Wednesday, March 11, 2009

His Name is er, um, James, er Purnell

James Purnell is normally one of the more eloquent members of the government. But at a breakfast this morning, he was not exactly fluent in his defence of Gordon Brown. Lobbydog reports his comments thusly...

A hack asked the Pensions Secretary about what he thought of the whole “Government apologising debate”. His answer:

No, I mean – I think everybody agrees that, you know, we’ve, er, erm, made clear that, er, we accept responsibility of Government aaaand, er, no-one would claim that, er, everything that was done was erm, er, er, was, er, y’know, with hindsight, er, erm, always absolutely right.

But I would also think Gordon is absolutely right, err, to say that he’s been, erm, arguing at international level for the kinds of errr, financial and regulatory changes which are now right at the top of the agenda for the world.

So I think, you know, it’s er, it’s er, er, er it’s a, um, something which, um, er, people look at.

The way that, erm, er, Gordon and Alistair have, er, responded and I think the, er, the economic, um, and financial policy that they have perused, eeeer, is, er, absolutely the right one and is leading the world in terms of its response to something which is completely unique, a unique challenge.

So I think Gordon and Alistair’s, er, position is, er, is absolutely world leading in terms of dealing with this and people, you know, many people who are, erm, economists and businessmen have, er, have said that they do look to the UK’s response on this.

The lad Purnell has got a bright future behind him if Gordon Brown ever reads this.

14 comments:

Walsingham's Ghost said...

Mmmm....

And this is the man that the great and the good over at The Spectator regularly tout as a future Leader of the Labour Party.

Not on this showing, chum...

Trend Shed said...

It must be very difficult to defend the indefensible.........

Oldrightie said...

Note the dropping of blaming America now. It's world (new global)now. Worldspeak for world order. All abosolute rot.

Jeff said...

I think the phrase "absolutely world leading" could take off you know...

Roger Thornhill said...

World Leading?

World leading pair of Keynesian numpties.

Trend Shed said...

I have a question (off-topic - sorry)........


In the good times, during budget speeches Gordon would always annoyingly add the letter 'S' to the word 'Billion'.


Does anybody know if, now we have hit the bad times, that he uses the word 'billions' when telling us how much money he is throwing at a problem????

I'm curious.

Anonymous said...

er,um...quite.

Anonymous said...

or the electorate for that matter.

CC Baxter said...

Purnell was found out during the last Labour Party Conference, interviewed by Andrew Neil. A very poor performance.

It was on youtube, shame it's been 'erm' taken off.

Conand said...

"has got a bright future behind him.."

Oh I don't know about that. Being awkward and giving evasive answers..
On that performance Photoshop would appear to be a man very much in the Brownian mould.

Prodicus said...

Like I say, it makes y' feel, y'know, like, as I say, really wossname, dunnit?

Jimbo said...

errrr

Surely you mean err umm Boris.

Heard Tory Fopp IV Michael Gove this morning on 5 live. He was speaking about somewhere called "Fruerwance". I think he was taling about France

Jimbo said...

errrr

Surely you mean err umm Boris.

Heard Tory Fopp IV Michael Gove this morning on 5 live. He was speaking about somewhere called "Fruerwance". I think he was talking about France

Martin S said...

Oh, great! Well, with Mr Purnell in charge,this might explain this story:-


Prudential reveals UK adults delaying retirement due to economy


And there was I, wondering how come some of us are having to work 70+ hours a week!