1615, Peter Hoskin: Welcome to the Coffee House team’s live blog of Brown’s press conference. You can watch proceedings by clicking here. Expect much ado about Mandy…
1622, PH: Fascinating footage, so far, of two unattended lecturns. Word is we can expect Brown and Darling to appear in around 10 minutes.
1624, PH: Scratch that – they’ve appeared now. Brown kicks off: “These are new times … we’re living through the first truly-international, financial crisis”. He says his reshuffle will help deal with these new times.
1626, PH: Brown outlines a reorganisation of government to deal with the economy. A new economic council will convene on Monday. Stephen Carter is to fill a new technology minister role.
1628, James Forsyth: Stephen Carter kicked upstairs to the Lords.
1631, PH: Darling now. Stuff on short-selling, deposits etc. that we’ve heard already.
1632, JF: Darling’s presence by Brown’s side shows how his stock has risen in recent weeks. His worst economic times in 60 years comment seems not to be a gaffe but a prescient warning.
1632, Fraser Nelson: Arise Lord (Stephen) Carter – emine-for-not-writing-your-memoirs. “All governments around the world will be taking similar action to that we’ve taken today”. Really? Will Bush replace Paulson with Jimmy Carter?
1633, FN: New Economic Council – it’s a joke. Governments cant legislate for economic recovery. Guido’s right, it’s like Atlas Shrugged. Any day now we’ll be seeing Directive 10-289 For Economic Stability.
1633, PH: Nick Robinson provides the first question. And it’s on …. Mandelson. Brown’s response: “we need serious people for serious times”.
1634, JF: ‘Serious people for serious times’ is the new Brown mantra.
1634, JF: Gordon Brown appears to have been taking lessons in hand gesturing from David Miliband, most disconcerting.
1635, PH: Brown ups the “serious” quotient: “Serious people, dealing with serious issues, in serious times.”
1636, FN: “Britain can lead the world in coming out of the difficulties” – Brown is just delusional. We have the highest household debt in the G7 – we’ll be one of the last out of this as our bubble was blown even bigger than America’s.
1638, FN: “Seious people for serious times” – I can just picture the No10 spin team thinking “we need a headline. what’s the headline going to be” and sending him out with this. Mind you, Cameron was same with “man with a plan”. It worked. Though I suspect Fleet St has other headlines in mind for tomorrow.
1639, JF: Brown says he is putting aside his personal issues with Mandelson for the good of the country. Rubbish: he’s hoping Mandelson can save his political skin.
1640, PH: The Mirror’s Bob Roberts asks a spot-on question about the new economic council: “How does a reorganisation of Government help those people struggling to pay fuel bills?” Brown fails to provide a convincing answer.
1641, FN: Question “many Labour people think you have taken leave of your senses” in appointing Mandy – a serious point. Several Labour MPs are flabbergasted, and there will be a reaction against this. Watch out for the Sunday press.
1642, JF: “Whatever it takes” is Darling’s equivalent of “serious people for serious times”
1644, FN: “Now you’ve got to realise that the sources of inflation around the world have completely changed”. Brown’s greatest misjugement was his failure to realise this in 2000 when globalisation kicked in and rendered inflation targetting redundant as an early warning system as imported goods and labour kept the indicator artificially low. Keeping his eye on the wrong meter, Brown made credit too cheap, didnt move to stop the asset bubble and let the Brown Bubble rise. No use him lecturing us on the changing nature of inflation now. Mind you, havent heard a better analysis from Osborne yet.
1648, PH: Darling probed on what “whatever it takes” means in relation to the banking system. Will he be prepared to support any collapsed financial instituion, Northern Rock-style? The Chancellor’s response it far from unambiguous, although he doesn’t rule anything out.
1649, FN: Michael Crick is right – Mandy’s place is in the EU and the Commission should be hopping mad. He played a blinder for his country out there as was perfectly cast in Brussels, out-manouvering them all. Now he’s doing a non-job in London, running a non-department which the Tories would do well to abolish. So yes, Brown has plenty explaining to do to the EU. Barrosso gave us the trade commission, the best job on offer, made Mandy the EU’s main man – then we pull him for a political stunt. Britain is more poorly-placed in the world as a result of this. Having surrendered power over our trade policy, we need someone on our side doing it at EU level.
1650, PH: Brown has the final word, on there being “nothing more important” than steering the UK through the current economic climate. Then the players depart the stage…
1653, JF: ‘The global economy will never be the same again’: Brown has clearly decided that the best political strategy for him is to play up how dramatic the financial crisis is in the hope that the voters decide they need an experienced hand at the tiller.
1655, FN: Nick Robinson had it spot on with his final question. Brown wants us to think he’s set up an “economic war cabinet” hence the COBRA copmarisons. Its a confidence trick, his biggest yet. The UK economy is going through deleveraging, plain and simple. We borrowed too much, we have to pay it back and it’s going to hurt. If politicians want to help, they should cut tax and get out of the way. Yet Brown wants to cast himself as our Dear Leader in an economic battle. Mandelson is now starring as the bloodied economic warrior. It’s war time – that’s today’s message. War is peace, and all that.
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