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Once again Gordon Brown has shown that his thoughts are dominated by the Tory Party. All his policy announcements are designed with the thought in mind "what will this do to the Tories?" not "is this good for the country?"

What a nasty, narrow minded machine politician he is - a typical product of the Scottish Labour Party. Well it got rejected in Scotland back in May and let's hope Gordon will get rejected across the UK in November. It's time.

Liam Fox was just on Radio 5 Live and was superb.

He came across as completely on top of his brief and, when criticised by Simon Mayo for being negative about Brown in his speech, he said: "I do not apologise. It's a disgrace Brown only gave 120 words on Iraq in his Bournemouth speech and as far as I know it's not yet illegal to criticise the Prime Minister."

Before the start of the conference I had many doubts about the quality of the shadow cabinet and whether it could ever possibly be a 'government in waiting'.

But Fox on the military and Lansley on the NHS, as well as Gove on schools, has made me think that maybe, just maybe, it could be...

I still don't think there'll be an election this year, but if there is, bring it on.

'Troops home by Christmas'

You can't get more political than that!

Brown's unwillingness to be accountable to the press is worthy of his ambition to form a one-party state.

GB is in Iraq as a spoiler for DC and is doing his 'look I'm a proper statesman me and can look all serious and grumpy' backed up with the 'I'm bringing our brave boys back home in time for sprouts and mince pies' routine.

It does not wash. Mr Grumpy sent our brave boys there in the first place and is responsible for failing to supply them with either the adequate means to get the job done or to defend themselves. He has, however, supplied our troops with a part time defence minister and a duty of care that would shame Vlad the Impaler.

I wonder if he is bringing the troops home in exploding Hercules or if he is going to spend a couple of quid fitting flame retardant?

Edison Smith:

I totally agree with your sentiments and would add that in comparison to the shower that have been anointed by the Labour Party to be our government that were so dire last week, the Conservative Shadow Cabinet would be a vast improvement.

We currently have a government of no talent, no vision, no competence and no ideas. It's time for change!

I'd say Brown's Iraq visit is a strong indication of panic.

"Who has been caught out by today's announcement of troop withdrawals from Basra?

Only the Ministry of Defence, which was expecting this next week apparently." Sky News.

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN BY THE EDITOR.

Well nice to see that Gordo has remained true to the media spin and manipulation of NuLab.
Next no doubt, of to Surrey to see the terribly wounded squaddies in rehabilitation and claim all the credit for the campaign to raise additional funds for the centre. Then off to a newly refurbished married quarters to claim that our forces live in world class accomodation.
Then off to Glasgow to give a speech in support of the anti-Trident protestors that have squandered so much state monies in their futile, stupid and ridiculous demo at Faslane. These idiots should have been surcharged for the costs involved, why on earth do we have such morons, and tolerate them in this day and age. The same bunch of self-serving tossers who wanted no part of re-armanent in the 1930's and preferred that we quietly handed over power at Westminster to Moscow rather than lift a finger.
Fellow travellers, and ain't Gordo one of those. Leopards don't change their spots, nor do committed left leaning radicals with agenda's of jealousy and envy and class war.

"Brown's unwillingness to be accountable to the press is worthy of his ambition to form a one-party state."

A one-party state ably assisted by a meaningless, nominal opposition as they will owe their very existence on the state.

When is Lord Ashcroft going to put his foot down and force a reverse in the Tory support for the extension to state funding of political parties?

Someone has to stand up for democratic political parties.

Apart from the sheer cynicism of Brown's stunt in Iraq, which most people seem to have seen through, it also seems his announcement of 1,000 troops home by Christmas is also falling apart, for it transpires 500 of the 1,000 is an old announcement, and of that 500, 270 of the troops are already home.

So it would seem Brown is up to his old treasury tricks of recycling announcements, but this time playing around with our troops.

Didn't Brown say he wasn't going to spin anymore?

Political football or political handgrenade?

"Newspapers are afraid to complain about these exclusions as they fear they'll lose access as a result. They need to come together and expose this typically Brown-behaviour. I fear they won't."

