Your comments please...
2.35 Nothing new so far, no mea culpa, lots about being serious, a sentence about not using his children as props, which by even mentioning them he just did.
2.40 The list of announcements starts with a commitment to an 80 per cent cut.
Wants to help families through difficult times. What about those not classed as 'families'.
2.43 Incredibly weak Harry Potter joke.
2.47 Describes the NHS as "Labour's NHS"!
2.52 Getting applause after every couple of sentences. Very reminiscent of IDS in 2003.
2.53 Wants to put children first. As opposed to putting them second.
2.55 Promises complete elimination of child poverty by 2020. He must know this is an impossible pledge to keep.
2.56 This is a speech which ticks boxes, but doesn't inspire.
2.59 Here he goes with the personal stuff.
3.00 From April free health check ups for over 40s.
3.02 Abolishing prescription charges for cancer patients.
3.06 Lots of announcements, but where the vision? Where's the plan?
3.08 This is a budget speech, not a conference speech.
3.09 Bear in mind I am listening to this sitting in a service station on the M6. It may come across differently on TV.
3.17 Not sure how much more of this bollocks I can listen to. Apparently all the nation's ills are the fault of the Conservative Party ... who haven't been in power for eleven years.
3.18 Whenever he talks about how much he loves this country he sounds so incredibly false.
3.20 Oh, 55 minutes in, he finally mentions the armed forces. In one throwaway sentence. Disgusting.
3.21 Sorry, I now understand why George Osborne says he hates Gordon Brown. I can't stand listening to him any longer. I am going to get back on the M6 and switch over to Steve Wright on Radio 2. He talks more sense.
202 comments:
1 – 200 of 202 Newer› Newest»This is not a speech. it's a PR exercise with built in pauses for applause.
Nothing new announced, just little sound bits with no substance.
There is nothing in this speech. Would love to hear what the grassroots Labour activists in the hall are actually thinking! This can't be what they wanted to hear - can it????
Brown just isn't a good public speaker. It's that simple. And I can't stand the way he seems to chew cud between sentences.
Using the "240,000 lives saved" by the NHS was nauseating.
"What about those not classed as 'families'."
Ones with children deserve priority from the state, because the state has an interest in the strength of its future generations. Not rocket science is it?
"And I can't stand the way he seems to chew cud between sentences."
Nor claw his papers!
Loads of clapping in the hall as to be expected but quite frankly although I thought i'd have a listen with an open mind its sending me to sleep....zzzzzzzz
This is so vague. Meaningless.
Well just to show that we have not all started with a closed mind...
I think he started quite well by getting straight into it and 'fessing up on the personality stuff. "Serious man for serious times" may not be a funny line, but it's a good one.
Now we are getting some details - nursery places etc.
I think it may set interesting challenges for Cameron's chosen tone...
"Enshrine in the law of the land an end to child poverty".
Unfortunately this is a government that will change the laws they can't meet or don't like.
Billions wasted on PFIs
Billions wasted on Northern Rock, when Lloyd's offered thirty Billion,
That's not just a number,
No you Pratt, its the reality of the mess that you have created, and you want another chance.
Awful, like listening to some one reading out the phone book.
That voice-lowered piece about the dad walking his daughter down the aisle after surviving cancer was nauseating. He sounds so insincere and false.
He keeps getting the personal stuff in there though.
36% reduction in MRSA. Yes but at what cost? Hundreds of "modern matrons", millions of pounds, and all it needs is basic hygiene.
Did he say that 3 billion children benefit from Sure Start, or was that just his accent?!
you lot really have turned into Blu-Labour haven't you?
You're not interested in the facts or content, you believe that delivery is more important than the message - good job you've got Dave in charge, he's nothing if not maxium delivery and minumum message.
I can't believe he put his missus up as the warm up act.
Talk about hiding behind a woman's skirt.
"3.00 From April free health check ups for over 40s.
3.02 Abolishing prescription charges for cancer patients."
Um, isn't this the sort of thing he should be telling our elected representatives in Parliament first? Has that institution been abolished and replaced by the Labour party conference?
Fair play about using children as props. Gordon and Sarah lost a child, yet don't mention it. Cameron is constantly pushing his disabled kid for political capital. It's just cynical opportunism and it stinks.
browns speach ..so far...DELUSIONAL !!MICHAEL.
a sentence about not using his children as props, which by even mentioning them he just did.
Like it
And the money - where is all this going to come from?
We have had 11 years for help for various disadvantaged and its in reality got worse.
Now with no money in the kitty and rregular families facing hard times he spashes out more money he has not got to prop himself up.
Darren, Cameron is just a showman, nothing more. I almost want him to get the job just to see how out of his depth he'll be...
Did you notice the BBC camera panned to Milliband when Brown said "This is no time for a Novice"
Wait for this to spun on BBC TV news tonight: "Warm. powerful, in touch, heartfelt, new beginning just as he promised, blah, blah, blah. And interviews with 'random' man/woman in the street carefully prepped to tell our poltical/social affairs correspondents how "encouraged' he/she is, and "yes, he definitely gets my vote". Jeez!
1512: Every "blow we have struck for fairness" has "been bitterly opposed by the Conservative Party, the PM says. He talks about new schools and hospitals. He then says Labour did "fix the roof while the sun was shining", contrary to recent Tory criticism of Labour's handling of the economy. The delegates really enjoyed that.
No, Labour bought new furniture while the sun was shining. But the rain’s coming through the hole in the roof now, destroying the furniture.
Darren ... "Cameron is constantly pushing his disabled kid for political capital".
Is he really? I don't think I've seen more than a couple of pictures of his son. And didn't Gordon just use his own children in a bit of political point-scoring against Cameron?
"No time for a novice"
That might just stick - admit it, a good line.
I thought Britain was a collection of countries, not a country.
A child being tortured to death... his last words were "Don't worry, the United Nations will come for us" But they never did.
Who recorded those words?
Just lies to make a point.
It doesn't come across any different on TV, Ian
wondered how long before the BBC bashing started - presumably they'll be ace when they report the Tory confrence?
What's this "new settlement"? Does it actually mean anything?
It was a budget speech not a conference speech. He'll get a long ovation because he pulled at the NuLab heartstrings.
"Free health checks"
Since when did GPs start charging the over 40s? Why do you need a check-up if you are healthy but over 40?
If this is the kind of guff that Labour members go for then the party is even more deluded than I ever gave them debit for.
Sorry, but this is the laziest and most predictable live blog I've ever seen.
3.18 Whenever he talks about how much he loves this country he sounds so incredibly false.
There was a point very early on in the speech where he spoke of his love for the country, he turned sideways and his slowly shutting "good" eye made it look as if he was repulsed by what he said.
"we don't need a novice".
Forgive me if during the next 24 hours I do nothing but roll around the floor laughing.
I think this is reminicent of Benny Hill slapping his slaphead around the studion durinf a scene.
Gary
Tomorrow you won't remember a word of it.
Not a good enough outcome to save his job.
You are right Iain - this comes across as a budget speech to me as well. A bad one.
Seems like Labour have given up on making the books balance.
I suspect we can expect a 'soak-the-rich-and-sod-it-if-they-emigrate-to-Ireland' next year as more appeasing to the faithful.
Oh come on, like you were ever going to give it a fair hearing. Go and cheerlead for a party that won't even give you a look in.
