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Matt Wright

I think the issue is that Brown is not new and is more of a spin-artist than Blair. They both invented New Labour. I call Browns type of spin "Super Spin". Editor, what we need is a ConHome competition to list all the examples of Browns super-spin.

Matt

David Belchamber

If Bercow and Mercer had Cameron's prior approval, there is no real problem.
After all, when the tide turns - as it soon will - they could be very useful recruiting officers for the conservative cause!

David Cooper

"The British electorate may still be addicted to ‘golden Brown’ – the self-declared purveyor of continuous economic growth..."

Given that "golden brown" is slang for heroin, addiction may well be the right word here - addicted to debt and living for the day with no thought for tomorrow, all encouraged by Labour with their smoke and mirrors portrayal that all is well despite the long term problems building up in the background. Showing Brown up as a malicious old humbug ought to go hand in hand with showing him up as one of the most destructive politicians of our time.

Scotty

Very insightful article which goes to the heart of Brown's biggest fundamental weakness.

"Either he can engage in a genuine and far-reaching dispersal of power – or, at the very least, quit his creepy little games"

I think that Brown's clumsy attempts to use the argument of a more inclusive politics while he organises grubby back room deals to undermine his opponents will backfire.
Cameron has matched his word by real deeds, as seen when we supported Labour's education bill, Brown on the other hand has not.

Bercow and Mercer were wrong to become advisers to Brown, he has a proven track record of being the opposite of what he claims. They would have been better advised to read Tom Bower's biography of Brown before sitting down and agreeing to work with him. Or better still ask people like Frank Field what the consequences of disagreeing with Brown were.
I still believe that it was fundamentally wrong for those two MP's to take a course of action which was harmful to their own leader and party, but which at the same time allowed Brown to play cheap politics.

Tony Makara

Exellent article exposing the naked careerism of Gordon Brown. A political leader ought to be working where possible to unite his party. ot Gordon Brown, he has used colleges as stepping stones for his own political career. In fact he has also used politicians from opposition parties to bolster his own profile.

There certainly is a darker side to Brown than the old-fashioned and affable image portrayed in the media. Gordon Brown is old school politburo. A shrewd and manipulative operator who ensures that opponents within his own party have enough rope to hang themselves. I believe that until the next election Brown will play the centre ground card but if he wins a fourth term for Labour he will see that as a mandate to gallop towards state capitalsm.

The thing that worries me most is not Brown's statism but rather his amateur-economics. Gordon Brown has the idea that debt-fuelled spending can generate growth and that the British economy can prosper with an enlarged service-sector and ever more imports. This strategy is suicide, particularly as and when the pound loses value against other currencies. The Gordon Brown economy is storing up inflation which is being masked by the strength of sterling. Up until now the strong pound has bailed-out Brown but now that the pound has in effect peaked the currency is ready for a fall and inflation will take off.

The problem is that because growth has been fuelled by massive volumes of debt, there is now a huge demand for interest which creates an inflationary pressure. Interest is a demand for money that doesn't already exist and will have to be written into the final cost of goods and services and demand for higher wages. Gordon Brown likes to portray himself as an economic guru but his economic strategy is naive and amateur to say the least.

Bruges Group NG


Brown once boasted that he had read Nigel Lawson's The View From No.11 from cover-to-cover.

If only he had understood it.

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