Sunday, January 03, 2010

Brown Flounders on Marr

I've just watched Gordon Brown's interview with Andrew Marr. If I were a Labour MP watching it I would have finished with my head in my hands. If I were a floating voter watching it I would have finished it vowing to vote for anyone but Gordon Brown. There was not a single part of the interview where Brown said anything likely to appeal to the "undecideds". If he behaves like that in the TV debates it's game over. And whatever Labour supporter say in public, in private they know I am right.

Eamonn Butler twittered earlier "Brown seems to be talking to me (Disraeli-style*) as if I were a public meeting". And that is his problem in less than 140 characters. He can't speak to people's hearts. There's no empathy.

* As many have pointed out, it was Gladstone, not Disraeli...

41 comments:

russ said...

i agree iain he was awful, but what do you expect from him. he said about a new terror threat, with planes . which weve had for nearly a decade. bring on the election so we can get rid of this idiot.

Anonymous said...

The whole thing was utter rubbish. He actually claimed that the deficit could be tackled by tax rises alone. We all know it can't, why does he keep on insulting us? He then claimed that the 50% rate and the National Issuance rise would halve the deficit in four years. Lousy, lousy, lousy. I look forward to seeing Cameron next week, hopefully he'll make a bit more sense.

On a separate note his body language is just atrocious. The did this weird thing with his hands where he was counting down points but was grabbing his fingers like he was about to pull them off. Then he does this curious thing where to make a strong point he outstretches two fists - very ugly body language. I know it's totally unimportant but I'm just making the point his media handlers are really failing him by giving him too much advice. He'd do himself a big favour by ignoring it and just being himself (and being honest, but that's not in his nature either).

Stephen McC said...

Iain, you must have been looking at the wrong interview...

Our Leader Brown confirmed...

UK leads the world in Biotech, Wind Turbines, Electric Cars and "Green" Technology

These industries will create 1 million new jobs in the coming years

Unemployment will reach nowhere near what the doom mongers predicted only 2.8 million instead of 3 million

There will definitely, absolutely, probably, possibly be a Labour Budget in the spring if circumstances and time allow for it




God, I really sympathise with the Labour ministers who will be forced to back up this bag of s*** that cyclops puts up as a smokescreen to try and defend the indefensible.

He's a busted flush, and watching him perform today, he knows it

Frank Owen said...

Eamonn Butler means Gladstone, not Disraeli.

JuliaM said...

"If he behaves like that in the TV debates it's game over. And whatever Labour supporter say in public, in private they know I am right."

Will they act, though?

Annabel Herriott said...

I totally agree with you Iain. The man is living in a parallel universe. Talking over Marr didnt help him either, neither did his constant " hold on"s. I trust the rebels wont be able to shift him before the General election, as he is worth a dozen billboards to us!

Doktorb said...

He failed with his usual trick of dismissing the trivial questions at the end, "Isn't it funny that with so much happening, you want to talk about who is doing what and when..."

"Well we have just spent 25 minutes not getting a straight answer, to be frank....."

I was not impressed at all with him on Andrew Marr, but did you hear him on Radio 5 Live later? A bit of an easier ride, I concede, but the same repeated half-truths and not a firm policy to rub together.

Noticed the soft LibDem loveboming attempt too.

babapapa said...

An did you see the final 20 seconds of the show, as the credits scrolled across? Marr had said goodbye to the viewers, and then Brown immediately got out of his chair to leave. Marr told him to wait until the credits had finished, so he hurriedly sat down again. But then, instead of making pretend banter with Marr, Brown steadfastly turned his head away from Marr and looked in the opposite direction. It made Brown look rude and petulant as if he had just had a row with a loved one.

Simon Davis said...

I feel you totally missed the point because Marr, for the umpteenth time, let him get away with it.

Brown could have fooled some people this morning - trust me!

Anonymous said...

If he had a row with a loved one he must have been looking away from the make-up artist's mirror.

Sue Doughty said...

"definitely, absolutely, probably, possibly be a Labour Budget in the spring if circumstances and time allow for it" says one of the proLabour commentors.
As an investor I look for a tad more certainty than that. Britain is at sea without power, sail or paddle.
As for new jobs related to green technology - that happened already, it is no longer cost effective to do more, that industry is now in decline but nuclear power stations not being replaced! Frightful.

Dippyness. said...

One of the most worrying aspects is how easily Brown is rattled & then begins to lose his temper!
He is a megalomaniac. Enough said.

BJ said...

Yes, I noticed what Babapapa did too. And to think No 10 hired a tv producer to make him look good on telly. Sigh.

Unsworth said...

@ babapapa

"It made Brown look rude and petulant as if he had just had a row with a loved one."

Well that is exactly what had happened. Of course, it was all a misunderstanding and no doubt they'll make it up soon. They need (knead?) each other - and they certainly deserve each other.

john miller said...

