So how’s Brown’s fight-back going?
October 8th, 2007-
Did his comments about the polls sound convincing?
The first stage of Brown’s fight-back started with his monthly press conference when, inevitably, he was pressured on the circumstances leading upto Saturday’s announcement.
Later in the day he has the Iraq statement in the Commons followed by a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party.
The big question, of course, is how is this going down with the public? Will Labour stem the flow to the Tories in the polls? The weekend surveys, of course, were all carried out before the election retreat announcement and the consequential media coverage.
Update - New Populus Poll overnight
The first poll which will measure reaction to Brown’s election retreat on Saturday is due to be published in the Times tomorrow. The normal practice for this poll is for fieldwork to begin on the Friday and continue until Sunday. So maybe 45% of the survey took place after Brown’s news became public.
Mike Smithson
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Boulton is being quite positive, considering. “Like a couple tip toeing down to breakfaswt after a massive row the night before”.
It’s funny to see the various broadcaster pol eds having a conflab immediately after the conference to decide the “line”.
Stumbling, fumbling and not very good. But then again, it was always going to be a car crash. The important thing, I guess, was for him to get out of the wreckage alive. Bruised, battered and pummeled. But alive.
Now he has to show he has what it takes. The “bottler” charge will stick for months, if not longer. No question about that.
But it’s now a real dog-fight between GB and DC. Good. Has to be for the better.
DC certainly in the ascendant for now, although even the worst polls would have left Lab as the biggest party. The next six months will tell us everything. At the end of that, we will know whether Brown has a flesh wound from which he will recover, or suffered a mortal blow.
Reposted from previous thread…
Well - Saturday’s announcement was a turn up and left many on here (including me) with egg on their face over a November election. In my defence I never believed it until about last Tuesday when very senior Lib Dem MPs booked printers for their election addresses. Oh well that’s my £5 on a 2007 election down the drain….
The weekend of course more notable for a non-OF team (mine) reaching the top of the SPL (albeit for only 24 hours).
Will it have a lasting effect on the Brown premiership? Yes and no - I can’t imagine in 6 months time (or indeed 6 weeks) the average punter will remember let alone care that a planned election was called off at the 11th hour.
What they do remember are people’s character and values. Have GB’s been damaged by the non-election fiasco? I don’t know - it certainly will open him up to accusations of indecisiveness and spin - both of which are damaging. Brown’s job is to disprove them through his deeds, the opposition is to find further examples over time.
The delay must also help the Tories (which is why so many of them were hysterical last week) - given the amount of cash Ashcroft and co can throw around at marginal seats. It doesn’t of course make them anything like favourites to win - but a hung Parliament must be a more likely outcome now than before.
1. No he’s not. He’s just mentioned the worst moment in the conference, when Brown claimed he would have called off the election even if he’d had a 100 seat majority in the polls.
This is the killer lie. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
2. Having said that Boulton declares the official end of the honeymoon- now all to play for the next couple of years.
Listening again the big deceit is that there was not an operation to spin to an election.
That is a position that is not credible either. We have the evidence from Nick Palmer, the announcements, the private press briefings, the change to the government timetable, the stunts, the trade unionists doing pieces to camera at the Labour conference saying they will provide money for the coming election…….
Now he says people were only suggesting an election to him.
In fact it was another failed coup. An electoral one in this case.
2. “even the worst polls would have left Lab as the biggest party.”
Only due to the fact that the constituency boundaries, like the BBC, favour Labour.
3. SeanT, I agree, that is the “killer” lie.
The World at One is doing a very thorough but understated demolition job. Spin, polls, referendum, Brown’s character as a ditherer (his biographer says so and a ‘touch of cowardice’)…..
Simple answer - not very well. Brown really looks like damaged goods.
OT - Gosh that stop the war demonstration is small compared to the old demos.. Amazing how these things change. Glad they’re being allowed to march down whitehall though.
Brown’s biographer says that it is Brown who has always been the Dark Lord of Spin in New Labour and it still is.
A *touch* early for this thread, don’t you think? Let’s see what things are like in the New Year.
6. Actually he said in the answer that while he was considering “of course preperations were going to be made” (not exact quote but about right.)
But don’t let what he said get in the way of your outrage!
9. Perhaps ‘cowardice’ can be the title of his next bestseller - seems so more appropriate than ‘courage’.
Britspin, do you believe Gordon Brown when he says that, even if the polls had shown a 100 seat majority for his party, he would still have called off the election, so he could have more time to present “his vision of Britain”?
Do you believe that?
1 Deciding the line is one of the great traditions of the British press. Always been a fan of it! You always want to be the one who asked the question which got the line…. Minor victory, like getting 6-1 from the rails bookie on a horse that goes off at 5-1, whether or not you actually win
Redflump, Same question for you: do you believe Gordon Brown when he says that, even if the polls had shown a 100 seat majority for his party, he would still have called off the election, so he could have more time to present “his vision of Britain”?
Do you believe that?
18 - NO of course I don’t believe it. He should have said “well, I took the polls into account but, blah blah blah”. No big deal though IMO.
Britspin
Whichever of us is right, and a transcript will be available later I am sure, on Saturday he said the polls had no relevance and today he says he has seen them.
He will not admit that the whole operation was an attempt to spin into a successful election to ‘annihilate the Tories’ and to ‘crush the bastards’. Until he does that he will lose on this issue.
Guess he’s decided against going down the road marked “honesty”. There is a single word that comes to mind after reading that headline, but repeating it might get me in trouble here so I won’t . . .
