Outfoxing Brown
Fraser Nelson 6:01pm
Brown’s breathtakingly bad performance on Marr risks overlooking Liam Fox’s brilliant one. As Andrew Porter has said, word perfect. We see too little of Fox for my liking. Like David Davis, he has an instinctive grasp of low-tax economics and has a wonderful emperor’s-got-no-clothes contempt for Brown’s economic record. “Labour are still caught in this mental rut that Gordon Brown was a great Chancellor, they've got economic stability, and if they say it often enough people will believe it,” he said. Quite so.
As Allister Heath wrote in The Spectator three years ago, “It seems likely that in due course Brown will be marked down not as one of the greatest but instead as one of the most destructive chancellors in British history.” The Tories badly need to hammer home this narrative – what I have called the “reign of error”. It’s happening to Greenspan in America already. Osborne is doing a fine job, but we need all the Shadow Cabinet rubbishing Brown’s record every chance they get, with the effortless and fluency which Fox managed today.
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Comments
Jessica
May 4th, 2008 6:36pmYes Fraser you are right Fox was very good on Marr today, I made a mental note.
David Boycott
May 4th, 2008 6:37pm"overshadowing" not "overlooking"
Tiberius
May 4th, 2008 6:44pmOsborne certainly took every opportunity to hit Brown hard during the BBC election night prog on Thursday, leaving Tessa Jowell plain out of excuses. The electorate are now undoubtedly ready to hear more rather than, as so often previously, turning off at the sound of politicians bad-mouthing their opponents.
Paul B
May 4th, 2008 6:47pmAgreed Fraser, everyday, in every interview, Tory front benchers should rubbing it in about, how Browns so called stability, an allusion a mirage. If there was any stability, it was in the very early years opf Brown time at No11 & there again the true credit for that lies with policies put in place by our Kens & Eddie ( and dare I say with the foundations laid by Norm`) and far from stability, Brown has just phissed this golden legacy up the wall, like an unreformed alcoholic in a brewery. They (Tory frontbenchers) should bang on about the pensions debacle ,the incompetence displayed in the sale of our gold reserves, how the 40pc income tax level in reality has become the standard rate of tax, let alone the fiasco that is the10pc tax rate and on & on, the list is very long.
The man (GB) is a complete disaster, an abject failure , in the language of my teenagers, a retard. He is is laying waste to the country with his Stalinist economic policies. Sadly DC & friends are going to have one hell of mess to clear up once they inherit the throne-quite frieghtening really.
Perry
May 4th, 2008 7:05pmOh yes please . . . press that point at every turn.
Where is the equivalent of an anti-disinformation Unit?
TGF UKIP
May 4th, 2008 9:43pmYes, Fraser, David Davis or Liam Fox - if only, if only! Mind you as I have frequently posted Liam Fox should have resigned from the Shadow Cabinet by now in response to the disgraceful Cameron/Osborne pledge to continue the underfunding of the Armed Forces. Superb point by Perry - an Anti-Disinformation Unit is overdue and the announcement of its very formation would make an excellent point of itself.
Fraser Nelson
May 4th, 2008 10:10pmTGF, Davis and Fox are part of the team under DC so its not an either or. I doubt there are very many Tories - even admirers of both DD and LF - who think things would have worked out much better had DC lost.
Perry - there is a disinformation unit. It's called Coffee House! Seriously, the web is a lie-debunking tool. The Tories wouldnt be quick enough of the draw, and would probably get it wrong. In the 05 election, Labour could lie and get away with it. But as Hillary is finding out, it's impossible to do nowadays. If your message consists of little lies and exaggerations, as Brown's does, this new environment is an ominious one.
Ian C
May 4th, 2008 10:32pmAn 'Ominious environment,' or would that be an omnious one?! Either way, it sounds very uncomfortable for he/she who dwell in it!
TGF UKIP
May 5th, 2008 1:22pm".....who think things would have worked out much better had DC lost." Possibly so Fraser, but had DD won, given the government farrago of the last seven months, the Tories would have been in at least as good a position as they are now and would be looking forward with an authentically conservative agenda and an authentically conservative message to sell - quite the reverse of your DC future.
And while on the subject of disinformation, let's not forget who waltzed round the Tory husings in late 2005 seeking to give every impression of being a dedicated Thatcherite and making false promises on Europe.
Tiberius
May 5th, 2008 7:17pmThat really is a tired line, TGF: do you really think the Tories would have polled equally or better under anyone other than Cameron, and won the London Mayor election? It's pushing credibility, somewhat. The problen of the Cameron future is actually how long it will take anyone to unravel the unholy mess being left by NuLab.