Brown: "We'll Cut Too, But Not Just Yet"

I haven't read anyone else's view of Brown's speech to the TUC yet, but I have to say I thought it was the worst delivered speech he has made. It was full of stumbles, hesitancy and repetition. Indeed, I am sure he repeated a whole passage twice. Listening to it in the car on 5 Live I did my usual thing of trying to imagine I was a floating voter listening to it. And there was nothing in it that would have persuaded me that here was a man with a vision for Britain's future. He still used the same tired old phrases. I had thought that Darling had persuaded him not to use the line about saving 500,000 jobs as it couldn't be substantiated, but he used it again in this speech. His criticism of the Conservatives was so laboured that it seemed as if he was just going through the motions. Indeed, it was a little odd for him to criticise Conservative public spending cuts, when his people were spinning that he was about to copy them. It's a major strategic error for Brown to go down this road.

However wrong the phrase "Labour investment, Tory cuts' was, it was a simple message to sell. I challenge anyone to come up with a four word slogan for the current Labour policy. "We'll cut too but it won't hurt as much" or "We'll cut too, but not just yet" is the best I can come up with.

What was most intriguing was the moment when Brown said Labour would spend less on unnecessary things and low priorities. Which rather begs the question as to why any money was being spent in the first place on unnecessary things...