19. No big deal? He just went live on TV and told a series of the most monumental lies, as you openly admit.
This is the man with a moral compass apparently the size of Picadilly Circus, who promised to be a change from the Blairite era of spin.
He is a change from the Blairite era of spin: because he’s much worse than Blair. He tells more stupid lies, in a more stupid way.
Blair would tell the odd fib in a humorous way, which meant he somehow got away with it. Brown just told lie after lie for an hour - and he could have done it so much better, as you suggest.
Incredibly cackhanded. I thought he was meant to be a master strategist??!
A big factor from now on could be Labour internal morale. GB was the big saviour to a) win bigger and b) take them back to trusted leftie policies and proper values.
Looks like he could a) lose big and b) go more right wing than the BNP on some policies and have values lower than the snake Blair.
19. Quite. Who cares if the PM tells lies?
I laughed aloud at that comment on Guido:
COURAGE by Gordon Brown
Next week -
HAUTE COUTURE by Worzel Gummidge
23. If Bliar was a snake, what does that make Brown? A sewer rat, perhaps?
16. I have no idea. I would have gone for an election with a 4/5 point lead, but like Queen Elizabeth I don’t have a window into mens souls.
Clearly he was considering having an election - so to consider an election there has to be a possibility of having an election -so what might that be?
Perhaps GB wanted an election that he’d win not on “competence” but on delivery and vision too. Perhaps any election result that had him winning on both vision and competence would have produced an even bigger majority.
It’s quite possible that what decided him against it was not the headline figures (which after all showed a 3/4 point lead on Friday), but what people were saying about the government- that they didn’t really think it had changed, that it hadn’t done enough, that it would simply be a steady as she goes election - and that this would not be a good enough reason for a fight- and the ground would be weak to claim it as a mandate for real change.
Once Brown made the decision to call off the GE, he had to end speculation immediately, rather than prepare a media operation over the weekend. He should have gone straight out and made a statement defending the decision in an open and honest manner to the political lobby. “I was considering it, but looking at the volatility of the polls and the fact that Parliament has been in recess, I feel that the public need more time to see me as PM blah blah blah.”
The whole damage limitation exercise is looking like more spin and lies, it just eats away at his credibility even further, it will enable this story to run for longer causing more lingering damage than was necessary or desirable. Who is advising him on his media operation????
24 - So, no PM in the history of our country has EVER told a lie? For F’s Sake! I thought people on hewre were grown ups!
Gordon’s Parliamentary duties re: Iraq are far more important today than some press conference that no one takes any notice of anyway.
29. In which case he simply shouldn’t have turned up at all.
A state of extreme denial is taking hold among our Labour spinners….
19 NO of course I don’t believe it
and that is the saddest indictment of party politics after the Blair/Brown era - casual lying is seen as just par for the course and a natural element of the political process.
When Michael Foot spoke I didn’t often agree with him but I believed him, ditto Kinnock and John Smith.
Brown’s USP was that he was a return to conviction politics and people wanted to believe that. He has dug himself a very deep hole now and unlike you you I do think it’s a big deal.
Surely the best question was form Radio 1 Newsbeat? Brown seems to have hardly understood the question let alone formulate a coherent response to it!
Brown could offer an EU referendum just as Blair promised it in 2004. I remember a former MP, Chris Leslie said they would allow EU citizens the right to vote in the referendum. Yes each EU national government does not want citizens from member states voting in their national elections, but once the Constitution is ratified there will some directive ordering each state to extend national voting rights to all EU citizens.
If he ever fancied a career in films, Brown could take the part of Sid James playing a dodgy secondhand car salesman in “Carry on Lying”, though perhaps a Charles Hawtrey type role would be more to his liking.
32. One thing for sure there is not going to be a referendum - Brown has been put off votes for a while - he’d cancel next May’s local elections if he could.
32. One thing for sure there is not going to be a referendum - Brown has been put off votes for a while - he’d cancel next May’s local elections if he could.
27
The Sick Rose
by William Blake.
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
31 exactly. the public have known all along that nulab was just lying through their teeth about everything but, with no opposition, they couldnt do anything about it. now the cat is out of the bag and maybe, just maybe, there is something else to vote for the decade of lies and corruption will quickly collapse in on nulab. its not a given yet but its much closer than at any time in the past disgraceful decade of government.
He should have remembered the old “first law of holes”…when in one, stop digging.
Denying the blindingly obvious, that his decision was poll-driven, invites only contempt and ridicule.
Labour’s technique the past decade has been to tell complicated lies; to so dress things up in management-speak that you can’t extract the untruth from the impenetrable cliches. It’s been caught out when the lie was immediately comprehensible: “bury bad news”; “dodgy dossier”.
“It’s not the polls, honest” is of a piece with such transparent deceits.
The ‘treating the voters like fools’ label is really going to stick - especially on the basis of evasive and dissembling performances like today’s.
All especially partisan here today. I think everybody needs to step back and take stock.
Obviously it wasn’t an easy conference for Brown and he probably didn’t go into it with the right line (surprising). The mud will stick for a couple of weeks but nobody will remember all this by the beginning of next year.
For the Tory spinners, the best you can hope for is that it adds to an increasingly dubious opinion on Brown’s character. But I’m not sure that such long-term damage will happen and in any case that didn’t stop Blair from winning a third term in 2005.
29.I think your problem is that this bunch have rather a lot of form when it comes to lying to the voters, rather than compile a complete list which would take all day, how about just a couple from the last week.