Tim, I share your sentiments on this issue. When I heard about this cynical abuse of the armed forces and the office of the prime minister, I wondered how the media would handle it. I realised that in many ways their hands are tied and he knows it. No one, not his own party, the opposition or the media can be outflanked by this man because his ego will not allow it.
He is now really exerting his Stalinist control in every area of politics.
In fact it got me wondering how down, dirty and low Brown would be able to get without the media reacting if ever at all, simple because he is the PM?
I think he scrapped the bottom of the barrel weeks ago and is now burrowing underneath it. I think he is playing the most dangerous game of political chicken I have ever seen, he is daring the media and the opposition to tackle him on it. I think he knows that neither will have the stomach, sadly he has probably diminished politics even more than his predecessor!

It certainly looks that way, or it's a lot of trouble to go to just as a spoiler for the Conservative party's conference.

If the Dear Leader does call an election it will be the clearest evidence yet that he knows for sure that Prudence's well spun bubble is about to burst, things are about to get very, very bad, and he wants to get the election out of the way before it all gets very ugly.

""A duty of care that would shame Vlad the Impaler""

Wonderful.......

Anyone who thinks this insn't the most brazen and cynical piece of spin should look at the Boulton blog. Apparantly the MoD were totally unaware the announcement was to be made. I sense this could be the Brown tipping point, the point at which he is well and truly rumbled. Election Mr Brown? In the words of a previous self assesment ad, go on, go on, go on....

And here is a pretty picture to illustrate the point:

http://www.englandism.com/images/poster-council-army.jpg

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN BY THE EDITOR.

REFERS TO A COMMENT THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN OVERWRITTEN ORIGINALLY BUT WAS NOT.

As I think I've said before, nulab is just the loony left in suits. Dishonestly into this war and even more dishonestly out. Cut and run leaving southern Iraq in a mess and the atlantic alliance in ruins. This man will do anything and use anyone to maintain himself in power.

He is the biggest phoney in British politics and only this party can stop him. Come on DC stick it to him tomorrow!

I note the disgraceful coverage of the Brown/ Bolsheviek Coop this morning on BBC1. Apparantly the running of the country and level of plundering of the people is less important than the affairs of Britney Spears.

They appear desperate to keep the Conservatives out of the news.

Surely if we are going to stop identity cards in their tracks, there will be a substantial saving to the Treasury? The cost so far is going to be in the billions- why is GO not mentioning this as a powerful argument for his tax adjustments?
I am confused and assume that the cost of the card adventure is already in Whitehall budgets. In that case it can be cut, albeit the saving will be short term.

"Once again Gordon Brown has shown that his thoughts are dominated by the Tory Party. All his policy announcements are designed with the thought in mind "what will this do to the Tories?" not "is this good for the country?"

Absolutely. And that will ultimately be Brown's downfall. The public are quickly getting wise to his outrageous opportunism.

He is good at overshadowing the Tories. I expect him to overshadow DC's speech tommorow with an announcement like free care for the elderly. I predicted the abolition of inheritance tax paid for by charging non-domiciled billionaires! Maybe Cameron and Co read ConHome!?

And Bexie, the attitude of Nick Robinson particularly to the Brown camp can only be described as " craven" His interview with Brown at his home when he became Prime Minister is a prime example of this toadying up.

He is the biggest phoney in British politics and only this party can stop him. Come on DC stick it to him tomorrow!

But of course, if Gordon were 100% evil he would have made his announcement 5 minutes before Dave's big speech ;)

Tim, if it is available could provide a link to John Major's interview on 5 live this evening. He was excellent and I think extremely angry at what Brown did today. The interviewer tried to spin the line "isn't this just politics" and "don't you all do it", but Major disabused of him of that fact!

John Major has just kicked open a can of 'whoop-ass' on this subject on Radio 5 Live.

I have rarely heard Sir John sound so passionate, concise and - well - so damn well spot-on.

I'm trying to track it down on the BBC radio page as we speak, but the page isn't working. I can only assume it's because of e-mail traffic to the station.

This week could well be remembered as the week the Tories finally up from their decade-long crouch...

I also hear that announcements on a review on the NHS is being brough forward to this Thursday, instead of waiting until next week to discuss this in Westminster.

ps, do you think he has learned the lessons of his mistakes on the NHS, promising money before nailing down the necessary reforms? Answer: No, he made a statement on Schools that he wanted to 'increase per-pupil spending'. What is the target here, better education or to just burn the cash? We need to get air-time to challenge his unreformed thinking.

BBC have portrayed this very well on the 6 O'Clock news (bee in its bonnet about Iraq still?) It accused Brown of a photo op and wheeled on Major to shoot him down. Note the reporter called Major someone who led us through a 'succesful' Iraq War with a great emphasis on 'succesful.'

