For the past few weeks, CoffeeHouse has been asking its readers to shout out about Gordon Brown’s lies – or Brownies, as we call them. The response has been superb. Congrats to CoffeeHouser James, for providing an almost comprehensive list:
“As for GB’s lies…where to begin: The Constitution/treaty. The state of the economy when he took over in 1997. Comparing RPI in the 1990s with CPI now. Constantly pretending that unemployment is now low, and youth unemployment almost abolished – when over 4million are not in proper work. The scandalous New Deal. The scandalous failure of the Tax Credit system. The lie that defence spending has gone up in real terms (inflation in the defence sector runs at around 8%).”
But there are others. Cat mentions one:
And, personally, I’d like to see Ted Telford’s question answered:
“Does anyone know whether he actually wrote that ‘profiles in courage’ book himself?”
Now’s the time for Coffee House to go through your suggestions and fashion them into extended blog posts. This will start with Fraser outlining Brownie No. 1 – Inflation. And the process will be continued over the next few weeks – with more posts, articles and guest contributions – until we’ve built the definitive catalogue of Brownies. Please keep giving your thoughts as we go along.
Aside from what the Brownies are, there’s a second element to this story. Namely, how Brown gets his deceptions across – the little methods he uses; the overarching techniques behind his deceptions. We’ll soon move onto this. For now, it’ll suffice to say that Team CoffeeHouse liked Thomas Widmann’s description of Brown as an illusionist:
“To me, Brown’s methods are fundamentally the same as those of a magician/illusionist. Therefore, it would make good sense to call them magic tricks, effects or illusions, or perhaps — including his name — Brown tricks or Brown illusions. Perhaps even brownillusions?”
Let’s start undermining the trickster in No.10.
Comments