The polling figures had nothing to do with Brown’s decision to call off the GE, he had a vision which told him to carry on regardless! Or, Browns carefully crafted figures on troop withdrawals which unravelled before he even landed back in Britain.
I suppose Thatcher was not lying when talking abour Westland or the Belgrano or the miners or comprehensive education (where Baker admitted she wanted to break comprehensive schools with “opting out”, even though strenuously denying it), or John Major’s appalling hypocracy in “Back to Basics” or Ted Heath regarding the UK’s sovreignity in entering the Common Market, or Harold Wilson “The Pound in Your Pocket”. Dear God, politicians are *people* who will bend and twist the truth (and even *gasp* break it) to get out of a tight spot. Like we all do.
29 RedFlump,
The problem with this attitude to lying is that politicians end up being placed lower than used car salesmen and crooked lawyers in the public esteem.
It all adds to the cynicism about politicians and the political process.
The polls of the past few weeks have exposed the problems facing the Lib Dems. How much longer can they limp along with Ming while the ratings slide further?
When the dust settles, Ming will be the one looking over his shoulder the most.
I am sure Clegg and Huhne will be spending even more time on the local party dinner circuit.
27. Britspin, that is one of the most dispiriting posts I have ever seen on pb.com
You don’t believe it, we don’t believe it, you know we don’t believe it, yet still you feel some obligation to trot out the most egregious lie.
Just…. sad.
I can’t think of a single post-1945 PM who would admit their decision was poll-driven in similar circumstances - not even people like Attlee of Duglas-Home.
34. He would if he could be sure the vote could be fiddled to a ‘Yes’ vote by using the votes of 2 million EU citizens resident in the UK, remember Christopher Leslie was considering it back in 2004!
Re Brown’s “vision”:
Can anyone name a few specific changes that the public will actually have noticed and which actually affect ordinary people that will have actually taken place by May 2009?
We know the economy is going to be worse by May 2009. If Brown doesn’t come up with any tangible plusses he faces certain defeat in May 2009.
42 So, RedFlump, you seem to be arguing that New Labour are a worthy successor to Thatcher and her gang when it comes to lying.
Didn’t you hope for something more than this when you joined the Labour party?
Actually, I’d say that New Labour have easily out-performed the Tories on lying — Iraq alone took political lying to a new level.
43 - But I am being HONEST! TO say “tut tut, fancy having a PM that actually *lies* to you” is naive in the extreme. Its like saying “fancy having a politician that lies”, or ANYONE for that matter.
50. So lying is OK if you are honest about it? Priceless…
49 - I didn’t join the Labour party expecting it to be some sort of kindergarten, where we all sit round holding hands and singing kumbaya all day (like the Lib Dems!) We do our best and sometimes we fall short, either by accident or design. I make no apologies for that.
Why doesn’t Labour rename itself as the ‘European Unionist Party’ or the ‘Anglophobic Federalist Scotland First Party’? Then they would at least have a name that describes themselves quite accurately.
“Surely the best question was form Radio 1 Newsbeat? Brown seems to have hardly understood the question let alone formulate a coherent response to it! ”
For those of us at work and supposed to be working, can you summarise that?!
Thanks
51 - You must be deliberately misunderstanding me. I stated that I was honest in my assessment of what Brown said in the press conference. This is what I think. If you are shocked that a politician fibs occasionally, or “spins” or doesn’t reveal the whole truth (which is closer to the mark here, actually) then you must still be in primary school, where life is all black and white.
27. While I’m delighted to see a resurgence of petry on the site, I much prefer Juvenal when it comes to Politics
“Do you want to be greeted each morning, as Sejanus was;
to posesses his wealth;
to bestow on one a magistrates chair
to appoint another to a command;
to be seen as the guardian of Rome?
Of course you would like to have spears and cohorts,
the cream of the knights and a barracks as part of your house.
Why shouldn’t you want them?
Even people with no desire to kill covet the power.
But what is the good of prestige if for every joy
it brings an equal sorrow.
Would you sooner be a senator -
dragged along sthe street by an angry mob!
or a provincial power ruling on how big a drink’s a pint?
50 Redflump, no you’re not honest — you’re so degraded that you make a virtue of your dishonesty.
Actually — even from the narrow view of the polls — Brown would be better advised to just be honest. It is the cover-up that is always more damaging than the original mistake.
Remember Paddy Ashdown’s affair — he killed the story, by being honest, by simply saying that he’d made a mistake and he regretted what he’d done.
Here’s the link to Labour’s new Core Vote strategy - http://everydaysocialdemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-there-affinity-to-vote-labour.html
After that rather feeble performance by Her Majesty’s Press Corp I hope we hear no more criticisms of DC’s PMQs performance. I wonder if the White House lot would have done better in similar circumstances.
When avoiding answering questions Blair went on about schools ‘n’ hospitals ‘n’ nurses. The new mantra appears to be foot ‘n’ mouth ‘n’ floods. I hope some research is being done on the courageous decisions made in those “crises” and the competence shown.
45. For the man who only two days ago was proudly boasting of his lies on this very subject, I don’t really feel the need to worry overmuch about your views on the morality of truth-telling!
Anyway, I’m not saying I don’t believe it. I’m just saying that I have no idea of knowing on what basis he made the decision- and neither do you. Frankly, the whole topic is far less interesting even than your views on the RU referendum.
We expect our politicians to lie, like we expect whores to flatter. We don’t believe either - but expect both to do it with style. It’s part of the bargain.
