political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Indeed. Comented it on another thread minutes before you posted. Gordon's statement tonight on News24 was positively weird. A long walk up a corridor through loads of door frames. Some deeply _unconnecting_ words slurred out with his head wobbling a bit to the side. A few deeply odd pauses. And then with a last funny/uncomfortable look at the camera he turns around and walks back down the long corridor and the camera follows him. The demeanour, the body language, the words, the staging all sooo wrong. I'd discounted the sedation rumours as troublemaking by Guido-types. But on this performance, who knows?
Where is Blair when he's needed to lead us. Oh. They got rid of him. Ah.
Have to say I think that is a bit of a cheap shot.
Brown said what had to be said, okay perhaps not with the sheen of Blair, but we already knew he didn't have the same presentational skills as his predecessor.
By the way, for those of you wishing Blair was back at the helm, it was these very same presentational skills that convinced vast swathes of the UK public to back an illegal military action which has made attacks like today's more likely.
I'm watching CNN and they have favourably conmtrasted the low-key way Brown and Jaqui Smith have dealt with events over the past few days with the way Blair used such events for grandiose speeches.
Standing ovations, comments wishing he was still in charge - there is a lot of love for Blair in the Tory Party all of a sudden!
I think comments on the presentational aspect of Brown and co are uneccesary at this stage - however that doesn;t mean there isn't scope for a lot of justified criticism regarding the governments terror measures in light of recent events - if it's true that there are terror suspects on the loose because they simply ducked their control orders then all hell is giong to break loose - and rightly so.
Valid point about draconian measures in your other post Iain - but with the control order foul-up and the increase in attacks I think (unfortunately) the 90 day detention of terror suspects is now a shoo-in.
Ok, maybe the sick in the head thing was a bit too far.
My point is really that we've heard Iain repeated whinge and moan about an Labour being authoritarian and being too quick to respond to these sort of attacks with legislation and attacks on civil liberties. On that, I agree with him.
However, here we have (at last) a Prime Minister and Home Secretary who, instead of doing that, have just come out with "stay vigilant", "thanks to the police and security services", "we'll get through this" and "please cooperate with the police" and given out a general, getting on with business approach. And what's Iain's FIRST post on the matter? A "comedy" dig at Gordon Brown. I find that appalling
Omigod ! Know what you mean about the undertaker though appearing on our screens,have you read 1984, when BB wants to communicate with the population. A bit over a panicky over reaction, and giving the air of publicity
Jesus. I really couldn't care less about Brown's body language, the camera angles or the minutiae of the bloody staging. He's doing a job - all that matters is how well he does it.
If all you can do is criticise the presentation, then you'll get the politicians you deserve - camera-friendly muppets who would be just as at home presenting the weather forecast.
Standing ovations, comments wishing he was still in charge - there is a lot of love for Blair in the Tory Party all of a sudden!
I'm waiting for the Islam is a religion of peace brigade to tell us these attacks were not carried out by anyone who attends the mosque on Fridays.....the whole routine is formulaic.
I suppose it is just getting to be like a TV script
Well said anon at 11.01. Gawd blimey! Everyone had a go at Blair because he was all spin and presentation. Now we attack Brown because it was a bit awkward.
anon at 11.26pm, I cannot speak for the other two people, but I have never voted Labour and would never vote Labour. I dislike Brown as much as I disliked Blair (a lot in both cases). Neither am I a troll. Pls do just throw abuse around if someone disagrees with you.
I remember being about that age (or slightly older) at the time the first Gulf war was about to start, and one night crying my eyes out thinking about it. None of my family or friends were in the armed forces, and it wasn't going to affect me, as a small child, at all.
But politics can do weird things to the fragile emotions of precocious kids, I suppose.
Brown is trying to spin his apparently poor presentation as a deliberate contradition to Blair. Consider the election launch with the text screens obscuring the cameras, the victory statement not quite in front of the door of Number 10, and now this.
No senior polititian could be so bad at presentation except on purpose.