He made a number of basic mistakes ( the 3 million jobs - when 81% went to foreigners ), saying loads of money will be spent on getting new treatments to the NHS - whilst cutting the drug budget, attacking Cameron and his family whilst he's had pictures of his family on Camera.
What's so special about cancer patients?
@william 3.26: Er, hardly . . . Too many tractor stats disorientated your lefty logic train?
That's speech has hit the spot for me ... the nail in the coffin!
Anonymous @3.32.
This Govt have never done anything for me. I have a small NHS pension which is taxed, and the tax has gone up.
If you don't have children this lot don't do anything for you.
Is not all of this brown just pissing in the wind?
What has he said about the increase in unemployment what has he said about the likelihood of much much lower growth. If we hit a technical recession or not is irrelevant really the future is really quite bleak with just massive govt borrowing papering over the cracks.
bash the Tories - yep thats just what the country needs right now.
Andrew O' Neill tagged the horrifying 'schmaltz' element, Brown the supposed serious alternative to Blair too , oh dear oh dear, the man of steel stoops even lower. What a desperate , repellent, 'sentimental' bully. Nuts too.
OK, so I didn't expect anything other than a hugely partisan and sneery live blog from someone as graceless and pig-headed as Iain Dale, but abandoning the blog halfway through? Everything you write just smacks of laziness, arrogance and insufferable smugness. Iain, I'd like to ask you whether your visceral hatred of anyone of a different political persuasion to your own extends outside Parliament? You clearly are guilty of believing your own hype, and the complacency is showing
Iain, the last line of your so called live blogging of this speech is proof if ever it was needed of how you really are a lightweight political commentator.
Try not to crash off the side of the road sweetie, I would a real loss.
All I heard is how he is going to spend yet more of our money... where exactly is he going to get that money from??
Free cancer drugs is a vote-winner, albeit almost certainly too littl, too late.
I agree with another poster who despaired at the personal / image-based comments.
This was at the very least a serious speech, and to my eyes identifies the battleground for the next election.
Brown looks like he is going to dust off the 'Tories will cut public services attack' - don't think it will be successful this time though.
I agree with a reporter on the Beeb's (very good) live web coverage of the speech - Brown is trying to change the ground the election will be fought on.
I'm non partisan Iain, but sorry, there is nothing wrong with Labour laying claim to the NHS. The fact that we have one is down to Clement Atlee's Labour government, and if it had been a Tory creation then they would have every right to crow about it too.
Cato:
"Um, isn't this the sort of thing he should be telling our elected representatives in Parliament first? Has that institution been abolished and replaced by the Labour party conference?"
Nope, it's just the third Queen's Speech of the last 12 months. Almost as many of those as there are re-launches...
Sickly mawkish drivel from Brown. And Blair he ain't.
Just a guest appearance (mine not Gordon's) to see how you lot cope with a speech which will have restored many people’s faith in the power of politics to do good. This was neither a defensive address nor an apologetic one – and nor did it need to be. It reminded people just what has been achieved not just by the Blair/Brown administrations but by Labour governments over the years. Wonderful to hear the long list of initiatives that have created the basis of our civilised society and to be reminded how the Tories opposed them all!
And no doubt Iain you and your compatriots and fellow travellers on this blog will be sharpening your knives for a forensic dissection of what the PM said. And the parading, as ever, of your prejudices by your silly posterings and your contempt will give you all much comfort. But don’t you believe that your job is done and that the door of Number 10 is wide open for the novice. The game’s not over yet!
I thought it was a speech of two halves - the first part was too focussed on the stuff we already know - I found it a bit boring and bitty.
'A new settlement for new times' (?) Well, not really, a lot of it was old news so there wasn't a big enough wow factor. I felt there wasn't a big enough overarching theme and it was hard to follow the 'storyline'.
Having said that, the second half was much better - the new policies and Tory bashing are much better for rousing the supporters out of their apathy and there were some genuinely good ideas to come out of it.
Anonymous @ 3.39
So when a party introduces something new they can take the credit for ever more?
I guess the Tories (or Liberals) can crow about introducing free education then.
It was probably the Liberals who abolished slavery, maybe they should still be congratulating themselves for a job well done.
What a cringing speech: hokey , maudlin platitudinous mush. What a strange, sad demeaned man.
Iain - where's the analysis? Just a list of petty 'I hate Gordon' nonsense.
By all means eviscerate the bugger, but why not try welding your personal venom to some substantive points.
I suspect it is because that for all your clear passion for politics, you actually appear to have very little understanding of many crucial substantive issues.
Explains why every second post on your blog or story in your magazine is a bloody list.
I sometimes enjoy the blog, but please try harder to add a little more light and a little less heat.
Scots Tory
Some lovely Labour trolls out this afternoon! I often find that socialists are anything but social.
Nauseating. He can't do BLair and shouldn't even try.
The free prescriptions for cancer patients announcement sounds impressive but I can foresee problems.
As Machiavelli says, why cancer? There are other life limiting and life threatening illnesses and won't those patients start demanding free prescriptions?
Also, it still won't get round this problem of cancer patients seeking expensive treatments which the NHS refuses to fund. I can see it raising expectations which will cause bitter recriminations when they are not met.
Time for the Conservatives to stand up for England - something Brown can never do.
Scrap the Barnett Formula.
Scrap the English regions project.
Give us an English Parliament.
Then they will win for sure.
Martin @ 3:05 pm wants us to concentrate on the content of the speech (which sounded more like a pre-budget anouncement than an address to conference, but we'll let that pass)so..
How come he credited the labour party with achieving universal sufferage and votes for women? Didn't these come into being just a tad before the first labour administration came into office?
The bit about free prescriptions for cancer patients - if you're too ill to work, free anyway, if you are over 60, free anyway, so not much of an innovation .Allowing co-payment would have been more interesting.
And 'free check-ups for over 40's' is tish. anyone can book to breeze into their GP any time,they will look you over(.I assume he is not talking about a full body scan, or anything that costs.)
Free prescriptions for cancer patients. Already available in Wales and in the pipeline for Scotland (about 8 million people in all). For the 50 or so million of us who live in England, however Nice won't allow the NHS to prescribe drugs which are available in Scotland and most of the rest of the western world. Better to pay a prescription charge than have to pay for the drugs (actually, for your entire treatment, yourself.
Beveridge (a Liberal) thought up the welfare state. Labour used his work when in Government. To continue to claim the NHS (a very average organisation) when its the result of anothers work seems a little suspect.
"Anonymous said...
Iain - where's the analysis? Just a list of petty 'I hate Gordon' nonsense.
By all means eviscerate the bugger, but why not try welding your personal venom to some substantive points.
I suspect it is because that for all your clear passion for politics, you actually appear to have very little understanding of many crucial substantive issues.
Explains why every second post on your blog or story in your magazine is a bloody list.
I sometimes enjoy the blog, but please try harder to add a little more light and a little less heat.
Scots Tory
September 23, 2008 3:49 PM"
He's listening to this in a motorway service station, hence I imagine why there's no analysis yet, rather Iain's immediate thoughts on the speech. This is his "diary/blog" and not a public service.
It was an adequate speech, adequately delivered. Big political speeches are long and dull -- even Barack Obama's. What Brown needs is not a good conference -- what he needs is a miracle.
God he's Cheesy, what a flake.
Regarding Broons "speech".