When done with style, you can get away with calling it “spin”. The problem with Brown is that he is unaware that every time he attampts a lie, a great big light bulb goes on above his head. And another. And another. Until they have lit up the single word. “Liar”.
well central office is out in force on here today. It is very easy to get carried away when you think your side is on top, something unfortunately the labour party were guilty of in the recent past. We shall have to see how things pan out but there does seem to be some rather premature celebrating going on here.
This sort of behaviour does of course lead to profit opportunities, I have this morning sold off £25 of tories bought at 237 and £15 of labour sold at 332 both bought at the beginning of last week all in all very profitable. However this does require a little detachment from our own personal prejudices, I have half a feeling that Labour will start to go the other way soon but will wait for a few days to see what happens.
Is Gordon Brown so stupid as to try to say he has ended spin, and then coming out with the outright lie highlighted by SeanT above?
Does he really think he will get away with that?
Britspin Eloquent but wordy while mine is pithy and appropriate?
58 ctd. Here’s more proof of Labour’s methods to win more votes http://www.labourhome.org/story/2007/7/13/112942/779
cheltboy @ 1.15pm
………..we’ve got Lembit coming to the North West in November!
The main story out of this Press Conference will be: ‘Brown denies polls changed his mind’ to quote from the BBC website.
Does anyone think that the public will buy this line? To that extent the image of a weak and indecisive ‘ bottler Brown’ we add the image of ‘Porky Brown’, arguably more damaging.
To answer Mike’s question therefore Brown’s fightback has started badly.
54.The lady from Newsbeat said: You are a ditherer.
His response was to mumble and dither.
Then she said you a bottler.
He bottled out of answering, then mumbled and dithered.
It was good.
RedFlump, take a deep breath and a long look at what has happened today. Of course we all know politicians lie - sometimes it is even necessary. But Brown just lied, for a full hour, on live TV - he told lie after lie after lie.
What’s more, he didn’t even have to come up with these appalling whoppers, as you and I agree, he could have finessed a much cleverer line, admitting that he looked at the bad polls and paid some attention to them… He could have laughed and said That’s politics, and then added that he also felt an election was wrong cause of foot and mouth blah blah.
But he just told a lot of very clumsy and self-destructive lies. And looked even more of a fool.
He hasn’t just debased politics, he’s not very good at politics.
Weird.
On a lighter note …….
The help which Brown has given Cameron over the last ten days reminded me of this little story, of which you may be familiar. It is good poitical advice.
Once upon a time there was a non-conforming sparrow who decided to fly north for the winter.
However, soon the weather turned so cold that he reluctantly decide to turn south.
But before he got very far south ice began to form on his wings and he fell to earth in a barnyard almost frozen.
A cow passed by and crappped on the sparrow. The sparrow thought that this was the end. But the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy, able to breathe again, the sparrow started to sing.
Just then a large cat came by and heard the sparrow singing and investigated the sounds.
The cat dug the manure away and found the sparrow and promptly ate it.
The morals of the story:
1 Everyone who crapps on you is not necessarily your enemy.
2 Everyone who gets you out of the shitt is not necessarily your friend.
3 If you are warm and happy but in a pile of shitt then keep your mouth shut.
57 Quite
I don’t trust politicians.
Anyone who does has a touching naivite.
But outright lies - and obvious one - invite contempt.
And who is to say in the future what is truth or lies…?
50 RedFlump - agree there have been untruths and spin before but on each of those you mentioned there was a public scandal of sorts. I’d disagree with a couple where its a matter of judgement -i.e. John Major was a hypocrite in marriage but Back to Basics was spun by Labour to be about morality.
Where Brown was bad today was that he didn’t go far enough towards truth; it was sort of “I tell you today I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky”. Clinton convinced himself, he hadn’t had what he considered sex but no-one else took the same view.
31 - What was Newsbeat’s question?
71 re Clinton true but then he is also the most popular American politician in the past 20 years, he would have had no problem getting re-elected in 2000 if he had had the opportunity.
31/72 - Nevermind, just read the answer in 68
For what it’s worth I reckon he was tending towards not doing it before the end of week polls came out. It looks like he personally was pretty cautious about it all the way along.
Therefore can he truthfully say, that the end of week polls did not change his mind? Yes
Can he also truthfully say he would not have gone if the polls had shown a 100 seat majority. Yes. I am sure that it would have taken more than a good poll to make him go to the country.
Brown is cautious right through his DNA. Has he still handled this badly? Of course. Is this line an ideal way to handle this, maybe not? Is he telling the truth? Quite likely in reality, if you assume he was tending against the election all along, despite what those around him said. his big mistake was to have waited for an implosion in the Tory conference.
The Clunking One had a chance to come clean and take a short term hit and get a long term gain. What he did was try to spin things and not do a very good job of it.
All he had to say was that he made a decision that though he’d win based on the polls it wasn’t time to call an election.
71 - I don’t think that this sort of departure form the truth is confined to public scandals - it’s just more visisible on these occasions. In essence, it’s the same sort of thing as Conservative ministers claiming, all the way up to the 1st May 1997, that they could win when they knew they didn’t have a chance in hell. It’s not going to exercise the public.
Brown certainly isn’t as good at dissembling as Blair was, is he? Blair had the ability to appear genuine even when everyone knew what he was saying was complete cobblers - but Brown’s effort was very half-hearted it seemed to me. He’d have been better simply to have admitted that the decision was a political calculation and he decided to wait - his ‘reputation’ for being straight has already been damaged by the events of the weekend, but by denying that simple and obvious fact he has done nothing but dig the hole deeper and attract further opprobrium from the press.