I have just heard a report on Radio 4 about Brown's Iraq spin. I tried to leave a comment on Nick Robinson's page and couldn't get on.

I have rarely heard Sir John sound so passionate, concise and - well - so damn well spot-on

How about replacing 'rarely' with 'never' and dropping the 'so'?

And I somehow doubt that anything has changed today...

Unfortunately, this story is smothering any discussion of the pledges made at conference today. BBC and Sky are talking this up at the cost of the Party's image.

As cynical and disreputable as Labour are they seem to think some bad press on Iraq is better than good press for the Conservatives on the EU, International Development, Social Breakdown, Law & Order and Immigration.

What is worse is that it is smothering any mention of IDS's wonderful speech.

Brown is despicable.

BBC news at 6 skewered Brown nicely and ITV coverage was just as piercing. Tom Bradby - as usual - was excellent. Both BBC and ITV used a full clip of Liam Fox's memorable "126 words" quote. Only C4 tried to cover for Brown (ineffectually - you could feel Bob Ainsworth squirming even as Snow tried to be kind). In this case the facts speak for themselves and Brown has brought his embarrassment entirely on himself. Doing it during the party conference provided an open goal and the Conservatives have really scored. What a relief to see Brown's cheating and spin properly exposed for a change.

The news item below is from today's Independent - It seems to have escaped the rest of the media. How long do you think it will be before we start to hear about the "dossier of absolutely conclusive intelligence" behind this support?

Deja vu? Iraq and WMD?

How many people will die as a result of
this next adventure?

""A plan by the Bush administration to launch surgical strikes on Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps has won the support of Gordon Brown, according to a US report, although a presidential "execute order" required for such an operation has yet to be issued.""

Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change...

Very clever stuff by Cameron.

He lets his spokesman stick the knife in to Brown, then when he's interviewed himself he rises above the fray.

Coulson's earning his £££.

Newsnight are slating Brown, and Paxman's doing his worst on poor old Bob Ainsworth.

This has truly backfired on Brown. Big time.

Jeremy Paxman has drawn it out of Bob Ainsworth on Newsnight tonight that nearly all of the 1000 troops to be brought home by Christmas, are already Home or more believable have not been sent to Iraq yet.

If "Check the Small Print" isn't a campaign slogan against Brown, we're missing a trick.

Defence spokesman Ainsworth skewered by Paxman on Newsnight. Paxo makes it clear that Brown lied about bringing home 1000 troops for Christmas.
500 are already home. the other 500 are in Germany.
Terrible own goal for Gordo.

Brown is going to deserve everything he gets. He said he wants a new Govt, no spin etc etc. Brown is piling spin on top of spin. Same old decietful Brown-Blair project after 10 years.

Matt

It would have been better if John Major had kept out of this row.

I think that when the public see him they are reminded of the (back to basics) unfortunate behaviour associated with his tenure, and his personal conduct was hardly exemplary was it?

I'm sick of being out-flanked by Brown. So here we have got the better of him. Or have we?

I'm reminded of the Soviet fighter pilot who defected with his hardware strapped to him, and the Yanks laughed and riddiculed the valve technology they found in the electrics of his plane. It was ten years before someone found out that valves were used, not because they did not have transistor technology, but because valves could survive the magnetic pulse of a nuclear bomb going off, and the plane could continue to fly, and fight, with the sky's clear of all other annoyance.

The, long and short is, yes, Brown will milk each opportunity to pull the wool over etc.., but the reasons for this visit were related to it being a real necessity prior to a general election, he is no fool and knew the risk he was running, but had to do it. The fact we speared him on the way is all and good, but don't think he has lost his witt's.

""If "Check the Small Print" isn't a campaign slogan against Brown, we're missing a trick. Posted by: EdR | October 02, 2007 at 23:07""

Good suggestion - and so many examples - doubling the tax take on the lowest paid by increasing the 10% band to 20% while announcing that he was reducing tax being just one of them, and now this spin about 1000 troops coming home by Christmas, when 500 are already here and the other 500 are really in Germany.

"Check the small print" - I like that a lot

As in "Before you sign a contract with Gordon - check the small print..."

Nice.

I was quite happy with the way the BBC presented the problem, especially on Newsnight. The Guardian this morning obviously ignored it but that aside there was fairly universal anger at Brown's actions.

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/sorry-you-had-the-limelight-stolen/

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