Oh my God absolutley ABYSMAL!.
More wooden than a forrest!.
The Jock MUST STAY! (for 18 months!)
http://www.abload.de/img/broonland3s8e.jpg
"Partisan Tory stooge in hating Labour PM" shocker. Clearly the substance isn't important, it's all about Iain Dale and his tribal hatred towards someone who dares to not share his blinkered beliefs. No doubt when Cameron speaks next week it'll all be giddy hyperbole and brown-nosing from this tedious sychophant.
Free cancer drugs - free but just an aside - a goodly percentage get Cancer in their 60's - see below(they already receive free presciptions) so whilst in itself its a good move it doesn't actually affect that many in % terms as the majority already receive free prescriptions based on the above data
"Cancer occurs predominantly in older people, with nearly three quarters (74%) of cases diagnosed in people aged 60 and over, and more than a third of cases in people aged 75 and over."
Cancer Research UK
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/incidence/age/
Free health checks for over 40's - this was announced in April 2008 and at the time the government was pressed for details and funding. Surely Gordon isn't announcing old iniatives as new ones in his conference speech for the purpose of a "sound-bite is he ?"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-552472/A-free-health-MoT-40-bid-tackle-lifestyle-diseases.html
I've only time to actually research 2 of the initiatives in Gordon's speech but in space of 2 minutes have discovered the above so it's likely the rest of his sppech has some interesing anomalies but I'll leave further dissection to those that have the time
Brown may have other reasons for nodding the HBOS deal through but managing to get jobs to be saved in Scotland but not in Halifax.
The Maxwell flat:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/595923.stm
The Mortgage deal
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1556730/Flat-deal-will-mean-tax-savings-for-Brown.html
He lies in his conference speech, can you expect him to be truthful about HBOS jobs?
BROWN - "My Children are not props but people" http://ts17.gazettelive.co.uk/Gordeon-brown.jpg
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/03_01/FamilyBrownDM1503_468×413.jpg
Second picture found in the Daily Mail this time. How can anyone trust a word he says?
browngivesmehives
Cheese on TOAST?
So to sum up, it was a sort of mix of H G Wells and IDS: "in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is turning up the Sybian".
The welsh windbag and Glynys were tearing up in places so cloying, I mean moving, was Brown's oratory.
vacuous - just an exercise in ticking all the right boxes of your average socialist activist. oh, plus he's going to sort out iran, take putin to task over georgia, solve israel-palestine and make the UN work properly for a change.
no vision; no precision; no answers; no plan. meaningless.
Brown is such a devious politician he seems to mislead at every step. He needs removing from office..Now!
What damage is this new lurch to the left going to do to this country.
At least with Neil Kinnock, he never got into power. Someone has let the lunitic take over the asylum that is government in Brown's case!
I notice the BBC do not pick Brown up on his blatent lies and contradictions. What is Nick Robinson for other than a puppet of the leftwing establishment?
I thought Gordon Brown's speech went well. He did a good job. The speech was good.
And I am definitely not a fan of Gordon Brown.
dalesman Sept.23/08 3:48 PM
Who abolished slavery?
Did anyone else notice that the Conference hall looked half empty?
Many empty seats! They could not have all been full of protesting old age pensioners that were ejected either!
Labour are also a very ugly party full of bloaters and people you would not want to spend much time. Nowonder they fight like ferrets in a sack!
Ignore the critics Iain, their all writing on their laptops from a hall in Manchester..(probably pissing down as usual)..
The truth is this isnt going to save him,it wasnt inspirational,in fact it may well serve to embolden the rebels who I dont think have any intention of direct action against him, but instead intend to use the tactics of steady drip drip over a period of time.
Glenrothes should be frantic now....
The Lefties loved it, anyone with a shred of common sense therefore did not.
An appallingly vacuous speech. He couldn't have spent more time not saying anything even if he tried.
I loathe the endless "families through difficult times" rubbish, the implication being if you don't have 2.4 kids and white picket fence, you aren't worthy of notice.
It's Ironic, Brown is the Man the Tories want at the helm of Labour but I want rid of Brown now!
I cannot wait to get shot of the miserly one! He just creates more problems than he has to start with.
Endless public spending is not the solution, it is part of the problem!
I really wish I hadn't watched that ... I feel a bit sick now. All that pseudo emotional garbage about weeping grannies .... he must think we're all too dim to see through it. Appalling. And the Kinnocks et al with their moistening eyes should be ashamed.
Great great speech. Extremely impressed with Brown.
Apparently some of us are too dim to see through it!!
The comments here are schizophrenic. How can Brown's speech be simultaneously both "vacuous" and a list of annouuncements.
How can no prescription charges for cancer paitents be "vague"? There was a lot of policy development in it. Typical Tories just spouting randomly selecetd Bad Speech-cliches that don't relate to the actual content.
My main critcism would be that it felt a little manufactured. That was mostly just crap writing, though, and not his fault. It did feel like he was plodding along and ticking boxes in the gaps between specifics.
Ed Miliband looked like a plank when he said it was the speech of his life, but it certainly wasn't bad. The immigration section made me angry, though: I don't know why we have to pretend to be nationalistic, when it's abundantly that no one in the Labour party is comfortable with it.
I salute anyone who could sit through a speech by the so called PM. It would have made no difference to the general public if he'd dropped his trousers and mooned at the cameras. No one cares anymore about Brown or the Labour Party.
Enough of bread and circuses politics. We need a general election asap.
I'm no fan of Brown but I have to say, truthfully, that that speech sucked.
The Brown Speech was a load of cobblers, it will be forgotten by Thursday Morning! The huge implications of this massive lurch to the left will not be forgotten when tax payers start paying for Brown's largess!
Can any politician have been so useless as to spend say £100 BN and get no political benefit from it? When you start adding up what Brown has spent or promised over the last year - £100 BN does not look such a inflated figure actually! Yet despite or because of it the economy is in a death-lock of a slump!
@africanmum no on cares about it but it's getting full media attention and has achieved the heady heights of 90 comments on this post so far (that is untill Iain gets near a computer and dishes out his own unique brand of comment modderation).
No one cares huh?
All those proposals apply to England only.
Aint it odd how he can make a whole speech and not mention this?
This devolution which he made happen has reduced Scotland and Wales to the status of distant onlookers and England to puzzled mistrust.
The British union has been reduced to a sort of phoney union where everyone and the British political class in particular, still plays along mouthing the words but not saying the obvious.
Can't go on much longer.
Africanmum "It would have made no difference to the general public if he'd dropped his trousers and mooned at the cameras".
Stop !! I already feel nauseous after his tugging at the heartstrings claptrap.
No Time for a Novice
How much experience had Broon had when he took over in 1997?
It was probably the influx of new ideas from 'unknowns' which attracted the voter at that time - and that time has come round again
Free prescriptions for those who have cancer!
Sounds great - will save £2 per week for anyone (English) between 18 and 60 and not on tax credits who is unlucky enough to get cancer. For everone else it's already free.
Like the loft lagging - maximum PR, minimum reality.
anon September 23, 2008 4:43 PM
Yes the interesting point about that is he is a Scottish politician representing a Scottish seat.
I dread to think what the Duke of Edinbrough thinks of Brown! I bet he thinks he is as useful as a stuffed animal!
I wanted to retch , he's becoming a feeble cornball. Whoever advised mad Gordon to do emotion?