62 I don’t know about CCHQ - was trying to work out from nom de plumes if Charles Clarke, John Reid and Cherie were posting
75 - That may all be true but it doesn’t look or feel true. In politics perception is 90% of reality, the perception is that Brown is being disingenuous.
Predictably enough, the ‘bottler Brown’ epithets are flying around, and pundits are lining up to say that it was the Tory poll bounce that did it. But I still believe he never intended to call an election. Mr Brown wants to cling to power for as long as possible - he’d never take the risk that he might lose his turn in the PM’s seat only a few months after finally gaining it after a decade.
Mr Brown’s a control freak. He hates risk. So what he’s done here is get himself some more information on what the opposition would do if there really was an election.
And now he can steal all their best ideas…
Statement by The Chancellor on Inheritance Tax tomorrow perhaps?
Does anyone know when the next polls are due out. If there are some in the next 24 hrs , they won’t show the full effect of the disaster of the last 48 hrs. I suspect a poll will be conducted after Wednesdays PMQs, That will be a very interesting poll, particularly if Gordon Brown handles PMQ’s badly.(and the opposition pitch their attacks carefully)
82. Can the Lib Dems drop to single figures?
I think the Lib Dems will get a “Brown bounce” from disaffected Labour voters. The Tories wont get all the cream!
81 So if he becomes a tax cutter how does he frighten the voters next time.
81 - The problem is that if you are right it makes things worse for Brown not better. Secondly if he thinks he can now steal Tory policy then he will bring even more burning coals onto his head. Plus Osborne has carefully stitched him up on that point in the Evening Standard.
So all you Tories are saying that Cameron didn’t lie when he said he wanted an election when the polls clearly stated he would have lost comprehensively.Double standards???
87 he has no control over the situation and has no choice but to say bring it on does he? as it turned out he would have been right and he would have won…..isnt that why gordo bottled it???
75. Sophistry and bollox.
Brown didn’t just say he ignored the “end of week” polls, he clearly implied that the polls in general had nothing to do with the decision. No, he said, he had “listened to the MPs in his marginals”.
I don’t know if anything noticed this but I did - what he then said was: that the MPs in his marginals were telling him they would win and they wanted an election!
Having just said that he realised he was in further sh1t (why didn’t you call an election then?) So he mumbled and dithered and went back to his primary line which is: the polls meant nothing, it was my vision of Britain yadda yadda, I wouldn’t have gone to the country even if we had been 100 seats ahead in the polls.
lol
Your defense reminds me, as someone upthread suggests, of Clinton re Lewinsky. And his famous: “it depends what your meaning of the word is, is”.
The difference is that Clinton was a brilliant and very charming politician so he got away with it; Brown is not charming so he looked like what he is: A Big Fat Liar.
Drop this tedious spinning. Everyone knows he lied, even the lefties on here have admitted it.
Better to face up to it and then try and move on. Brown has just done the opposite, and made things worse.
89 No spin and certainly no defence. But it’s probably sadly closer to the truth than your hysteria Sean. Life tends to be more boring than it seems.
87 - Not at all. There is a massive difference between what you suggest and the behaviour of our PM. Everyone accepts that with your back to a wall you are going to say things which people may find incredulous such as wanting an election/being on course to win an election etc because to say the alternate would be massively counter-productive. However what the PM is doing is deliberately misrepresenting what the press and public understand to be the truth, he is trying to pull the wool over our eyes so we don’t notice he is naked. We know that he allowed teh election to be ramped, so to deny it is a lie. We know that the polls must have played a part in the calculation, because the briefers helpfully told us it would be decided once GB had looked at the polls, so to deny it is a lie.
Odds please on the next LibDem leader ?
But the big story of the polls is that the Tories are taking votes not from Labour but from the Lib-Dems. Brown will be hoping the Lib-Dems dump Ming Campbell in favour of Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne.
I will have a hefty wager shortly when I have studied form.
The rent-a-rant mob out in force this morning, I see - even seanT, fresh from admitting lying here a couple of weeks ago. Whom is this faux outrage supposed to impress?
The only thing that can save Labour is a Federal Europe. Europe saved Labour in the late 1980’s and the Labour Movement for Europe is a growing force. With more and more EU immigration into the UK, Labour has identified the EU citizen as their new voting bloc, as ethnic minorities are turning away from Labour. Here’s the evidence. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/henning_meyer/2007/05/euro_vision.html
93 but then seanT hasnt been trying to convince the country he is a “change in politics” or a man guided by ” a moral compass” has he?
93. Back already? Couldn’t resist a rant of your own, obviously.
91 I can reply in two words. NO DIFFERENCE
87 - eh? I thought the polls indicated he’d win narrowly?
89.
Sean, its just occurred to me that a couple of weeks ago you were certain that GB wouldn’t call an election, no matter how good the polls. So why don’t you want to take credit for the fact he’s now saying you were right?
Re 93, Nick, I suspect SeanT will point out he was just trying to lure Labour out!
93. The difference between you, me and the PM, Nick Palmer, is that I am a novelist writing on a political blog. I am not being paid to run the country. I can say what the F I like, and you are free to believe or disbelieve me. It doesn’t matter.
If anything I am paid to lie - I write fiction.
When YOU lie, as you did over immigration some time ago, it matters. Because you are an MP, and you are meant to have at least some principles.
And when the Prime Minister of the country goes live on air and tells a pack of monstrous fibs that even his supporters - like RedFlump - admit are total untruths, then it matters a great deal.
A great deal indeed.
We will see if Brown’s lies impress anyone. I don’t think they will.
