Monday, March 15, 2010

Brown's 'Politics Show' Car Crash

Several of my commenters posted comments about Gordon Brown's appearance on the Politics Show was a "car crash". So I thought I would see for myself and watch it on iPlayer.

He faced a group of voters in the marginal seat of Stourbridge. And it wasn't an easy half hour for him. At all. He failed to engage, failed to empathise and looked as if he would rather have been anywhere else. If this is a portent of things to come, the Conservatives must hope he faces the voters as often as possible during an election campaign. Watching the programme I kept thinking of how Tony Blair would have handled it. He would have taken it all on the chin and emerged smelling of roses. Brown emerged from this programme smelling of something else.

See for yourself HERE.

21 comments:

Antisthenes said...

I doubt if the majority of the electorate have your perception and thought he was adorable.

Anonymous said...

Can someone tell me if it has been posted on You Tube.

I am outside the UK and use a proxy, for business reasons, outside the UK also.

So iPlayer does not work for me and I will not use a UK proxy.

Help!

Anonymous said...

I thought he did ok .... for him. That's the thing with Brown, the expectations are so low that as long as he doesn't make a huge gaffe, he can get away with being sullen. After all, the polls showed him getting away with Rawnsley's allegations!

What the Tories need to do is to hit him on policy as much as possible - that's what he claims to be his strength. Cuddly ITV profiles won't help as much as Cam looking like he has a strong team behind him and an appealing set of ideas. So far, the Tories have only given out Gove's ideas. Where are the rest of their policies?

Bill Quango MP said...

He could do the bedtime hour on cebeebies. He has that soft,uninteresting,regional voice.
He would make a good black and white cartoon of Hamish the high speed TGV engine or something.

All three of us listening yesterday fell asleep.

Who cares said...

What I can't understand is that even after the public have seen the 'Real Gordon', so many people are still prepared to vote for him.

It's time for the Tories to up their game and start telling the British public what they want to hear. It's the only way they're going to get floating voters on board.

David Boothroyd said...

Gordon Brown was asked tough but direct questions by the Stourbridge voters, and gave direct and helpful answers to them.

Dare I suggest that what voters will see in the contrast the appearances of the two main party leaders on Sunday 14 March was that Gordon Brown was helpfully answering tough questions from uncommitted voters, while Cameron was in a fluffy biopic answering softball questions about nothing very serious.

One of these two has the approach needed to help Britain. And the other one went to Eton.

Unknown said...

David Boothroyd you are aware of Cameron Direct?

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Haughts said...

If that is your definition of a car crash, then presumably the entire conservative campaign since the turn of the year is a multiple car pile up on a road to nowhere!

ferial ferret said...

Hi Bugger

It is available at:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/default.stm

ferial ferret said...

Dear David Boothroyd

Direct and helpful answers!!!

Not on my TV he didn't

Looked shifty and kept avoiding the questions or answering ones he wasn't asked

Product of a Scottish education?

Nigel said...

>>direct and helpful answers<<

You clearly enjoy tractor statistics.

One small example - when Brown was happily balls-ing on about 'new' industries being the key to employment, he kept mentioning pharmaceuticals.
Anyone who reads newspapers ought to be clear that there are massive job losses going on there, too. The have been dozens of stories like this over the last year:

>>Guardian, March 2, 2010
AstraZeneca to close UK research centre with 1,200 job losses
Move threatens to undermine UK as research leader

Harlow Herald, 08 February 2010
It has been reported that pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is set to announce massive job cuts at its Harlow facility this week...GSK is reportedly closing its research and development into neuroscience.
Workers at the facility, the former UK headquarters of Smith Kline Beecham, were told they would be made redundant on Thursday (February 4).<<

Pharmaceuticals is one of the few industries in which the UK is still world class, but that position is rather vulnerable.

Many of his 'direct and helpful' answers followed a similar pattern.

Gordon Brown appears either remarkably ignorant and complacent about what goes on in Britain, or just happily delusional.

Anonymous said...

Brown merely employed his usual tactic of never answering the question actually asked. He was at it again on Woman's Hour today. But he does it in such lugubrious tones it carries a quite unwarranted conviction. Mind you, if I were an interviewer being patronised yet again with "Let me explain to you..." he'd have had a few bricks through his head by now!

Andrew said...

ferial ferret

"Product of a Scottish education?"

Why the slur on the Scottish education system?

Product of a Labour middle-class upbringing in Scotland where Labour think they have a divine right to rule, have infiltrated the press and the BBC, and don't expect to be challenged on anything they do.

That would be more accurate.

ferial ferret said...

Hi Andrew

Point taken

Didn't/Couldn't have put it better myself

Twig said...

Wasn't this just an elaborate ruse to get Brown in front of a Clinical Psychologist?

Eddie 180 said...

I think Brown has opened up a possible line of attack through this interview.
In response to concerns from an NHS worker he was asked whether he thought Psychology was front line service.

He replied by stating that it was not for the Government to decide on spending priorities at a local level.

How does this work with his claim that front line services will be protected?

If he cannot say what those front line services are, how can the existing budget that is being spent on them be protected? It makes his claim that Labour will cut budgets, whilst protecting front line services total sophistry.

Labour could cut the overall budget, then locally the NHS could decide to move some of the budget from, for example psychology, to supporting the management and administration that will come under pressure from the reduced budgets.

Browns view on this, as stated, was that it was for local NHS trusts to decide on what is front line.

His commitment to "protect front line services" has no substance.

I squirmed at another suggestion that Brown made on the programme, when responding to a man whose family member had died due to delays in the NHS.

I am pretty certain that Browns response was that there will be binding agreements in the future and so his relative would have been able to claim compensation!

Andrew said...

ferial ferret

Peace breaks out!

Anonymous said...

Andrew

"Product of a Labour middle-class upbringing in Scotland where Labour think they have a divine right to rule"
I lived and worked in Scotland,,and strogly endorse the above. It is a pity that Brown is allowed to be getaway with his " I came from an ordinary family". Tories have to be savvy attack Brown on this, if Brown raises the private school thing again. Brown's father's position had many entitlements-a kind of medieval right.

Nigel said...

>> “I am very, very sorry what happened…if you wish this to be investigated, it should be investigated…<<

The other characteristic Brown trope.

When reality clashes with his carefully constructed fantasy of Britain, it must be "investigated".

I must have heard this line several dozen times over the years. Strangely, I've never heard what happened with the various "investigations".

Andrew said...

norman

Obviously I agree with what you say. How many people know that Brown was born in a private nursing home in Glasgow? He has had many privileges in his life compared with the poor sods who vote for his Party in Scotland (although not as many as there used to be).