Pretty funny Iain Lets face it ,domestic Policy has been run by Brown for years anyway . Who got rid of Frank Field , Brown did ( Thereby condemning benefits and housing to remain disastrously unreformed ) .Who fed the Public Sector like a bulbous prize marrow Good old Mr. B . He can get away with wearing any disguise in the Labour Party precisely because they know what clap trap this theatrical costume change is . He is an old style socialist and the rest of it is just spin. It was interesting to see how inadequate he was when asked to do something without hiding and preparing like a hibernating bear for months . We were expecting something in the nature of a Prime minister and I was forcibly struck by the stark fact that the interregnum continues with or without Blair . Who did not think , “oh look there’s that spavined gimp Brown pretending to be in charge if the country” “…. then there was a shock of recognition …oh ummm I suppose technically he is .“ The instinct that we all have he should face some sort of electoral process is unlikely to trouble the incanting Labour Droogs hereabouts about for but for ordinary working men like me , a sinister clerk does not sidle from the shadows and thereby become Caesar . No he has to present his policies and become elected . The sensation was there for Major but because of the Party election and the lack of a broken promise to serve the full term it hardly occurred before the day or reckoning was upon us . Until Brown stops pretending not to be one Gordon Brown , the lying taxing Stalinist weirdo of ten years warty standing and faces the polls, we have no leader . Even if he did , with Scotland clearly wishing to leave the little UK Party he has no mandate in England. In Southern England he has no votes at all. Perhaps we should accept him when the next Cockney is PM of Scotland . He is good at waiting .. So some eery butler who crept about serving up plates of quiet socialism while the young Master handled the media suddenly thrust out into the flashlights of the paparazzi. Disaster ensues. What else ? It wasn’t that he was good or bad , he was simply not the Prime minister. Having avoided any electoral accountability thus far we may a well wonder what traitorous gerrymandering he has in mind under the title “Constitutional reform”. When the BBC has quite finished its Coronation perhaps we might get back to the brute fact . Brown equals tax Scottish double votes and unreformed public sector money eaters . Same dank old Socialist cabbage water . What he says is of no interest .He will say whatever he has to. The fact his Party trusts him is all you need to know .Look at what they said in the Deputy leadership contest. Consider their loyalty to Brown. Not hard is it .Look forward to “Show Trial Consultations which will magically agree with what he wanted anyway . Look forward to an audacious attempt to rig the election All good men and women must come together to save the country from the plague of rule by a sightless etiolated night creature who hates the English the family the private sector and everything healthy when he is not .The monkey is gone , the Organ grinder is far more dangerous
Some low-tech loons manage to damage an airport but mostly themselves - and the po-faced Brownites now let loose upon the land say that we must pack away fair comment, cloth irony in bubble-wrap, stash cynicism in the loft - and check in our sense of humour at the nearest Govt. centre until normal service is resumed.
Well screw you. This is normal service. You have put in place a new Prime Minister who is obviously - painfully obviously - not up to the task. I refuse to join in with the Labour Party's collective embarrassed silence at what they have done. I will chortle away at their misfortune - and ours - if I choose. You got rid of Tony "the people's princess" Blair and put in place the Great Clunking Fist. Guess - what - he clunks! And rather than balls-in-a-blender Reid, we now have The Nursey Nurse. What a pair to be protecting the nation.
I will not have Government decide what I will laugh at. Nor its apologists steer me as to what is and is not "appropriate" to comment upon. I trust that Iain will be similarly unaffected by the orchestrated chorus of Brown's defenders trying to howl him down. Keep 'em coming Iain - I'm guessing there's going to be quite a stream of material.
Brown looked drugged and frightened as if he had cr@pped himself and the doc had to ram a huge needle of something calming in to his fat arse to patch him up and get him on the telly.
Any more terror attacks and the men in white coats will be carrying him out, in a straightjacket, foaming at the mouth.
God help us having a gutless charlatan like him for a leader.
He's only been in the job for less than a week and we're seeing the emperor has no clothes already.
This little girl could be a future prime minister in the making! I think her mum should stop the platitudes and have a good cry herself (and all right thinking people should join them!)
To be perfectly frank he looked almost as nervous as John Major on his first Commons appearance as PM. Remember the shaking hands syndrome. I'm sure there were so many Tories in those days who were glad to see the back of the former PM who had made them electable - is this a re-run Labour ( sorry, NuLabour) style?
I am sick of trolls riding on my name in order to make a little splash for themselves. I am not responsible for this:
verity dijo... HYPOCRITE!
