I have no idea whether the timing of Gordon Brown's trip to Afghanistan was deliberately planned to scupper David Cameron's visit, which had been in diary for weeks if not months. I'd like to think not. But doesn't the fact that both the media and many Labour supporters think it was, tell you an awful lot about how people feel he has debased our politics?
The trip to Iraq during the 2007 Conservative conference is still etched in people's memories. I find it difficult to believe that the misjudgement (to call it at its kindest) could be deliberately repeated, but with this crew, you can never tell. They're that nasty, and that stupid.
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Just ask yourself which of the two would be more welcomed by the troops. I suggest that Brown would be treated courteously, whereas Cameron might be treated with rather greater and more genuine enthusiasm. But either way, it is certainly not beneath Brown to indulge in such tactics - indeed for him it is a way of life.
WV bogieste - I kid you not!
Ever thought that the post-Lockerbie embarrasmment of attending Ted Kennedy's funeral (even if invited) would be too much, even for Gordo, hence the last-minute dash to Helmand ?
The trip also got Brown out of visiting America for Kennedy's funeral.
There is no doubt in my mind that it was deliberate, it's just the way he operates. But like all of Gordon's cunning plans it is already backfiring. It is a pathetic stunt and he is playing petty party politics with our troops, very statesmanlike. The man is a disgrace to the nation.
This visit is a precursor to the additional 32,000 personnel being sent to Ahghanistan and is to be announced shortly! (I have close contacts serving that had this confirmed)!
Nothing is stopping Cameron from going! His trip was scheduled 48 hrs after Browns. Where's the problem?
AS far as I can tell, Cameron CANCELLED his own trip, nothing to do with Brown at all.
It seems you're so desperate to smear the Labour Party that you're jumping at shadows.
What is it with Brown and his books on courage?
Guido (who has his uses) points up brown producing another on this time on courage in WW2.
http://order-order.com/2009/08/30/wartime-courage-by-g-brown/
This is boys Own stuff and has been done for donkeys years - just what new does it add to the lexicon.
Can Brown and his propaganda effort really be so dim and simplistic?
Well if dim and simplistic is what you want I recommend reading the record of Browns years as Rector at Edinburgh University.
http://www.archives.lib.ed.ac.uk/cgi-bin/view_img.pl?item=rec&img=179
(note from here it runs backwards and so click on previous).
Interestingly if you watch the Sky report at about 20 seconds in someone has put grafitti on one of the trucks of 'courage'. One suspects someone was trying to make a point.
I thought the right-wing press were among those who wrote in July that Brown had postponed the trip then! Can't have it both ways.
Almost everything that McGhastly does is out of calculation, not conviction.
ANONMOUS SAYS
It seems you're so desperate to smear the Labour Party that you're jumping at shadows.
THERE IS NO REQUIREMENT TO SMEAR THE LABOUR PARTY. THEY ARE, QUITE EFFICIENTLY, BRINGING ABOUT THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION. SADLY THEY ARE ALSO DESTROYING, WHAT USED TO BE, A FAIRLY GOOD SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE.
Brown was lobbied by a brave young squaddie who asked to explain why soldiers have to pay UK income tax when they are fighting overseas - and as usual Brown didn't answer the question. That's had plenty of coverage in the media ... his trip has NOT been a success.
I would have been impressed if he had been ferried about in a "snatch Land-rover" as opposed to wasting the precious resource of one of the too bloody few helicopters available to our lads, through his penny pinching.
Now he says he is going to negotiate with the Taliban!!! So many lifes lost for an election that has been one mighty fraud and Gordon wants to send more troops there..For what? To keep a corrupt Karzai and his even more corrupt brother in power.
Gordon my message is you stay there in that hellhole to keep us all safe in our streets and Cities and whilst you are having your face to face talks with the Taliban, boring them into peace our lads can quietly come home.
Thankyou trevorsden for the link to the University of Edinburgh archives.
It chilled me to the marrow to think what will emerge from the PRO archives many years hence.
Thing is, is Cameron going to be brave enough to take our troops out of a pointless war? Is he brave enough? I hope so, because I know DC is a patriot and understands that lives should not be lost in a pointless cause. He knows that or values if tryly lived are enough of a deterrent to terror, wihtout the need for Blairite hubris and war mongering.
I think Mandleson is behind most of the tactical ploys used by this government. In addition I think its most likely that Mandy recommended the trip so as to overshadow Cameron's excursion to Afghanistan. Mandy seems to have no morale compass when it comes to trying to defeat the Tories. He seems to think that any action that would stop a Tory government after the next election would be morally justifiable.
The Army is supremely patriotic and so potentially very dangerous to the Blair/Brown project.
The Army is only in Afganistan to be wasted; destroyed.
Bring all the troops home, NOW.
@ not an economist
I agree with you.
Moreover, there is nothing that Mandelson would not do for money.
Anonymous @ 3:57 PM said...
Nothing is stopping Cameron from going! His trip was scheduled 48 hrs after Browns. Where's the problem?
As Cameron has, himself, pointed out he would be taking up scarce resources so shortly after a trip by another politician.
He is being considerate to the troops and the resources that Labour refuse to make available to them.
If you weren't a typical Zanu eunuch, you'd be man enough to use your name not hide behind "anonymous" - but you're not, so it makes you no better than that piece of canine excrement, Gordon Brown.
