Adam Boulton: "One does begin to wonder if Gordon Brown is cut out for the top job. He does not have a great deal of natural charisma and at times seems a little, well, plodding."

I can't disagree with Mr Boulton but I'm surprised to read Sky's Political Editor writing it openly.

Mr Brown certainly lost friends in Sky, ITN and the bulk of BBC Westminster when he gave Mr Marr the non-election exclusive.

Comments

[Malcolm Dunn]

Sunday Times, Times (even Anatole Kaletsky!),the Sun and now Sky News. Can anyone see a pattern here?
Thanks Andy Coulson, you're doing a great job!

[Patsy Sergeant]

I commented several months ago that someone who has been closetted in one office - hidden away - for over ten years, surrounded by a coterie of quite subservient acolytes, is not going to find it easy, even if possible, to change into the kind of persona needed for the man at the top. Someone who is in overall control of Ministry's, Government Policy, representing this country with foreign leaders to the best possible advantage. It is not possible to run away from all this responsibility - Mr. Bush appeared to do this on one occasion and it was not forgotten.

If the man at the top makes his priorities party politics and dogma, this has a totally negative effect. A quote from an article by Rachel Sylvester entitled 'Gordon Brown needs to widen his circle of friends and advisers', in the Telegraph of 20th November is interesting -- '"It's not that Gordon is going backwards or forwards, he's going sideways, like a crab," one former Number 10 adviser told me. "There's an intellectual caution and political calculation, leading to nothingness. He's behaving just like he did at the Treasury."'

What was that expression about a silk purse?

[Shafted]

I note the current tendency of commentators(Nelson) and politicians(Osborne)to stress that we must wait 2 1/2 years until 2010 until the next election.I suspect they think otherwise---forget Clegg,Brown is Mr Calamity(Spectator)with a clunking fist(but on a limp wrist).

[Tony Makara]

Gordon Brown played both press and public for fools over the election. Anyone one with the slightest understanding of politics knows that its not a good idea to have 'favourites' in the media. Brown may well have won over Mr Marr but in the process he has lost the ear of everyone else, and has incurred their wrath.

[Scotty]

I think back to that last comment from Tony Blair when he said *good luck* to his party, you had the feeling that he would have liked to add *you are going to need it*!
How anyone can anyone be surprised at Brown's total inability to be a charismatic, instinctive, effective or competent PM, his behaviour over the last 10 years indicated his unsuitability for the job of PM with alarming regularity.
The biggest indicators were the fact that he would not act as a team player, saw every other strong politician in the cabinet as a rival, was disloyal to an astonishing degree to Blair and colleagues, was never around when his own government needed defending, had several long running feuds with colleagues. But most importantly of all he is indecisive and has never shown one iota of political courage throughout his career.
He can carefully plan and set in motion the system which allowed the NR disaster or HMCR fiasco to happen on his watch, yet he was incapable of reacting quickly to stem the unfolding disaster in either situation.
The Labour party might not be able to oust him before the next GE, but IMHO he will not have the courage to hang around and stand shoulder to shoulder with his party if it faces a meltdown or predicted defeat at the next GE.

[Patriot]

Certainly you can find real criticism in the media. Even the Guardian (yes the Guardian) is running some very ascerbic items about Brown. The article in the Guardian by Robert Fox yesterday was the most vitriolic, detailed and well researched assault on Brown I have read anywhere (apart from here) for a long time.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_fox/2007/11/what_a_carrier_on.html

That said the HMRC disaster and the unfolding scandal which is the state of the armed forces has hardly made any coverage at all in the Sun and the Daily Mirror, if their web pages are anything to go by.

That needs to change. If we need a benchmark for when the tide will have completely turned, that will probably be it.

[Oberon Houston]

Murdoch told a committee yesterday that he only influenced the Sun, other outlets, such as the Times were unaffected. This is obvious, but is it really true? I think its partly a case of carrot and stick and constructed deniability.

[Comstock]

Boulton is very biased. He absolutely *laid into* the prime minister on 'Chicken . I'd never seen anything like it on a supposedly neutral TV channel.

So you may be surprised, Tim, I'm not.

[Patriot]

""Mister Brown's doomed I tell you...""

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article2933390.ece

Brought tears to my eyes..........

[Comstock]

'Chicken Saturday I meant to say.

You expect bias from newspapers, particularly from columnists, but can you imagine the outcry if Nick Robinson or someone on ITV was as biased as this?

[Chad Noble]

Comstock,

It looks more like blunt honesty than bias to me.

'Bad-Luck Brown' has turned the UK into a slow-motion car-crash.

[James Maskell]

Theres more damage on the way looking at the Parliamentary website. The HoC Treasury Committee releases its report on the tax changes in the PBR on Monday.

The Public Accounts Committee report on Pay Modernisation in the NHS (came out two days ago) is a tool which the Tories could make some headway with...

Well done to the Lords for giving the Government such a thrashing this week. Always good to see the Lords fighting the good fight.

One more thing. The spending plans came out in Commons Written Statements this past week. Some of them are well worth a read.

[George Hinton]

Whether Andy Coulson is doing a good job is debatable, what is more apparant is that Gordo the Great is a charmless aparatchik, who is in way over his abilities, has become accident prone, but more fatally for him, the smoke has dissapated and the truth become clearer. Blair has chosen the ideal moment to jump ship, handing the conn to Gordo just as the ice-bergs bear down on the ship of state.

[Sally Roberts]

It's good news but let's not get too carried away. Boulton was always a Blairite!