do none of this, predictably this has proved to be the case.

Faceless Bureaucrat

Yet more muddled thinking from Stephen Carter – quite why Brown puts so much faith in him is a mystery. Had Brown allowed Damian McBride to follow his political instincts on this one and hammer Miliband into the ground like a tent peg, this would all have been over before Miliband had packed his bucket & spade and Brown would have gained a much-needed boost to his authority. Instead, as you say “The longer the boy who lived survives, the more that fear will ebb away leaving Brown at the mercy of his Parliamentary colleagues.” McBride must be pulling his hair out…

Jonny Mac

Thanks, best analysis I've read of the Brown/Miliband position. I think it's a bit 20/20 hindsight to extend it to how Hillary should treated Obama all those months ago, though. Brown's tactical error is, to my eyes, far more glaring and obvious than Hillary's. And yes, FB, I agree, what an utter disaster Stephen Carter has turned out to be.

Burton

Stephen Carter was the man who trashed NTL and then made a cock-up at ITV. His name was mud in the City. Quite why he's rated by anyone else than his mum is beyond me.

Still, Brown dithering rather than showing leadership? Nothing new there? You get the feeling if his house was on fire, Brown would draw up a pros and cons list for calling the fire brigade, another for leaving the house and then he'd still wait some more before acting.

Athesius the Facilitator

Once again a beautifully crafted article concerning the inner sanctum of Westminster. I keep saying on this blog that it does not matter about Brown and his speaches or Milliband and his challangers. It should be the job of the press to pull together all the "cock ups" and bad choices of this government, collate them all together and use them as stick to drive him out of office so that we can have an election. Paying attention to the needs of our country instead of concentrating on the tittle tattle of one thing and then the minute detail of another is doing the citizens of this country no favours at all.

John

LOL, Burton.
Quite true, though - unfortunately.

David Lindsay

Rumour has that she wants her name to be placed in nomination, leading to a roll-call vote at the Democratic Party Convention.

Divisive?

Not at all.

By all means let there be a good, honest, open defeat for the idea that merely having been a high society hostess qualifies one to be President of the United States, for racist rabble-rousing, and for AIPAC-endorsed and "feminist" (high society hostess, and indeed doormat) financial dependence on the rabidly Jew-hating and misogynistic regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

The Democrats probably cannot prevent her from speaking. Whereas Gordon Brown can and should prevent the strikingly similar figure of David Miliband (achingly high society but totally unqualified in any meaningful sense, die-hard Likudnik with oily Gulf monarchy links, social ultra-liberal who thinks that this makes him left-wing despite his fanatical global capitalism) from addressing the Labour Party Conference. Brown should do just that.

Kevyn Bodman

'racist rabble-rousing' from Hillary Clinton?
I haven't seen any of that.

The racists in the Democratic primary season were those who voted for Obama BECAUSE he's black.
Yes, there are other reasons for voting for him and I'm sure some of his supporters are colour-blind, but I'm also sure some of them voted for him BECAUSE he's black.
Hillary has her share of faults but to accuse her of racism? Not justified.

David C

Bear in mind that Brown operates by means of the carefully calculated stab-in-the-back. He will avoid, pathologically, anything that can place him in a position of competition; competition that he might lose.
He analyses the benefits of his actions, eliminates the risks, then ruthlessly sabotages his opponents behind the scenes (while making sure that everybody knows that it was he 'who done the deed') a la Tony Blair, John Reid, Chas Clarke.
As Miliband's stock has fallen among the activists (with the aid of practised briefings from the Brown camp), I would suggest that Brown will let Conference enjoy a 'Group Denunciation' of Miliband (major) then wield the axe later, at a separate ceremony in a smaller room with just a few functionaries.

Verity

Kevyn Bodman - That is true. Further, anyone saying that they can't stand Obama immediately has "Racist!!!!!" shrieked at them, to divert attention, I assume, the very obvious problem that Obama just is not very bright and that he is a raving communist in all but name.

George Will in Newsweek posed some interesting questions to Obama - on the issues. Not on rainbows and puppies but nuts and bolts, revealing a truly frighening apparent lack of understanding of geopolitics by this egomaniac. That is one reason to dislike and fear him.

Another is, he was in like a tick in the Chicago Democratic party machine, of which there is nothing more corrupt in the Western world. He attended a black militant church for 20 years until he threw the church and the pastor under the bus. He took "loans". He socialised with convicted "revolutionaries" from the Seventies. He cannot think on his feet. If it's not scripted and on the teleprompter, he's all at sea. (And this from someone with a law degree? Something tells me Mr Obama has himself was a beneficiary of "reverse" - or "positive" - discrimination at Harvard.

He lied in public that he was on the prestigious House Banking Committee "that's my committee and here is what we did ...". He's not on the Committee.

Yet point any of the above out, and Obama isn't branded dishonest; the bearer of the information is branded a "racist".

Ted Tedford

Verity: I imagine The Rev Mr Wright's reply to your comments are that Mr Obama was being poetic and instinctive, truth has a different construct in the black community etc [sic omnia].

It's a black thing. You wouldn't understand, you uptight square.

David Lindsay

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Hillary Clinton said in an interview with USA TODAY in May.

As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

There's the w-word not once, but twice.

"working, hard-working Americans, white Americans"? Not even Richard Nixon ever stooped that low.

Verity

Ted Tedford - You're putting words in the mouth of Jeremiah Wright? Why? Do you know him well enough to know "what he would say?" Would he speak in outdataed '70s terms, like "uptight" and "square",I wonder? Surely he has "moved on" over the decades?

Obama's a conniver and an opportunist. The pear-shaped Mrs Obama makes a half million dollars a year on the "diversity" gig. She recently advised youngsters to stay out of nasty commerce and go into "the helping industries" - which, of course, have never prodced one thin dime. But why let facts get in the way of a good sneer?

She and Obama are a pair of operators.

Hysteria

Verity - you are right (although personally I don't think we need the fruit descriptions - your argument is strong enough)

Athesius - very good point - when is the fourth estate (?) going to really stack up the arguments in a coherent way.?

Stewart

A "Come and get me" plea? One could argue that he had already been 'got' given the fact that he was over promoted to Foreign Secretary. That said Brown should have gone with the "hug him close" option. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer as Michael Corleone said of the advice his father Vito had given him, whilst trying to make a point to Don Altobello. Miliband would have had nowhere to go for the immediate future and would have been forced into pledging loyalty to Brown. Brown could then leave him frustrated and hope for another outburst a few weeks/months on when he could have cold heartedly sacked him for repeated disloyalty. That would have looked cunning and decisive.

Trumpeter Lanfried

David C @ 2.43 PM. You say, "[Brown] analyses the benefits of his actions, eliminates the risks, then ruthlessly sabotages his opponents behind the scenes (while making sure that everybody knows that it was he 'who done the deed')"

Yup! And does it with such consumate skill that he now enjoys ratings slightly worse than Ramsay Macdonald and Neville Chamberlain.

Verity

There was one description involving a pear - singular - and it is being bruited about. The bruited fruit.

Ted Tedford

Verity: I was attempting, as one uptight square to another, to agree with your point: that the 'normal' rules don't apply to Obama, and too many people are prepared to give him a pass because to do otherwise is racist. I would have thought my use of the terms 'it's a black thing', 'uptight' and 'square', which you correctly identify as outdated, would have given away that I was being ironic.

And I doubt that Mr Wright *has* moved on from his racist critique of American politics, as I suspect we'll find out in October.

David C

Trumpeter Lanfried
August 12th, 2008 10:32pm

Indeed; the public can spot a poltroon (unfortunately, it seems the Labour Party cannot).