NIce to see Neil Kinnock in tears , what a vote winner.
anon September 23, 2008 4:47 PM
Typical cynical move by Brown, he will have calculated that many of them will have died by the election in 2010 and so he will not be punished for it.
The ones who are still alive, will be thankful for the NHS or will have gone private. Seriously this is how cynical Brown/ Labour are.
Looking at it from another point of view the Loft insulation ploy. which cannot be feasably be cimpleted until 2018, will mean many older voters who are more inclined will freeze to death and so it causes differentiated turnout or using the postal voting - the recently dead vote for Brown and Labour.
Labour Labour Labour - Out Out Out!
The presence of Kinnock makes me suspicious of what Brown will do next! Maybe Kinnock is there to grind Miliband into the dust?
"It was a classic Brown package. The theme of "a new settlement for the global age" had the typical smack of Brown pretentiousness, the relentless schmaltz about imaginary people benefiting from Labour's largesse, while ignoring the millions impoverished by 11 years of prodigality, met all the yardsticks of hypocrisy.
Loyalists desperately insist it all went swimmingly; the reality is Gordon already sleeps with the fishes."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2008/09/23/gordon_brown_cribs_from_barack_obama_remains_in_denial
Broon and McLabour destest England.
Englisg people are not supposed to know that the "British" government rules or rather misrules England and England alone, and that the "British" Government has virtually no say over Scotreion and Wales.
English people are not supposed to know or care that Broon has no mandate whatsoever in England, and that he has no say over his own constituency in scotland or the wider scotland.
English people are not supposed to know that the only mandate Broon has is to represent the people of his constituency in scotland at McWestminster on the matters not devolved to the Scottish Parliament, ie virtually nothing.
Oh nooooo we must not do anything to harm the so called "British Union" must we! we cant break that up! (Although McLabour in actuality already have broken it up on behalf of their employers in the EU), oh no! dont break up the "Union!", break up England into EU "Regions" instead right Broony?.
Sorry, your not on! and your OUT in 18 months!.
Twig @ 3.48
The Whigs (Liberals) abolished slavery, so maybe Nick Clegg should bang on about it every chance he gets.
Labour should hold onto this 'much experienced Brown' in whose 10 years of 'experience' raided the pension funds, put stealth taxes up, participated in a government which let in so many from outside the EUincluding doctors and IT practitioners, that our own young medical graduates are unemployed and the CBI does not recruit our own IT graduates as the cheap experienced IT graduates are let in from India on work permits. Public services are strained because of the millions of immigratnts let in. Thanks to your government's pay hikes for the GPs Brown, my GP now drives a silver Mercedes and works less number of hours for 40% more pay.
you 'experienced' Brown stoked up the credit culture and the nation has been living on credits. Yes we need you 'experienced' Brown to show how experience does not always pay!
I cannot help commenting on the millions to be spent to let the kids on the Internet. As an ex-primary school governor I can say that our school kids started learning the 3Rs only when we stopped them trawling the Internet for games and scantily clad women! The Internet is useless at the primary school age and as a parent I can comment with experience.
Go on 'experienced' Brown, we need you to stay where you are so that we can consign you, your party and your teen age cronies to posterity after the next election.
Edward f @4.40
The free prescriptions for cancer patients is neither here nor there.
The majority of cancer patients (though admittedly not all) are over 60, so would qualify anyway.
Those in Wales and Scotland already get free prescriptions.
Anyone with a chronic illness can claim free prescriptions anyway.
So how many people will benefit from this? It's just to tug at the heart strings.
I was determined to keep an open mind about the Prime Minister's speech and listen to what he had to say.
But 40 minutes in and I was bored. Loads of rhetoric, no structure and he didn't back up anything he was going to do with a plan.
Though the most telling part of the speech to me was his comment on the armed forces - throw away and meaningless, which just about sums up the government's attitude towards the lives of lads and lasses.
Sorry Lockjaw but you were dull and dreary.
There is a word the Conservatives need to start using against Gordon Brown - its 'shameless'.
And its no good pussy footing around in the hope of him hanging on in. They have to formulate a policy to face whoever will replace him. It cannot censeivably be that Labour will allow him to carry on like this.
Conservatives need to keep up the pressure on Brown so they can claim the kudos of him going and not allow Labour to say they are doing anything on their own volition that they somehow recognise what went wrong. This will make it more difficult for the new incumbent labour leader.
Its got to be in the national interest for there to be an election sooner rather than later - from the Conservative point of view if Labour stay in another 18months they will inherit an even worse situation.
Relentless Schmaltz said -....the reality is Gordon already sleeps with the fishes."
Nice one
Free prescriptions for cancer patients? Let's see if Heceptin and Avastin are included - in England that is, not the Labour heartlands where they get two votes and all the drugs they need.
I couldn't sit through it. The American-style spousal speech and Motown-musicked video beforehand had made me ill before Gordon was even on stage. And I love Motown.
I saw the first half-hour, though. They applauded his description of New Labour, entirely accurately, as "a pro-market party", indicating that neither they nor he ever read the papers or watch the news these days.
And then there was Oona King. Apparently on or very near the front row, lovingly lingered over by the BBC cameras - I mean, why? Plenty of MPs lost their seats last time, and plenty of Labour MPs in particular, several whom had previously done rather better than never so much as making PPS or Assistant Whip despite having voted for the Iraq War, the privatisation of public services, the destruction of civil liberties, the lot. (To be fair, Blair was very given to bringing in women and ethnic minorities at the lowest level and then leaving them there. At least Brown is honest - he won't have them at all.)
But they certainly do not enjoy Ms King's media profile. What is going on?
This speech told us is that he's a liar and a dangerous fantasist. He's got no money that anyone knows about to spend on his lavish new promises, so spendthrift Brown must be planning to rack up even more and huger debts on the national credit card and/or burden us all with more taxes. And if he mentions Child Poverty once more I'm going to go to Downing Street to lay about him with a lump hammer.
That really was a truly awful speech... I'm amazed Brown didn't get someone to check it over for him before delivering it.
He said much to placate the Unions and the left but he offered NO SOLUTIONS for the very real and serious problems this country faces. What good is outlawing child povety when families face losing their homes? What use are eye-catching initiatives for 'hard working families' when thousands are losing their jobs? What is the point of advocating an expensive lo-carbon economy tomorrow when people simply cannot afford the cheaper hi-carbon fuel we have today?
This wasn't a speech to inspire hope... it was a diatribe of hate, an attack on those who desperately want change. Gordon Brown highlighted perfectly why Labour is now the 'nasty party'.
My advice to Cameron (should he or his advisors be looking in) is NOT to reply Brown's speech in his own. Brown is finished and I believe he's just delivered his swansong.
This was a speech from a PM who is fighting for his political life?
He was bloody awful, cannot communicate ideas and looks fake, fake, fake.
Only the hard bitten socio-fascists of the ZaNuLiebour party could have listened to this boring drone and kept a straight face, while he ranted on about tractor production, eliminating carbon ( that awful stuff we would all die without ) and of course saving children from, well his own imposed poverty via green taxes and fiscal attacks on the people who it is in "his DNA" to protect.
What an utter fraud.
The Ceauşescu style balcony denouement for the pretentious creep, is coming as soon as he presents himself to his "loving citizens" and not the party faithful.
A rather well deserved end to a simply awful period in office, at the hands of those he has systematically, lied, cheated and stolen from, he will not be missed.