July 01, 2007 9:30 AM
Can anyone tell me what I have to do to get an icon that goes with my name so I can stop being haunted by malicious loons whose own wispy personalities are not up to the job?
Indeed. Comented it on another thread minutes before you posted. Gordon's statement tonight on News24 was positively weird. A long walk up a corridor through loads of door frames. Some deeply _unconnecting_ words slurred out with his head wobbling a bit to the side. A few deeply odd pauses. And then with a last funny/uncomfortable look at the camera he turns around and walks back down the long corridor and the camera follows him. The demeanour, the body language, the words, the staging all sooo wrong. I'd discounted the sedation rumours as troublemaking by Guido-types. But on this performance, who knows?
ReplyDeleteWhere is Blair when he's needed to lead us. Oh. They got rid of him. Ah.
The poor child needs taken into care...
ReplyDeleteLow blow Iain.....but very very true...
ReplyDeleteLow blow Iain :(
ReplyDeleteOh, give her a slap and tell her there'll be no tea under she stops blubbing ! Kids today !
ReplyDeletePerhaps she is at that stage where she wants to 'marry' a 'father figure'...
ReplyDeletehahahahahahahahahaaaa!
ReplyDeleteOi, stop copying 'liberal republican'....
ReplyDeleteAt least the girl has some sense.
Hi, my name's Iain Dale and I think, so long as it's wrapped up in a "jokey" way, attempts to make political capital from terror attacks is ok.
ReplyDeleteYou're sick in the head Iain.
Have to say I think that is a bit of a cheap shot.
ReplyDeleteBrown said what had to be said, okay perhaps not with the sheen of Blair, but we already knew he didn't have the same presentational skills as his predecessor.
By the way, for those of you wishing Blair was back at the helm, it was these very same presentational skills that convinced vast swathes of the UK public to back an illegal military action which has made attacks like today's more likely.
I'm watching CNN and they have favourably conmtrasted the low-key way Brown and Jaqui Smith have dealt with events over the past few days with the way Blair used such events for grandiose speeches.
Standing ovations, comments wishing he was still in charge - there is a lot of love for Blair in the Tory Party all of a sudden!
I think comments on the presentational aspect of Brown and co are uneccesary at this stage - however that doesn;t mean there isn't scope for a lot of justified criticism regarding the governments terror measures in light of recent events - if it's true that there are terror suspects on the loose because they simply ducked their control orders then all hell is giong to break loose - and rightly so.
Valid point about draconian measures in your other post Iain - but with the control order foul-up and the increase in attacks I think (unfortunately) the 90 day detention of terror suspects is now a shoo-in.
"You're sick in the head Iain."
ReplyDeleteuncalled for. Yes, it was a low blow but no need for insults.
Ok, maybe the sick in the head thing was a bit too far.
ReplyDeleteMy point is really that we've heard Iain repeated whinge and moan about an Labour being authoritarian and being too quick to respond to these sort of attacks with legislation and attacks on civil liberties. On that, I agree with him.
However, here we have (at last) a Prime Minister and Home Secretary who, instead of doing that, have just come out with "stay vigilant", "thanks to the police and security services", "we'll get through this" and "please cooperate with the police" and given out a general, getting on with business approach. And what's Iain's FIRST post on the matter? A "comedy" dig at Gordon Brown. I find that appalling
Brown always plays hardball - ask any unfortunate who had the temerity to cross him.
ReplyDeleteThis is appropriate and even just.
Nice one Iain.
Omigod ! Know what you mean about the undertaker though appearing on our screens,have you read 1984, when BB wants to communicate with the population. A bit over a panicky over reaction, and giving the air of publicity
ReplyDeleteMade me laugh more than Edna Everage who's playing away in the background.
ReplyDeleteJesus. I really couldn't care less about Brown's body language, the camera angles or the minutiae of the bloody staging. He's doing a job - all that matters is how well he does it.
ReplyDeleteIf all you can do is criticise the presentation, then you'll get the politicians you deserve - camera-friendly muppets who would be just as at home presenting the weather forecast.
Grow up.
Standing ovations, comments wishing he was still in charge - there is a lot of love for Blair in the Tory Party all of a sudden!