Sadly, I can't watch Brown any more as my TV is out of warranty, so I rely on other people's opinions on these matters.

But it appears you and Mike Smithson must have watched different programmes...

Sally Roberts said...

He wouldn't recognise the truth if it came up behind him and bit him on the bum!

DeeDee99 said...

A car-crash of an interview. Our self-proclaimed economic genius of a PM announced that he was going to halve the financial deficit in 4 years by increasing spending!

The rest of the time he looked awkward and shifty; just like Nixon.

Mandelson must be working the phones this morning ... question is, will he be trying to prop up the liability or priming the assassin.

Cynic said...

Leading in wind turbines?

Well, he seems to know a lot about wind .......

Mirtha Tidville said...

So he made a right mess of it then......ooooh I do so love these good news stories...

Anonymous said...

Sally Roberts 12:58

Terrible image you have given me; I will have nightmares.

w v = ILLED

how does this W V thing work?

Rex said...

Ah but don't miss Browns (or his advisors) point.

If DC hints at possibly some cuts and tax rises etc and Brown hints at hitting the rich who is Joe Punter going to want to believe?

Brown is just going for lies, lies and lies again because he doesn't give a monkey's nuts about the country so long as he stays in power!

For living proof just look at what Mugabe has done to Zimbabwe.

Anonymous said...

Leading in wind turbines?
Why not 'invest' some of the QE in the only UK blade firm, that Brown & Mandelson let go to the wall?
Brown was his usual confident, bubbly self,like a bottle of soda and boy when he blows it is a joy to see.
The idiot will be a rip roaring success in his own heed on the tv debates and that is all that counts.
The man is a certifiable fruit loop.

Anonymous said...

And that is his problem in less than 140 characters.

No, it isn't. If Brown's problem was that he was a weak speaker who didn't make you feel warm and fuzzy, this country wouldn't be in the mess it's in.

He is an incompetent economist, a weak political strategist and a devotee of an outdated and intellectually bankrupt ideology. He is an exponent of social engineering. He, like most leftists, hates opportunity and social mobility. Time and again, we have seen that he uses cheap name-calling, sloganeering and the outright telling of lies in place of offering a coherent vision for the country and a cogent set of policy goals.

As a man who aspires to a career in parliament, Mr. Dale, you need to look a lot deeper than the superficialities of how a man speaks. Brown could be a second Demosthenes, a second Cicero, a second John Chrysostom and he'd still be unelectable because, no matter how well or badly he might speak, he has no policies, he has no visions, he has no ideas and, in a very fundamental way, he has no deceny and precious little basic humanity.

This is more than 140 words but it's also a lot closer to the truth of Brown's unelectability than wishy-washy politically illiterate sentimentalism about "speaking to people's hearts".

How would "speaking to people's hearts" fix the economy, reduce the national debt, deal with the out-of-control government spending or get back all the money Brown wasted when the sold our gold reserves for a pittance?

Anonymous said...

What we are seeing is the "save Gordon Brown" campaign and it will fail for he is patently a thug who we know backstabbed his way to becoming PM and would probably sell his own grandmother just to stay in power and he is such a big bairn that he refused to speak to Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond for months after the SNP won power in Scotland.

Anonymous said...

On a lighter note why does our Supreme Leader believe that to bare his teeth is the same as to smile and why does he bare his teeth when nothing remotely funny is being discussed?
Only curious but I have been told that when he bares his teeth children usually burst into tears.
Long may he remain on TV losing votes every time he appears.

John said...

At January 03, 2010 11:38 AM , Stephen McC said...
Iain, you must have been looking at the wrong interview...

Our Leader Brown confirmed...

UK leads the world in
Biotech,
Based in Ithaca, New York, Phyton Biotech, Inc. is a world leader in the use of plant cell culture technology, a platform used to develop and manufacture products with applications in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Phyton currently generates revenue by efficiently producing a commercial source of paclitaxel, the active ingredient in TAXOL®*, one of the leading drugs for the treatment of cancer. Its German subsidiary, Phyton Gesellschaft für Biotechnik mbH, operates the world’s largest commercial cGMP manufacturing facility using plant cell culture technology.
In 2006, the Japanese pharmaceutical market was the second largest individual market in the world. With sales of $60 billion it constitutes approximately 11% of the world market

Wind Turbines,
In contrast, Denmark's Vestas became the world leader in wind turbine manufacturing with the crucial support of consistent, long-term public investment from the Danish government. The same situation is true for Germany's Siemens and Spain's Gamesa, where feed-in tariff policies provide strong and consistent support for domestic markets as well as investor certainty for manufacturing and technology companies. The same story is now taking shape in China, where new guaranteed wind tariff prices have been launched and the Chinese government has provided direct support for China's turbine manufacturers.
Electric Cars
Who Will be the World’s Leader in Electric Cars Manufacturing?
The New York Times reported today
Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.The goal, which radiates from the very top of the Chinese government, suggests that Detroit’s Big Three, already struggling to stay alive, will face even stiffer foreign competition on the next field of automotive technology than they do today.