Whooohooo. The venom. It's such a laugh!
Ian’s gone off on one because it was an excellent speech from GB, Labour hasn’t cracked open, he’s rattled about the million donation, and knows that the ‘novice’ label will stick.
I’d apply it not only to Cameron and Osborne, but to their two chief brown nosers (after Iain) young Fraser and Jimmy on CoffeeHouse.
PS. And to the likes of Blue Eyes. Just how old are you pet?
Labourtroll - strangely, your master's speech didn't feature in our chatter by the school gates today. We're more worried by the fact that your mad leader is squandering our tax money like a drunken sailor throws away his wages. Giving money to dolites to buy computers, buying votes shamelessly, while prescription charges go up to over £7, and the weekly shopping bill is now out of control, for those of us who bother to get jobs. We also worry about crowded classrooms as your mad party has let in all and sundry without building more schools or recruiting more GPs. We also worry about the gross immorality of your party, when one of you recently called old people with Alzheimer's a burden and said they should be put down.
Most people now wonder loudly when the next election is - and it's not because we're so keen to vote for your anti-British party.
trevorsden..is spot on SHAMELESS is the word all conservative speakers must use next week.
It was a ghastly speech, delivery shocking and pronunciation unbelievable!
BUT. the bit about 'my family are not props' absolutely disgusting but ridiculous also when one considers he hid behind his wife's skirt as she introduced him!!! What a kiss and DID YOU SEE at the end he shook her hand.....as husbands do!
Give him a kicking next week.
IF he is the answer to our Countries woes...I have forgotten the question!
Anonymous 5.31
I cannot agree with you. Labour is systemically ridden with denial. It really doesn't matter what Iain (note correct spelling please) thinks. What Labour and GB ( I note you do not call him the PM) fail to realise is that the electorate wants him and you out as soon as possible. My husband used to vote Labour and he now regularly falls about laughing on the sofa just listening to the idiocy your representatives hurl out parrot fashion. GB's speech was no exception and was typically devoid of any actual deliverables -gods forbid they should have to actually do anything to solve this horrible quagmire they have got us into. Cameron and Osborne are both extremely smart and capable. What is evident is how Labour are totally incapable, especially under Brown's leadership, of doing anything about anything. All promises made have been broken and Brown condemns us to a totalitarian future simply to assuage his personal agenda. I trust you will enjoy your scorched earth. To underestimate Osborne in particular, would be a real mistake.
This thing about free prescriptions for cancer patients (sorry, those "battling cancer") really enrages me it is so cynical. Already it is being confused with "free cancer drugs" by various commentators, no doubt as intended. Cancer drugs (as approved by NICE) are already free as are all drugs for those undergoing hospital treatment: is anyone seriously suggesting that people are charged for chemotherapy? And for how long does the 'battle' last? 5-year survival is a key indicator but not proof of a cure. This really is beneath contempt.
I think africanmum @ 5:38 sums it all up really well.
I would just add that I'm glad that Iain now appreciates what George Osborne has to put up with.
PS: re: Brown's mangled George Osborne quote from Newsnight.
I think he was just pointing out a fact. i.e. telling the truth. Something Brown seems unable or unwilling to do, ever.
http://www.polldaddy.com/p/946184/
Is free prescriptions for cancer patients not him being disingenuous yet again?
He has not technically promised to pay for the cancer drugs themselves but the prescription charge for dispensing them.
If this is all he has waived then the bun fight/postal lottery that exists for these things will continue
Anyone seen Ben Bradshaw at the conference ?
Please could anyone explain why virtually the whole of the broadcast media (Radio 4, BBC News, Sky News etc) are making out this was the speech of Gordon Brown's lifetime. I could hardly bear to listen to it (let alone watch it) yet it seems to have attracted admiration from all quarters.
Also before the speech everyone said that one good speech wouldn't change anything. Yet now - after one (awful) speech Brown is now seen as a saviour. I just can't understand it.
I notice that Gordon said "this is no time for a novice". In that case, I await his imminent resignation!
"The Whigs (Liberals) abolished slavery, so maybe Nick Clegg should bang on about it every chance he gets."
Ah, but didn't the Whig "faction" of the Liberals jump ship and join the Tories towards the end of the 19th century?
At the end of his speech, he refused a hug from Sarah and instead shook her hand. What a disastrous numpty.
anon 6.09, they just don't get it , they were the ones who told us what a great chancellor he was and how it was his destiny to become the Great Leader. They were happy not to investigate the small print of his budgets. Tomorrow the truth will out, it was a boring, obama cribbed piece of schmaltz by a man who couldn't even bring himself to hug his own wife and instead shook her hand.
William 3.26: Read the gushing of Reeta Chakrabarti on the BBC Politics website and tell me my 3,18 post was wrong . . . and especially about carefully selected reaction.
Chakrabarti: "But the end verdict was resoundingly positive. "The best he's done," declared a couple of people approvingly".
Predictable? Of course.
You said 'Bollocks' - I wish DC would say that, he'd be thrown into number ten immediately- dare him Iain ...'Labours' NHS' was that an admission of guilt or is that how he'd explain it?
Apparently some of the NuLab cretins posting here believe that 'experience' equates to 'competence'.
Well, as an arsehole Brown is remarkably experienced. As a Prime Minister he's grossly incompetent.
Africanmum.
It wasn’t because he was still making the speech that you weren’t chattering about it then? Or the fact that a majority of Mum’s don’t sit venomously stewing over a keyboard and
complaining about spending? I don’t recall you offering to send back the £250 you were given with your last baby, and as a working Mum you’ll be able to take advantage of your local SureStart nursery (?) even earlier soon.
Do tell what’s on offer to parents that you’ve refused to take up, like the lump sum, the child allowance, maternity/ paternity leave, the health visitor checks that most parents appreciate - apart from you.
And as for schools, they’ve opened a new one in my constituency just this week, and there’s a programme of a thousand new schools built or being built right now. As for your misunderstood and spiteful cracks about dolites and computers.
Better pray that you don’t lose your job in these difficult times. You might be glad of a little Govt. help yourself. Or maybe you’d turn that down too.
With your high principles and all. No doubt tory abandonment would be your preferred option.
Btw. Baroness Warnock doesn’t speak on behalf of the Govt. Do try to get your facts right, tory novice.
A mutch higher proportion of Labour supporting commenters than usual, I hope Iain scrutinises their IPs.
In other news, a reviled PM 'makes the speech of his life', yet strangely fails to launch big expensive projects (major spend on rail, roads, power stations, armed forces etc.) to secure his party for the next election.
This, above anything else I have heard, convinces me that the country's finances are so compromised and deeply in the red that even this lot know they cannot promise more. Be afraid, be very afraid.
I'm very annoyed.
I've only just got in from work and I wanted to watch the speech (in full, without BBC bias or editing).
Now I can't find anywhere that is offering the whole thing. Can anyone help?
Starts off, pass the sickbag, pious, sanctimonious bit about His kids, lots of old guff We've heard before, steaming arrogance, shameless posturing, outright lies, overwhelming sense of blamelessness and innocence, feeble sop to the armed forces, no time for a novice as opposed to what? an unelected imposter? Next Labour governnment, when? 2050?
This morning I hated Him. There is no word for what I think of Him now.I can't wait for His impending humiliation. I hope I still have a roof over my head.