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for the Islam is a religion of peace brigade to tell us these attacks were not carried out by anyone who attends the mosque on Fridays.....the whole routine is formulaic.
I suppose it is just getting to be like a TV script
Well said anon at 11.01. Gawd blimey! Everyone had a go at Blair because he was all spin and presentation. Now we attack Brown because it was a bit awkward.
ReplyDeleteAll very tiresome and boring.
This is pathetic Iain.
ReplyDeleteanon@1101 & ubba@1110 & 1118
ReplyDeleteI see the NeuLab trolls are out again tonight.
Blair could inspire and sometimes convince even while he was shoving shit down your throat: Brown only does shoving.
Got it now?
I doubt Brown is up to the job emotionally and already shows signs of breaking down before long at this rate.
ReplyDeleteHe's certainly on the tranquilisers judging from tonight's performance.
That's not scoring political points just expressing my worries.
anon at 11.26pm, I cannot speak for the other two people, but I have never voted Labour and would never vote Labour. I dislike Brown as much as I disliked Blair (a lot in both cases). Neither am I a troll. Pls do just throw abuse around if someone disagrees with you.
ReplyDeleteCheap, pointless, childish, badly timed and peurile.
ReplyDeleteYou've lost a regular reader (who likes neither Blair nor Brown).
Byeee ;-))
From the clip I heard on the radio he was using focus group tested anti-Cameron words: The British People, Resolute, strong.
ReplyDeleteHe can't be under that much pressure with no casualties. Another actor I fear.
I thought she said "Tony Benn" at first!
ReplyDeleteI remember being about that age (or slightly older) at the time the first Gulf war was about to start, and one night crying my eyes out thinking about it. None of my family or friends were in the armed forces, and it wasn't going to affect me, as a small child, at all.
But politics can do weird things to the fragile emotions of precocious kids, I suppose.
Cheap Iain - every now and then your veneer of sweet reasonableness slips and your 1980s Essex boy Alan B'stard side peeps out.
ReplyDeleteBrown is trying to spin his apparently poor presentation as a deliberate contradition to Blair. Consider the election launch with the text screens obscuring the cameras, the victory statement not quite in front of the door of Number 10, and now this.
ReplyDeleteNo senior polititian could be so bad at presentation except on purpose.
This video clip dampened rather my enthusiasm for giving the vote to six year olds.
ReplyDeleteMy god you are a liability.
ReplyDeletePretty funny Iain Lets face it ,domestic Policy has been run by Brown for years anyway . Who got rid of Frank Field , Brown did ( Thereby condemning benefits and housing to remain disastrously unreformed ) .Who fed the Public Sector like a bulbous prize marrow Good old Mr. B . He can get away with wearing any disguise in the Labour Party precisely because they know what clap trap this theatrical costume change is . He is an old style socialist and the rest of it is just spin.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to see how inadequate he was when asked to do something without hiding and preparing like a hibernating bear for months . We were expecting something in the nature of a Prime minister and I was forcibly struck by the stark fact that the interregnum continues with or without Blair . Who did not think , “oh look there’s that spavined gimp Brown pretending to be in charge if the country” “…. then there was a shock of recognition …oh ummm I suppose technically he is .“
The instinct that we all have he should face some sort of electoral process is unlikely to trouble the incanting Labour Droogs hereabouts about for but for ordinary working men like me , a sinister clerk does not sidle from the shadows and thereby become Caesar . No he has to present his policies and become elected . The sensation was there for Major but because of the Party election and the lack of a broken promise to serve the full term it hardly occurred before the day or reckoning was upon us .
Until Brown stops pretending not to be one Gordon Brown , the lying taxing Stalinist weirdo of ten years warty standing and faces the polls, we have no leader . Even if he did , with Scotland clearly wishing to leave the little UK Party he has no mandate in England. In Southern England he has no votes at all. Perhaps we should accept him when the next Cockney is PM of Scotland . He is good at waiting .. So some eery butler who crept about serving up plates of quiet socialism while the young Master handled the media suddenly thrust out into the flashlights of the paparazzi. Disaster ensues. What else ?
It wasn’t that he was good or bad , he was simply not the Prime minister.