Ihere is really no doubt about the underlying reason why our attention has turned to maintaining a very strong presence in Afghanistan. TAPI- Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, an oil and gas pipeline to be constructed.
Military bridgeheads are the key, I guess!
http://www.rabble.ca/news/2009/08/pipeline-politics-afghanistan-and-new-great-game
If you watched SKY then you'd have seen three soldiers in the background whilst Brown was waffling on making rude questures including one around the genital area, looked at Brown and then high fived each other! Well done lads!
By the way where are we getting 200 EOD personnel from? We don't have 200 available as they're either coming off tour or training for the next one! And English First's claim that we're sending 32,000 troops is pure rubbish. We don't have two full brigades (10,000) available to go let alone 6! Clown.
Gordon's latest cunning stunt.
(Where cunning = stupid beyond belief)
@ trevorsden
Interesting reading, he hasn't changed much.
Anon; 6.19
Its amusing to see Brown trying to aggrandise power influence and kudos to himself as the Rector and the jaundiced replies by the University Secretary.
I find it hilarious to read him demanding a beter office. the fact that his successor was Magnus Magnusson points to the real function of the Rector.
It strikes me Brown was an idiot youth and an idiot now
Of course it was deliberately timed to scupper Mr Chameleon's visit. He has form for this. And please bear that in mind that when he announced 200 extra anti-improvised explosive device (IED) specialists would be sent over, he was almost certainly lying.
Think I'm exaggerating? Consider this. In 2007, he visited Iraq in the middle of the Tory Party conference and announced 1,000 British troops would be home by Christmas. It was later revealed that the return of 500 had been previously announced and 250 were already back in the UK. He was lying then and he is lying now. At this rate, if you asked the man for his name, he'd probably tell you he was called Roy and that he was a 32-year old builder from Transylvania.
Has there ever been a more pointless waste of skin than Gordon Brown?
Another reason would be to limit the press's access to him before the weekend .
Looks like the cabinets fingers were all over the Libya deal.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6815638.ece
"Downing Street approved Lockerbie bomber deal"
@August 30, 2009 4:08 PM , trevorsden
This from a contemporary of Brown at Edinburgh Uni.
‘Having been at Edinburgh University with Gordon Brown and watched his antics across the years, I think the media wildly overestimates his intellectual
ability. Unlike genuinely brilliant political economists such as Peter Jay, Brown has always had difficulty in seeing the big picture. This has resulted in
him constantly falling foul of the ‘law of unintended consequences’.
He is also a classic bully and has tormented the underlings around him but is nowhere to be seen when courage is required. Will Brown take the big, tough decisions as Prime Minister? Don’t make me laugh!’
Regarding the election to come (presuming the CCA is not invoked, an act Brown is quite capable of doing), I was for some time worried by the fall in turnout in recent elections.
However, there was a huge increase at the 1997 election from the previous one. It does seem that when the country gets to a certain point with a government, such that hatred becomes the main feeling towards them, voting figures shoot up.
Let us hope this is the case next time round; these bastards need to be given the hiding of their life.
To me, the only outstanding question is: "Are Gordon Brown and new labour more nasty than stupid or more stupid than nasty?"
It may seem trite, but the answer should be relevant to conservative party strategy.
Its McBeans 'farewell tour', the previous Scotch dictator of England Bliar the Megalomaniacal liar had one, so McBean wants one too!.
"Unlike genuinely brilliant political economists such as Peter Jay"
Would that be the Peter Jay who was Chief of Staff and Economic Adviser to the late ROBERT MAXWELL?
Which Labour supporters think that it was Iain? You say "many" - can you name let's say half a dozen of this horde? I don't think it was deliberate spoiling and certainly don't think Gordon should have NOT gone when it suits him to avoid upsetting Andy Coulson's grid.
Gordon Brown has been to Afghanistan four or five times in the last 12 months. Pretty regular visits. The story - emanating from the MoS (and/or CCHQ?) is speculation masquerading as churnalism.
Pretty pathetic.
It is bloody obvious that PM visits to troops should in any case have primacy over opposition jaunts. Why don't you start from that? And let's suppose - heaven forfend - that Cameron wins and XYZ leader of the LP is going to Afghanistan on 21 June 2010 would you expect PM Cameron to give whoever it is a couple of weeks clear either side of the visit?
Brown could have been planning to go for months and months, or decided at relatively short notice to coincide with various UN and US and UK decisions.
I think it's a rather lame non-story in the depths of the silly season. And if you wish to escalate let's call it a nasty and stupid story. The PM should go to visit the troops whenever he can fit this in to his busy diary.
Why did Cameron cancel anyway? Is he going to some swanky party in Notting Hill instead? Someone's wedding perhaps? A handbag launch?
Titus Aduxus points the finger at someone anonymous:
If you weren't a typical Zanu eunuch, you'd be man enough to use your name not hide behind "anonymous" - but you're not, so it makes you no better than that piece of canine excrement, Gordon Brown.
Here is TA's link:
http://titus-aduxas.myopenid.com/. Which is perversely brilliant.
Chris Paul said...
Why did Cameron cancel anyway? Is he going to some swanky party in Notting Hill instead? Someone's wedding perhaps? A handbag launch?
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Hilarious eh. It's satire, Jim, but not as we know it.
How much more of Chris Paul's 'entirely personal and eclectic view of the world' can my sides take before they well and truly split.
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