Interesting how Brown referred to the ‘cost of the Tory IHT cut’ as £5bn, then £6bn, then £3.5bn. Hardly likely to increase one’s confidence in his grasp of the basics.
Jonathan
The trouble is you’re flat wrong. A provisional decision had been made to call a GE for November 1 with the announcement being made tomorrow. Government announcements were moved, attempts were made to reduce any bounce coming out of the Tory Party Conference and election planning was at full tilt. Unions were asked to cough up money, Labour MPs were put on full GE alert, helicopter landing slots were booked etc etc.
Plus, of course, all this had been spun to the very journalists who were listening to the rubbish that Brown spouted today. That’s why Boulton lost his temper with the hapless Jacqui Smith yesterday. He knew as a matter of cold stone certainty that she wasn’t telling the truth because he had been briefed to the contrary by senior Ministers; all systems go subject to the polls.
97 - If you say so, I expect then that if and when Labour is trailing in the polls during the next election campaign all of their spokesman to go around saying ‘yes you are right we are stuffed’. Is it going to happen? Like hell. That is politics. It is not what 99% of sane adults would class as a lie. What Gordon has been doing is saying things that most people suspect or believe to be utterly untrue.
93 I’m not outraged, I’m truly happy that Gordon is making such a horlicks of it. I haven’t seen the footage yet ,but I don’t believe what he is saying( according to the News reports), and IMHO neither do the great Britsh public. The IRAQ stunt was bad enough, saying the polls had nothing to do with his decision to call it off seems to me to be a compleley fatuous response. The media are sayig they were briefed on an annnouncement, so his denial doesn’t ring true.
Nick Palmer And last week and the week before it was Labour rant-a-crowd around here with stories that Cameron was finished, the Tories were in melt down, Roger crowing inanely, Snowfake going ballistic, Coldstone working overtime and even from your good self something about majorities for Labour in the election you were sure was coming to rival 1997.
Is yours not the false outrage.
PS English has a perfectly good word and French is not necessary.
What I can’t understand, as someone deeply sceptical of unnecessary General Elections, and someone who believes that Autumn elections are, in our current system, expensive in money and people’s time to change longstanding timetables, programmes of work etc, is WHY, if GB was always of a mind to go longer to “develop his vision” for Britain, he allowed others to influence him on a party political advantage agenda. If that was his view, he could have closed the whole thing down by saying to them that this is not the time. I cannot think of a single case where a PM has gone for an election with a secure majority and no national crisis in under 3 years from the previous GE. I have to agree with Ming Campbell that it is deeply cynical, and brings the whole thing into disrepute with the public. GB might have redeemed himself using the dave (s) scenario of announcing upcoming legislation for fixed term parliaments, but he didn’t even say that. Some comment journalists, eg in the Guardian, did point out how unnecessary such an election would have been, but many others allowed themselves to be dragged along, and whipped up into a partisan lather.
I am a party politician, and it’s great when something helps your party, but it makes me angry that so many people seem to have got involved in this. Cameron’s behaviour in particular makes me angry - both in the false macho “Bring it on!” approach he took, and the hypocritical criticism of GB “bottling it”. I don’t think this episode will ultimately benefit the Tories anyway - the only winners will be the “I don’t vote” Party (now easily the biggest in the country) As has been explained, and GB has acknowledged, we do not live in a Presidential system and no personal mandate is required for a new PM from the same party.
Rant over - for the moment.
Even the Brown supporters are surely going to have to admit that he’s stuffed himself with the journalists. Aren’t they?
99. No, cause I can’t take credit for sticking to my guns!
I changed my mind half a dozen times, as to whether he would call it.
That said, I always thought it was extremely risky, and a silly error to ramp it up. And I always thought Brown should have been much more cautious.
But I didn’t know what Brown was thinking, I was trying to second guess him. Hence my capricious opinion on the matter.
It is not the lies it is the catalogue of errors that is rather disturbing me about our Gordon which start as follows;
1- openly taunting the Tories with an election- stupid, stupid. Of course they were going to unite- any party would- should have kept it all quiet;
2- the visit to Iraq- badly done Gordon.
3- continuing to wait even though it was obvious the polls were turning- should have smothered the flames come Thursday evening
4- briefing Marr on Saturday for a televised interview on Sunday- obvious it was going to leak with a fall bucket load of crap raining over him in the Sunday papers. doh…
5- trying to deflect the situation with this rather patronising half truth today at the press conference.
6/7/8/9- whatever next- whoever’s guess??
Everyone expects politicians to lie- not the point. It is Brown’s monumental lack of judgement, his inability to manoevre a situation on his feet. He is the political equivalent of Homer Simpson.
At least with the ERM Mayor was contending (badly) with events beyond his control. At the moment Brown is lumbering from crisis to crisis- all completely of his own making. He has gifted the Tories and most probably fatally damaged his own profile. All unnecessarily.
There is not a hope in hell that Labour are going to win another convincing majority. Brown could have put the Tories to the sword in May 08.
Even worse a swing in anti Labour political sentiment will probably bring that clown Boris to London in 08. But heh- compared to “Homer” Brown, Boris exudes the political skill of Karl Rove.
I know you cannot say f*ck on this site, but I am f*ckin depressed, and our prime minister Brown is a f*ckin idiot.
93 “Fightback” being the new black in political fashion is this the first sight of the Nick Palmer Fightback
Glad you came on though I fear you will be buried under the avalanche of displeasure.
93: Nick, perhaps you could ask a question in the House about how much government and council preparations for the non election have cost the taxpayer.