I await Gordon quietly dropping the Incapacity Benefit changes when unemployment really takes off. Lower unemployment was about the last thing he could still go on about - and even that has now turned.
Eleven years of trying to bang a square economic peg into a round hole does not equate to competence.
DiscoveredJoys wrote...
A much higher proportion of Labour supporting commenters than usual...
Yeah, I'm noticing that everywhere.
Surely, if Brown's speech was so good they'd be off congratulating themselves on a job well done? But instead they are flocking around the right-leaning blogs making multiple posts because they know the game is up.
The simple fact is the country is no better off this afternoon than it was this morning. Brown's speech has changed nothing except perhaps secured the Great Man another month or two on a PM's minimum wage. We know it, the country knows it and slowly the Labour Activist's (the feeble minded take a little longer) know it too...
Brown is finished and so too his irrelevent party of the past.
Richard Holloway said...
I've only just got in from work and I wanted to watch the speech (in full, without BBC bias or editing).
Try the BBC Parliament channel at 19:15 for a replay (channel 81 on Freeview). Probably repeated later too.
Also, there's a full transcript at the BBC website here
The BBC really are a bunch of Labour Stooges - that Robinson bloke, despite being pounded with e-mails and posts on his blog about the inacuracy of Brown's speech and even links showing where he could verify it have failed to be published!
Yes, Broan's Broadcasting Cronies (BBC) have failed again! I am nthat annoyed I want to chase them round with a red hot poker! How dare the BBC be so pro-Socialist!
The Tories need to punish the BBC assuming they regain power from the corrupt edifice that is Labour.
Sorry that should say Brown's Broadcasting Cronies (BBC.
Anonymous @5:45pm
.... and pronunciation unbelievable!
Oh yes, he kept going on about his "varl-ewes"
Labour supporters are simple folk and this speech will have pleased them. He's appealing to the kind of person that actually voted for Shaun Woodward after he was parachuted in to his constituency.
For the rest of us, this 'new Gordon' act will have fooled no-one. It was an average speech at best - worse than Clegg's even - and Cameron should have no difficulty in demolishing Brown next week.
In any case, Conservatives and their supporters should rejoice that Brown might be holding onto his job - it could mean an even bigger majority.
"if Brown's speech was so good they'd be off congratulating themselves on a job well done?"
Or you could say:
If it was so crap, why all these venemous comments?
Methinks you protest too much - and it sounds horribly like panic.
I've only just got in from work and I wanted to watch the speech "
What an utter utter saddo you are Richard!
Methinks you protest too much - and it sounds horribly like panic
You're sounding just like the Conservative activists did in April 1997. Welcome to the club.
He refused to hug Sarah at the end , coldy declined her and instead shook her hand .. Oh no no no no...
It's his Nixon on the beach moment....His John Redwood 'singing' Mae Hen Wlad fy Nhadau...His Selwyn Gummer Burger....
Disaster!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anymong 7.21 Yeah, it's a fair cop, a devastating retort. You've gory supporters bang to rights - general blue funk caused by this speech.
PS Are you on time and half for trolling after 5pm?
Anonymous "Methinks you protest too much - and it sounds horribly like panic."
Yes, it's really scary being on a paltry 52% in the polls .... we might as well throw in the towel now chaps, before the glare from Gordon's halo blinds us all.
I noticed he couldn't bring himself to give Sarah a hug too, it was clearly what she wanted. What a nasty piece of work.
@7.33....You've got Tory ...
Richard Holloway: believe me, you won't want to.
The first half was soporific, self-indulgent and self-regarding, mawkishly sentimental at times and outrageously out of touch with reality.
The second half was more stimulating, routine sniping at the Conservative party but intermingled with mechanistic name-checking for cabinet members (did anyone keep a checklist?).
An he told us he was hurt by the 10p tax debacle. He was hurt!
Seeing Millie trying to outsmile and outclap everyone was top camera shot.
How Gordo must have loved seeing him swinging gently in the breeze.
Why do you need a check-up if you are healthy but over 40?
How do you know you're healthy without a proper check-up ?
The NHS isn't good about "preventative maintenance" although it would save a lot of money in the long run if some conditions were caught early.
Anon 6.36 said
I don’t recall you offering to send back the £250 you were given with your last baby, and as a working Mum you’ll be able to take advantage of your local SureStart nursery (?) even earlier soon.
Are you real? You seriously think when the state removes your money dishes it out to armies of parasites and returns whats left it in the form of prezzies for the kids we should clapp our hands and say thanks Santa Have you any idea what the national debt is and do you have the faintest conception of whose generosity this really is. We , you child , are adults , we pay and pay and pay.
Spending under Brown has increased 55% in real terms that’s all your income tax plus a fair bit more. National debt is now out of control the Berkshire hunt is talking about PC treats , we have not even managed to ensure we can keep the lights on. To most people this would be an insult to their intelligence in your case .... I doubt anything could be.
Jesus some of these people fall out of the stupid tree and hit every branch
Blair did it so much better it may have been bollox but he served it well, brown couldn't make shouting FIRE!!! sound important.
""No time for a novice"
That might just stick - admit it, a good line."
I must disagree. It would have been much better if he'd said it in April 1997...
Newmania wrote...
"Jesus some of these people fall out of the stupid tree and hit every branch"
Today Gordon Brown proposed that they all climb back up and jump again.
And they'll do it too ;-)
Please see below link for a Daily Mail photo of some people not being props.
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/03_01/FamilyBrownDM1503_468x413.jpg
It was nowhere near the speech he needed to make if he was going to turn the polls around. There were lots of detailed announcements about policies in the well-worn areas of "hard-working families" and the NHS, most of which were decent enough but none of which was a really new idea, or in any way inspiring. Not enough to really do justice to the the overarching theme of a "new settlement" - and even that theme was pretty unexciting.
He really needed to do something much bolder: attacking his critics angrily, but more importantly setting out a real vision, perhaps with only two or three announcements, but more ambitious and impressive ones (free long-term care? a dramatic shift of taxation from the less well off to the rich? a specially generous benefits package for people made redundant who are prepared to retrain for specific skill-shortage jobs?) and a much more definite vision on the "great society" scale.
If that was the speech of his life then I think he's just not up to it.
What a hypocrite! Unless of course the children hurled themselves into the picture at the last minute against Gordo's wishes.
newmania.
We all pay taxes for stuff we don't like.
Hell, even I moan about contributing towards Tory protection and pensions, as in Thatcher, Major and Currie, but what can you do, it's a bitch eh?
Amusing little sound bite about falling out the tree, but not as hard hitting as 'novice' though.
"A much higher proportion of Labour supporting commenters than usual,"
great .... fabulous ...
Perhaps they can tell us how the country is going to cope with a budget deficit which most other commentators are predicting is going to be anything from £70 billion to £100 billion ??
Telling us about all the allegedly nice things the govt have done is all very well - but its all been done by printing money, where is the evidence of all this 'growth'?
Why if things have been so good are we now lumbered with masive deficits?
And if the City are not to take risks (they will be regiulated out of making money) how are they going to make profits to be then taxed and if there are no bonuses then they too cannot be taxed.
So come on 'labour supporting commentators' tell us where the money is going to come from, because Brown certainly did not.
And PS, all you 'labour supporting commentators', er mmm, what about the real elephant in the room, what about pensions. Did dear Gordon mention pensions?
