The other morning I came into work after one of those awful tube journeys that put you in the foulest of tempers. So it didn’t improve my mood to see a staged picture of Gordon travelling on a pleasantly full Tube train staring out at me from the papers. The Chancellor had, conveninently, found a Tube carriage in which it was perfectly possible to sit down and do some work.
Iain Dale—who is a real must read, he broke the Coulson story the other day—has the scoop on just how cynical the whole thing was. One of the ‘passengers’ quoted in a news story about Brown’s trip is actually chair of the SOAS Labour Party and has previously been in one of Brown’s leadership videos.
Iain also has a story about the conditions on which Brown’s team briefs the lobby. Do read the whole thing, it reveals quite how far the Brownites are prepared to go to get favourable press coverage.
The whole idea that Gordon, son of the manse, would never spin a story is a total myth. After all, it is the Treasury who were the great exponents of announcing every piece of public expenditure multiple times.
I can’t leave you, though, with out quoting the unintentionally hilarious opener to the Daily Mirror’s story about Brown’s trip on the Tube. “Gordon Brown works on a speech while travelling on a busy Tube – an image that sums up why he is trouncing the PR-obsessed David Cameron in the polls.”
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