Right now Japan leads the world in hybrid vehicles with its Toyota Prius and Honda Insight. General Motor’s Chevy volt, which is expected to go on sale for 2010, is U.S’s major alternative fuel vehicle. The article indicates by 2011, China is planning to produce 500,000 all-electric and hybrid vehicles. By that time, Japan and South Korea together will produce 1.1 million all-electric and hybrid vehicles while the U.S will produce 276,000.

The man is a fool.

Anonymous said...

As some wit said last week Washington could not tell a lie, Blair could not tell the truth, and Gordon Brown cannot tell the difference.

Anonymous said...

Dunno if this has been picked up, but Ed Balls on the Guardian website seems to admit that Labour treat vocational courses as "Second Class"

Unknown said...

Read "Climate change: proposed personal briefing" to
His Excellency Mr. Kevin Rudd,

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/03/climate-change-proposed-personal-briefing/

Barking Spider said...

I thought that wind turbine manufacturer has or is going to close down because of the recession and the cost of their damned ugly, blot-on-the-landscape, useless wind turbines.

I hate watching Brown and his lies - it's like listening to soviet tractor stats, and today he was truly dreadful.

I imagine he'll be stealing Tory ideas as they are announced and twisting them to suit his own perverted political ideals.

Andrew F said...

"And that is his problem in less than 140 characters. He can't speak to people's hearts. There's no empathy."

And that, Iain, is the Conservative party's vacuosity summarised in three sentences. 'Vote Cameron: he knows how to do PR better than Brown'. Honestly, I want a PM who speaks like he's in meetings - since, you know, that's where the governing happens.

You Tories think government is beauty pageant.

Tapestry said...

Britain leads the world in one thing.

That thing is unexplained 'accounting adjustments' in its Government's Spending Accounts.

The December 2009 HM Treasury Spending Outturn Report contains no less than GBP 185 billion of unexplained 'accounting adjustments', which reduce the notional level of spending, not even a note to say what they consist of.

I don't think any other country in the world would come close. Brown should be championing our success. Nowhere else in the world could a government present its accounts in Parliament in November giving one figure, GBP 680c as its total spending, and then present the same account as GBP 620c billion the next....without a word of explanation.

For a run around the figures, visit me at The Tap Blog.

As usual I have some interesting theories as to what game Gordon is playing this time.

Marr did not ask any killer financial questions. There are several he could be asking.

For example, how come the government still stands by its April 2009 revenue forecast of GBP 498 billion, when the media has reported every month since that revenues are down on the previous year? (Revenue to April 2008 was GBP 496 billion).

The whole account is a shambles, and common sense alone would tell anyone that Brown's and Darling's figures are not a fair representation of the current and likely future financial position.

The annual deficit 2009/2010 is said to be as forecast at GBP 178 billion. Try GBP 300 billion more like.

Anonymous said...

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moorlandhunter said...

Leading the world in Wind Turbines? Has Brown finally gone mad? All he has to do is travel over to North Holland, Germany and then into Denmark to see just how many of these obscenities are destroying the land.
If Brown was not such a laughable fool I would be really scared that Britain IS the world leader in this respect, as I hate wind turbines for the utter waste of resources they are and that they are visual carbuncles that destroy the countryside. I’d get rid of them completely.

Anonymous said...

Who would the people of England want a well spoken, well educated Englishman as their Prime Minister when they could (continue to) have an unelected, unaccountable, inept, anti-English, communist Scottish Traitor as 'their' Prime Minister?.

Brian said...

Gordon Brown's Wind Turbine wonder weapon has been smashed by this post from EUReferendum
Wind turbines only work when Broon produces the wind.
I hope Greg Pope will tell Gordon tonight that there are no more divisions left to save Berlin.

must be true said...

The man is a liar, but surely a "heavyweight" political journalist such as Marr should be able to have his pants off over total bare-faced lies such as "we are leading the world in windmills" or whatever.

Twig said...

Watching this charlatan begs the question why is Cameron's lead in the polls is so tenuous.

Anonymous said...

Brown's reaction to the budget question (would there be one in March?) was far from indicative that there would not be a March election as the BBC kept saying.

He looked totally shocked by the question and threshed around with about four versions of an answer truth before actually NOT saying there would be a Liebour budget in March.

I think he intends to go early.

Rik Young said...

Twig,

Probably because the onlinerrati like you and I have worked out that all politicians are lying bastards?

Twig said...

@Anonymous
"I think he intends to go early."


Would agree with that, the budget will be just too awful to risk doing it two months before an election.