Re 98, Stonch, it depends on which polls you look at. In one case it looks like the majority would be cut, if the marginal polls are to believed, then he would have had it wiped out.
Oops
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7030377.stm
Appparently robot calls to find out voters intentions are illegal under EU legislation. Which political party, never intending to call an election, could have been using them?
Well done Lib Dems!
Order ! Order!
Might I humbly suggest that Mike appoints the equivalent of the Speaker of the House so that debate may proceed in a civil manner.
Perhaps a system based upon “yellow” and “red” cards as in football
or even “sin-binning”
70 Madasafish Why the h… do you come on here when the vast majority of us are politicians??? Or are you trying to say you are not? Or do you get your kicks from finding the few believable words here?
110. He is the political equivalent of Homer Simpson.” Immensely popular, around for a decade and loved by all. I see your point!
Oh come on Tyson, chin up, old man.= No-one’s died!
All that’s happened is there’s not going to be a general election.
Someone suggested to me last week, For the last decade we’ve had a prime minister who was brilliant, utterly brilliant at the short term political stuff, but less good at the long term policy agenda. Now weve go one who’s the other way around.
Maybe that’s where we are, I don’t know, but we’re in a lot better political position than we were six months ago. The events of this weekend don’t change that one bit!
110. There is one thing left that might save Brown and Labour - Europe and a referendum whatever the result.
All the juice has been sucked ouot of politics now. No need to get upset with the polls until early 2009! Cammy can have all the leads he likes till then.
re 29. So you wonder why turnout is under 60% and dropping.
If Brown came on TV with his best gravel voice and solemn face and declared that there was categorical evidence that Al Qaeda were planning an attack on Britain I wouldn’t believe a word which came out of his mouth. I wouldn’t be the only one. Is that good for the body politic? or the country’s state of health?
93- Nick Palmer- you more than most should be angry with Gordon. His political shennanegans has more than likely cost you a job that you love, are committed to, and I would expect do very well. Not someone I would feel particularly inclined to support at the minute.
OT. Just had to ring Hills to get them to settle the 11/4 on no election this year.
A warning to all those who snapped up the value unless you call they won’t settle until the end of the year.
The woman at the call centre had to ring through to someone else before they would settle the bet.
It’s a funny old game.
Think we need to get a grip on reality here.
Yes, GB was going to call and election. Yes, he saw the polls turning and changed his mind - even though he (probably) would have have won. Now he has to pretend he wasn’t going to call an election.
Embarrassing? Absolutely.
The death of democracy? Not really, if we’re being honest.
As I said earlier, he will be “bottler Brown” for months. He will have to live with that. Living by the sword, dying by the sword, and all that.
But now we know the next GE will probably be no earlier than May 2009. That is 18 months away. Everything will be different then, and what happened in October 2007 will not be a major factor.
If GB wants to win then, he has to earn it. That is the task. Cameron, clearly boosted and on the up, needs to be able to reframe the narrative his way.
The big difference, still, could be that Labour seems genuinely united on the desire to stay in office and there will not be any putsch. The Tories, by contrast, have demonstrated in recent months that they do dissent far better than unity over anything other than the very short-term.
Even when DC was five points clear, he was being sniped at by the dinosaurs. If he doesn’t stay ahead now, it will happen again - “when we were truly Conservative, we had them on the back foot and were ahead in the polls; now we’ve gone back to his modernising agenda and look what’s happened”.
All to play for. Still Labour’s to lose but GB has got to be far more sure-footed and start leading again.
110. Tyson, bless you. An honest leftie!
In the same spirit of honesty, can I say that this whole Brown charade is making me look anew at Tony Blair.
Yes yes. Bear with me! I know Iraq was awful but… well.. Blair did have that optimistic charm which was quite winning. After you’d seen him in action you often felt slightly uplifted, even as you often felt very angry. Weird but true. Blair stayed on too long but he also added to the gaiety of the nation. And dammit he could tell a joke. Against himself as well.
Whereas Brown’s bleak and clumsy blustering is just depressing.
I’m sure I’ll get over this weird and self-contradictory mood.
Wasn’t the ‘Bottler Brown’ epithet - which will stick - from the Guardian on sunday.
Those that crapp on you may not always be your enemy.
114. I think some of us are getting carried away with the polls and their effect on Brown. After all I don’t think I was alone in thinking, in the build-up to the Tory recovery when the polls were bad for us, that Brown simply didn’t have the courage to call one.
Maybe, he was today subtly just admitting that, it was not the polls: he just doesn’t have the courage?
BTW Redflump at 42. Actually no. Partisanly you think Thatcher lied about the Belgrano, Westland et al; I’m sure many of us would argue quite the opposite. It is actually not that common for a PM, or indeed any politician, to yet go into the public sphere and lie outright. This is partly what makes me think maybe Brown is not lying after all, but just telling half-truths.
124 Sean. Blair was a lot like you! Was like looking in a mirror. Brown is quite different.
124. Hmmm…..yes Blair=Clinton i.e. charming dissembler, Brown perhaps=Nixon…charmless l***
110 Indeed. He might just as well as have picked up the ‘phone to Cameron three months ago and said “I’m going to call a snap election. Would you like to get ready for it?”
129 Nice
I wonder how powerful the Labour Movement for Europe will become? David ‘Milipede’ seems to be a leading member of this faction. Will they replace the Brownites?
127. Hah! I’ve never been compared to Tony Blair before. I don’t know whether to feel hideously insulted or surprisingly flattered. Both, maybe…
124- seant- definitely where emotional intelligence plays a part- and I agree this wouldn’t have happened with TB.