Having avoided any electoral accountability thus far we may a well wonder what traitorous gerrymandering he has in mind under the title “Constitutional reform”. When the BBC has quite finished its Coronation perhaps we might get back to the brute fact . Brown equals tax Scottish double votes and unreformed public sector money eaters . Same dank old Socialist cabbage water .
What he says is of no interest .He will say whatever he has to. The fact his Party trusts him is all you need to know .Look at what they said in the Deputy leadership contest. Consider their loyalty to Brown.
Not hard is it .Look forward to “Show Trial Consultations which will magically agree with what he wanted anyway . Look forward to an audacious attempt to rig the election All good men and women must come together to save the country from the plague of rule by a sightless etiolated night creature who hates the English the family the private sector and everything healthy when he is not .The monkey is gone , the Organ grinder is far more dangerous
Oh and well done Iain why should we take the Liar seriously ? He expects us to forget ten years ...I`m laughing already.
ReplyDeleteHe emerged from that doorway like the fellow from the Fast Show...
ReplyDelete"This week I'll be mostly asking you to be... vigilant!"
Then he turns around and walks back out.
The faux outrage by 'Glass House' et al is almost as funny as the clip itself.
ReplyDeleteCheap.
ReplyDeleteGo newmania
ReplyDeleteGlad you wrote that lot it saved me having to.
However I would put it this way.
Listen well do not ignore what Gordon Brownshirt says, if you wish to know what he has planned for Britain.
Its very simple; its exactly the opposite to what he tells us it is. Put your money on it, you could get very rich indeed.
Is it possible to go any lower in order to make a cheap political point?
ReplyDeleteWe used to have the gutter press - is the blogosphere's role to be the sewer press.
HYPOCRITE!
ReplyDeleteSome low-tech loons manage to damage an airport but mostly themselves - and the po-faced Brownites now let loose upon the land say that we must pack away fair comment, cloth irony in bubble-wrap, stash cynicism in the loft - and check in our sense of humour at the nearest Govt. centre until normal service is resumed.
ReplyDeleteWell screw you. This is normal service. You have put in place a new Prime Minister who is obviously - painfully obviously - not up to the task. I refuse to join in with the Labour Party's collective embarrassed silence at what they have done. I will chortle away at their misfortune - and ours - if I choose. You got rid of Tony "the people's princess" Blair and put in place the Great Clunking Fist. Guess - what - he clunks! And rather than balls-in-a-blender Reid, we now have The Nursey Nurse. What a pair to be protecting the nation.
I will not have Government decide what I will laugh at. Nor its apologists steer me as to what is and is not "appropriate" to comment upon. I trust that Iain will be similarly unaffected by the orchestrated chorus of Brown's defenders trying to howl him down. Keep 'em coming Iain - I'm guessing there's going to be quite a stream of material.
Well put newmania.
ReplyDeleteBrown looked drugged and frightened as if he had cr@pped himself and the doc had to ram a huge needle of something calming in to his fat arse to patch him up and get him on the telly.
Any more terror attacks and the men in white coats will be carrying him out, in a straightjacket, foaming at the mouth.
God help us having a gutless charlatan like him for a leader.
He's only been in the job for less than a week and we're seeing the emperor has no clothes already.
I don't understand the outrage Iain. This is very, very funny.
ReplyDeleteAnd sophisticated. Not cheap at all.
from the mouths of babes.....
ReplyDeleteThis little girl could be a future prime minister in the making!
ReplyDeleteI think her mum should stop the platitudes and have a good cry herself (and all right thinking people should join them!)
Please, Please, Please, people of Britain can you hurry up and hold a General Election.
ReplyDeleteWe desparately want LURCH back. Morticia is lost without him!
Why you want him as Prime Minister I have no idea?
To be perfectly frank he looked almost as nervous as John Major on his first Commons appearance as PM. Remember the shaking hands syndrome. I'm sure there were so many Tories in those days who were glad to see the back of the former PM who had made them electable - is this a re-run Labour ( sorry, NuLabour) style?
ReplyDeleteI am sick of trolls riding on my name in order to make a little splash for themselves. I am not responsible for this:
ReplyDeleteverity dijo...
HYPOCRITE!
July 01, 2007 9:30 AM
Can anyone tell me what I have to do to get an icon that goes with my name so I can stop being haunted by malicious loons whose own wispy personalities are not up to the job?