Brown’s hour-long speech may have been saved by his six-second “no time for a novice” line. He managed to smile as he said it, with a glint of menace that the cameras picked up quite well. And as for the rest of the speech – I’ve spoken to a few Labour delegates and have to report that Brown went down well.
It was a wavelength thing: his claims about his triumphs and Tory failing struck us CoffeeHousers as absurd. But they strike chords with the faith-based community in the hall who actually believe this stuff. So when he promises to legislate to end child poverty – as if that will achieve a single thing – a good chunk of the Labour Party audience will think it’s an inspired idea.
He had some new attack lines on Cameron, which went down well. And that “no time for a novice” line did enough to give the press a “Brown slaps down Miliband” story which may well be the narrative of the conference.
Even I will admit that there are worse speeches that the one Brown gave today, namely the one he gave last year. As Matthew Parris pointed out in the Spectator last year, people subliminally judge speeches by how much the like the speaker – and I am bearish, very bearish, on Gordon Brown. So my analysis should be filed under the Spectator motto “firm but unfair”. Most of my fellow journalists here – more objective souls – think it was good. Many think it was very good for what it accomplished, in terms of addressing the new financial paradigm and injecting new drive into the Labour mission. One journalist from a centre-right publication gave it 9/10 – and said if Brown had given a speech that calibre last year, he’d be okay.
So Brown’s speech may well be ordained a success in tomorrow’s press. I very much doubt the public will be swayed much, but we’ll see.
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