Why has the President of Iran's UN speach been given 15mins+ live on BBC News 24?
Ref the health checks for over 40's..I'm in the North West,and we've been offered a NHS full health check at the age of 40,and at 5-yearly intervals.My first one was in 1996,pre-Labour.The latest one picked up a potentally serious condition I had no idea I'd got,so they're well worth having.
PS Ed Balls blamed poor SATS results on schoolkids spending too MUCH time on computers,a year or so back!The free computers they plan to dole out will end up being sold in the local pub,like last time.
Free prescriptions for cancer patients.
All prescriptions are free in Wales & will be in Scotland soon. Kept that one quiet didn't he?
Providing Internet access to poor families. I think they need help in paying there energy bills first before plugging the computer in!
He loves this country. He cant wait to dream of more taxes. HE loves Scotland so much that they have a lower tax burden, paid for by us hard workers.
He's had 11 years to sort it out & he blames the tories...hhhhmmmm Its your fault britain is bust Gordon.
I cant quote any more, there was too much drivel. At least the Guadian & Daily Mirror will be partying tonight.
Anonymous an ordinary voter said... 'Free health checks for over 40's - this was announced in April 2008 and at the time the government was pressed for details and funding. Surely Gordon isn't announcing old iniatives as new ones in his conference speech for the purpose of a sound-bite is he ?'
How about "free prescriptions for cancer patients", first announced in 1948.
newmania. how heroic of you to come to Africanmum's defence.
Just as well, as s/he disappears when challenged.
S/he loads, you shoot - get the picture?
FFS. Why the hell do people think a sodding Party conference speech will have any impact on voters (even if the BBC try very hard to bullshit them)? How the hell is 11 years of really crappy government, going to be erased from the minds of voters, by a spin laden, meaningless speech, delivered by a really bad and very unpopular PM?
The country is full of idiots, but hey aint that stupid!
Iain, I'd like to ask you whether your visceral hatred of anyone of a different political persuasion to your own extends outside Parliament?
Anon, I'd like to ask you whether your blind love of anyone of the same political persuasion to your own, extends to outside parliament.
If so, are you female between 35-50, up for it, and really like sadistic liars that much?
If not, would you like to buy some double glazing, or a second hand car?
Atlas
The line about his children not being props shows a massive double standard. Does anyone remember in March 1998, on the advice of Charlie Whelan, Brown took Sarah to the birthday party of Sue Nye's son (sue Nye his long time personal advisor). The picture duly appeared in the papers for the budget announcement. So Brown is not above using other people's children as props.
Newsnight saying Hoon will be sent to Brussels - Looks like Ashfield By-election MarkII!
Good grief Iain - you seem to be knocking on 200! Comments that is!
I really don't understand how Labour get such favourable press, talk about journo's rolling over and dying!
I have posted all over the place this evening out of sheer announce at Labour getting away with positive PR today. Though Paxman is now given Hoon a good going over!
The pre-speech stunt with his missus was deplorable.
Everyone should take the time to read David Craig's "Squandered: How Gordon Brown is wasting over one trillion pounds of our Money."
And, who the fuck are these hard working families?
September 23, 2008 10:44 PM
It gets worse than that, Brown has posed for two sets of pictures with his family - What a hypocrit!
The bloke seems to have a strange relationship with reality and the truth!
Anonymous said...
"Beveridge (a Liberal) thought up the welfare state. Labour used his work when in Government. To continue to claim the NHS (a very average organisation) when its the result of anothers work seems a little suspect."
There is a world of difference between coming up with the idea for a National Health Service and actually implementing it.
Neither the Liberals nor the Tories would have introduced the NHS which nearly all of us appreciate so much.
September 23, 2008 11:07 PM
That's a bit like saying the 1944 Education act was nothing to do with post-war education.
We will never know what would have happened if the Tories or Liberals had won in 1945 - The Beverage report would have been implemented in part or whole by who ever won!
Cheers John, recording it in the early hours tomorrow.
I've gotta say one good thing for Brown. When he makes a mistake, it's a good one. I'm £50 better off this month thanks to his bungling over the 10p rate. Cheers Gordo, here's to you lasting until May 2010.
Gordon, you may be taking yourself seriously but the rest of us aren't -we can assure you of that. I don't believe you were elected and, perhaps more importantly, you represent a constituency north of the border - what the hell are you doing as our PM? Why don't you buy a one way ticket, get on a train at Euston and bugger off back there forever? I'm sure we'll survive without you. We'll probably even be better off.
The NHS wasn't a novel idea in 1948 it was partly based on the Highlands and Islands Medical Service in Scotland which was formed in 1913
I actually think Brown has reinvigorated many peoples hatred of Labour and this will become more apparant after the speech sinks in! I am spitting chips about the devil! He has done nothing, proposed nothing to get the economy out of the hole he created.
Good grief the bloke has the unique propensity to make me so angry it is unreal! B@st@rd!!!!!
Labour Labour Labour - Out Out Out!
SRN said...
"FFS. Why the hell do people think a sodding Party conference speech will have any impact on voters (even if the BBC try very hard to bullshit them)? How the hell is 11 years of really crappy opposition (government), going to be erased from the minds of voters, by a spin laden, meaningless speech, delivered by a really bad and very unpopular leader of the opposition? (PM?)
The country is full of idiots, but hey aint that stupid!"
You sure about that?
I saw the newsnight interview with Hoon, who looked less than thrilled with life. What bothered me most were Hoon's words about how Brown was going to implement his "new settlement". i.e By entrenching it, which to me has the smack of jack boots down the street, little red books and more vicious legislation. Anyone else hear it?
Dangermouse:
No i did not hear it but I think it is coming, Labour will be swept out of power come the next election. The state is not the solution in this country - it is the problem.
Labour, particularly Brown think that the ccurrent economic problems are caused by capitalism. they are actually caused by bad government! Please get the state off our backs and we will survive!
Dangermouse:
No i did not hear it but I think it is coming, Labour will be swept out of power come the next election. The state is not the solution in this country - it is the problem.
Labour, particularly Brown think that the ccurrent economic problems are caused by capitalism. they are actually caused by bad government! Please get the state off our backs and we will survive!
Labour - What a shallow and crude party these animals show themselves to be. They need culling big time!
Lets get the shooters out!
Quote from a former LibDem friend of mine on hearing the speech:
"It’s nice to know that the only person who “will steer us through uncertain times” is the man who did most to get us into the mess and misled everyone about“recession being a thing of the past”. Hitler could have similarly argued that he should have been the man to oversee the reconstruction of Germany."
Nuff said. For that very reason, I think "novices" would be ideal.
Watervole,
I quite agree - Brown is nothing but a curse on the nation!
He is like an illness that should be irradicated, 2010 cannot come soon enough!
There is a poll on AOL asking whether you are convinced by the speech.
About 75 per cent of voters have not succumbed to Captain Ahab's "Thar she blows! Steady as she goes!" speech.
Prepare for the election night wipeout party!
anon @12.08
Brown tried to say that he was above cheap shots today. What he has actually done is far cheaper.
What I am talking about is the promise about free drugs for cancer patients. I have a friend who had cancer who has just written to me in bewilderment since this promise does not stack up. Cancer patients do not go to the local pharmacist and pick up a box of aspirins. Most cancer treatment, apart from expensive drugs, is free at the point of treatment i.e. in the hospital. So this promise lacks any real substance and is a cheap PR stunt at the expense of the population of those suffering from cancer and their immediate circle. The media have not yet taken him to task for this.