Oh well, heh ho. You win some, you lose some- and Labour have been on a 15 year winning streak. Bound to come to an end at some point.
116 ” Madasafish Why the h… do you come on here when the vast majority of us are politicians??? Or are you trying to say you are not? Or do you get your kicks from finding the few believable words here?”
I understand this is a free society and I can post what I like on an open blog. Perhaps I’m naive as well thinking politicians welcome commenst from us plebian voters?
117- britspin- admire your optimism
129- sean fear- spot on
Seems the Clucking Fist has had more “visions” than a saint
Tyson at 110 - sadly I agree - we were told he was a `heavyweight strategist’ and frankly this suggests the opposite.
137. The ‘heavyweight’ bit was right.
136 - and we thought Blair was messianic!
So I take it that all of those who are moaning about the cancellation of something that wasn’t due to happen anyway, will be backing the Lib Dems in the call for fixed term parliaments?
110. Crikey Tyson, you’re very honest today.
Tyson. Redflump. Both of you - RESPECT.
Not for “slating” Labour and impressing a Tory, but for being honest about your feelings. We’re all semi-anonymous here. Nothing wrong with coming clean about your views - it’s very decent of you.
Frankly, you put Grumpy/Jonathan/britspin/bally”there WILL be an election”eric to shame with their partisan bluster. Wish there were more like you.
Right, time for my views again
(1) Next Election - Labour WON’T win a majority in 2009/10. But neither will the Tories. No, I don’t know who will be the largest party, but there will be a hung parliament. To what degree, is anyones guess. I think Brown has lost the South-East and Cameron can’t turn the picture around nationally in 2 years. He just hasn’t the support in the North to win outright; yet.
(2) Brown - the immediate rancour will fade away over the coming weeks, but the long-term damage will be of a different sort. In three respects; (a) the media will forever view him suspiciously & he won’t ever be given the benefit of the doubt again, (b) the public will now associate him with spin as much as Blair and, (c) , whenever the next election comes up, inevitably, the public will be reminded of his behaviour in 2007.
(3) Labour strategy - If they follow the standard NuLab gameplan, I expect they will now be thinking how best to neuter the Conservatives. This will probably include; (a) moves to restrict political funding outside election time to stem Ashcroft (yes, they will try) (b) a move on IHT/stamp duty and, (c) yet another attempt at portraying “renewal” or “change”.
Personally, I think that is futile. If Brown wants to win, the only way he will manage is to perform expectionally well as a heavyweight over the next 18-months and show-up Camerons inexperience. If he then runs a “who do you trust more?” campaign (1992 style) in 2009, he could stay as the largest party in a hung parliament, but would lose the election after that.
All this *assumes* the Conservatives don’t self-implode in the next 2 years (as we are prone to do) and Cameron stays as leader. It also depends on few by-elections and no major trip-ups by the Tory team.
But, I now think it’s now a damage-limitation exercise for Brown in 2009/2010, rather than an opportunity for strengthening Labours hold on power.
(is that too rambling? sorry)
137. I think many people of political colours thought Brown would be a liability, only die hard Labour Party members thought he was an asset. I wonder if Milliband is waiting until next year to mount a Labour leadership election? This is starting to look like the Major disaster years of 1992-1997!
eyes down for brown bottle in the house!
142.
Polls showed the population preferring Blair to Cameron in the “who do you trust in a crisis question” 60-13. so you’re not correct.
It will be interesting to see how that has moved.
Brown left his handwritten notes on the lectern at the press Conference. He needed cues to remember the porkie pies. Should be good photo for tomorrow’s papers.
It seems to me that you have had a curious mirror-effect here.
Firstly Cameron and the Conservatives wholly under-estimated Gordon Brown. That showed a degree of hubris and inexperience. Personified by Cameron being in the wrong place (Rwanda) at the wrong time (floods in the summer).
Then, unbelievably, Brown and Labour made the same mistake by underestimating David Cameron. Even more hubris but without the excuse of inexperience. Again, the leader in the wrong place (Iraq) at the wrong time (Tory Party conference).
The impact on the parties has, however, been very different. David Cameron’s leadership is now rock solid and I find it difficult to believe that Labour will be able to destabilise him in the future.
Brown, however, has damaged his credibility with the media enormously just at a time when he should be consolidating the positive impression he had been making. It will be quite a challenge for him not to appear a “fag-end” prime minister like Jim Callaghan.
Will be interesting to see how he responds to what will certainly be a tabloid onslaught on the question of a European referendum.
Actually, heres the stats from this weekends YouGov
“Showed a list of words and asked which ones applied to David Cameron and Gordon Brown, Brown still has a more positive all round image. 40% think he is strong, 37% decisive, 40% think he sticks to what he believes in. The only measures where Cameron outscores Brown are Charismatic (34% compared to Brown’s 7%) and ‘in touch with the concerns of ordinary people’ (23% compared to Brown’s 20%).”
http://www.order-order.com/
The close relationship between the Telegraph and Labour. Dacre and the Mail also explained.
Stephen Glover “Last week I suggested that The Daily Telegraph was growing surprisingly close to Gordon Brown. I pointed out that its new political editor, Andrew Porter, is a friend of Mr Brown’s spin doctor, Damian McBride, and that Will Lewis, the Telegraph’s editor, stood and clapped Mr Brown at the Labour Party conference.”
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article3036410.ece
Do we have a right wing press anymore? The Telegraph Editor claps Brown?
Much as I am pleased with the boost to the Conservative party’s fortunes and the damage done to Brown’s political reputation, we need to keep our feet