Brown’s speech was no game-changer

I’m in a minority in thinking that Brown’s speech didn’t do what it had to do. I agree that the ‘no time for a novice’ line was an effective swipe at David Miliband and the Tory top team of Cameron and Osborne. But – and this is why I believe the speech will be seen as a failure in the medium-term – it failed to change the terms of debate. It left British politics on essentially the same course as before: a course that ends in an epic defeat for Labour.

Brown has little left in the locker now. His wife has been deployed to try and protect him, he has thrown his life open to the public and he has attacked David Cameron in the most personal terms possible. When Labour encounters its next electoral setback, most likely in Glenrothes, what will Brown have left to try and bolster his position with?

This speech should have set out a new economic vision and argued that he was the only man to deliver it.