Brown is literally, a cancer in our society. I fear that it may be terminal, especially given what Hoon said. He has already given away most of our fundamental rights and freedoms, as David Davis said. What else can he possibly do?
It is extremely worrying. I hope you are right.
Watervole
You are quite right - Brown is nothing but a dodgy frontman!
Cancer treatments as you say do tend to be hospital based, more importantly heavy equipment based.
Brown needs ousting!
Did anybody else notice, immediately after Brown thanked GPs who get paid 120K a year for a 3-day week on my behalf, Ed Balls turning round to check out who was giving a standing ovation.
The lad is just wrong.
But ALL prescriptions are ALREADY free in Wales! Which "country" is Gordon Brown talking about with this "free cancer medication" spiel?
Dangermouse - yes I heard that as well. Basically, the gist was that they were intending to enshrine their legislation so tightly into law that it would be impossible (I think he actually used that word) for a Conservative Government to repeal it.
This terminology was also used regarding ID cards ealier today, saying the intention was for them to become so necessary it would be impossible for them to be scrapped. Here's the text;
"The Conservatives and Lib Dems have both said they would scrap the ID card scheme, which they say will cost too much and threatens civil liberties.
But Ms Hillier said the Tories would find it difficult to "devalidate" the cards that had already been issued and scrap the database that was also being used for passports.
"There isn't an easy way to unpick this scheme, quite rightly because it is invaluable."
She also hit back at suggestions by anti-ID card campaigners that the scheme might not go ahead.
"it is full steam ahead," she told the meeting, "in fact the prime minister wanted me to do it quicker than it was possible."
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7630088.stm
By shear coincidence, Lord Elvis of Paisley said... something I was going to draw other reader's attention to viz-a-viz ID Cards:
Labour minister says 14 year olds should get ID cards
A perfect example of how a Brown Labour Government works. No listening, no consultation, just behind the scenes implementation of their pet projects whether you like it or not... and they'll bill you for the privilege too.
I'd agree normally that leaving Brown in Office longer would ultimately benefit the Tories but it's not good for the country. He's a real danger to this country's long term future - whatever side of the political divide you happen to sit - you, and your kids, will be paying for Brown's follies long after he's gone off to enjoy fat cat Government pension (any chance he'll hand it back?).
I'm sorry, but Brown's speech just confirms what I already believed; that Brown is a modern day Nero, supported by a neutered puppet Cabinet, he's happy fiddling away while the country burns.
I want him gone!
The 10p tax thing really hurt: not the taxpayer but the Prime Minister. He had to endure hurtful criticism. My heart bleeds.
I see Kelly has voted with her feet.
Please vote in The Guardians poll 'Was Browns speech any good'
Only 1 day left.
Good god - I felt nauseous just watching that charade yesterday. Wheeling out Mother Brown post speech was always bad enough but to have her cheer leading the whole affair really too much for my tender disposition. Gawful may not have wanted to use his kids as props but obviously has no worries in sending on Sarah Clown as chief proppette. The sooner this awful, awful bunch of Yankee wanabees are gone the better.
Here is a much better speech from ALBAMAC
I'm a father of 7, grandfather of 16, ex-professional soldier and a Scottish Nationalist. My family, like many others, has a huge stake in the future of our country.
I'd supported Labour from my early teens until my late fifties. It took me that long to abandon the forlorn hope that New Labour could deliver the fairer society that so many of my forebears and fellows had struggled for since the beginnings of the Labour Movement.
My grandfather and uncle died in the service of a nation that never was - Britain. My father served throughout WWII with comrades from around the British Isles and the world. My son-in-law had served in three wars by the time he left the Paras and planted his feet, permanently, on home soil.
New Labour is a collective insult to each and every Scottish soldier. While they polish their @rses on office chairs and spout their dishonest, derisive drivel, young Scots are fighting for their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. Would Cairns or Browne dare to denounce any one of them on the grounds that their vision for Scotland's future doesn't serve the interests of the criminals and parasites who infest the Labour benches at Westminster and Holyrood?
We need only listen to the outpourings of cringing cowards in the Cabinet who, with blood and bile dripping from their twisted lips, dare to praise the courage of our soldiers and recite the stomach-turning eulogy that follows their deaths. Des Browne's nauseating performances are worthy of special mention, here. They would shrivel the souls of the living and the dead. He is a perfect example of the character and calibre of New Labour's finest! Men and women who, at every opportunity, snigger, sneer and openly insult our homeland, heritage and history, and have the effrontery to claim that they are our best hope for the future.
Exposed liars, thieves and fraudsters, unperturbed by the misery that they've caused and impervious to the law, retain their positions and are allowed a voice in both parliaments. These are the people who author our laws and govern our lives! A criminal fraternity telling us how much better our lives would be if only we'd abandon all sense of decency and become willing accomplices to their crimes. Other regimes have risen to absolute power on the strength of such promises with devastating consequences.
The Internet, television and the press is awash with fakers and frauds whose limited education comes from a well-stocked library of lies, provided and regularly replenished by the British Establishment and its propaganda machine. How could anyone in their right mind derive any hope for the future from the worthless doctrine of these heartless, hopeless bottom-feeders?
I can't understand why any Scot would offer allegiance to a political party that, for the preservation of its power in another country, would conduct a campaign of malice and menace against its own. Labour voters, who sustained them through the wilderness years, used, cheated, ignored and cast aside so that New Labour's mercenaries could continue to rob us of our rights, our pride and our treasure. Why do they continue to vote for politicians who are contemptuous of them? Many of them, I suppose, are gripped by the same kind of fear that causes people to cling to the deck of a sinking ship rather than take to the lifeboats. It's a well-documented phenomenon and such fears are understandable. Others, I'm afraid, value themselves and their fellows so little that they prefer to jump to the crack of Unionist whips. Their motives are alien to those of us whose lives are not wholly governed by self-interest. Most of us manage to ignore artificial barriers and accept genuinely held opinions and beliefs in the spirit of those who share a common experience. Those who lay waste the common ground set neighbour against neighbour, kill community and destroy the ties that bind us as a people are everyman's enemies.
CRIME: "People feel that their communities are changing before their eyes" yet violent crime has doubled since 1997.
DEFENCE: "Our country is full of heros" yet 60 of them were killed because they didn't have the right equipment.
EDUCATION: "We will never tolerate low standards" yet twenty per cent of pupils leave primary school without basic skills.
FINANCE: "We believe in transparency" yet next year will have £110 billion debt.
HEALTH "We will double the number of matrons" yet 10 people a day still die from MRSA.
NORTHERN ROCK: "Our Government saved Northern Rock" get it is the tax payer who foots the bill.
PENSIONS "We are committed to linking pensions to earnings" yet 2.8 million of them live in poverty.
PRESCRIPTIONS: "For those battling cancer from next year you will not have to pay prescription charges" yet whilst charges rose to £7.10 in England last April from 2011 they will be free in Scotland.
WELFARE: "Everyone who can work must work" yet 800,000 people live in a household wher nobody works.
Anyone see Michael Crick on Newsnight:
(what a creep that Draper bloke is)
Play Place That Face
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/
Vote Best PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7605991.stm
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