Bluemerle

DAILY MAIL 25.9.07

Why Gordon Brown is STILL the man who stole your old age
by Richard Littlejohn

Forgive me, but I decided not to bother watching New Gordon's first speech to the Labour Conference as Prime Minister.


Life's too short. Besides, I have to be awake to write this column.


If I had to sit through 60 minutes of Gordon's patronising, disingenuous, self-aggrandising garbage, I'm afraid I might lose the will to live.


Like the tedious 'interviews' he grants to selected radio and TV programmes, you never emerge any the wiser.


That doesn't stop Labour's terracotta army clapping like seals, or political anoraks scouring the entrails for some deep, meaningful significance. Leave them to it.


The rest of us have lives to be getting on with. And that's the reason I think he'd be insane to call a snap election, whatever the opinion polls and his lathered-up groupies tell him.


Outside the fetid halls of Bournemouth and the corridors of Westminster, no one's actually that interested.


For better or worse, most people seem to have accepted the coup which brought Brown to power and are happy to let him play with his new train set for the time being.


The only punters who want an election are Labour politicians and political reporters, because it brings a bit of excitement into their otherwise dull lives.


Gordon Brown is STILL the man who stole your old age


Out here in the real world, there's no appetite for three or four weeks of unnecessary campaigning and no justification for spending tens of millions of pounds on an election, little more than two years after the last one.


In the real world, they're talking about Jose Mourinho, Martin Jol and Maddie; Helen Mirren's wrinkles and why won't the bloody council empty the dustbins every week any more?


Trust me, Gordon, the great British public aren't salivating in gleeful anticipation of having politicians in their face 24/7 for the next month.


GORDON spent the summer insisting he didn't need a mandate, as he travelled the country on his North Koreanstyle leadership 'campaign'. For him to turn round now and call a snap election, simply because the Tories are on suicide watch, would look cynically opportunist. And he may well get punished for it at the polling stations.


Of course, Gordon is a cynical opportunist, but his success until now has been persuading enough people that he isn't.


There's a line in the Usual Suspects which goes something like: the greatest trick the Devil pulled was convincing us he doesn't exist.


Similarly, Gordon's great trick has been to convince the gullible that he's not like other politicians.


It's rubbish, of course. He's just better at being a politician than most other politicians.


According to one poll this week, more than half of the electorate believe that there are fewer gimmicks and less spin under Gordon - which means they've bought the spin.


Fewer gimmicks? On Thursday, Number 10 put out a statement of condolence following the sacking of Mourinho.


It was right up there with Tony Blair's eulogy to Frank Sinatra. I half expected Gordon to turn up outside Stamford Bridge and announce through trembling lips: "He was the People's Portuguese."


Just look at the cult of the personality being constructed in Bournemouth this week. Or rather, don't - it's not a pretty sight.


Gordon's had an amazing honeymoon. On the day Blair left, the BBC in particular and the political lobby in general decided that the Line To Take was: "New Gordon, New Government - Dopey Dave, Dead In The Water."


Since then, every story has been refracted through that prism.


Looking at Bournemouth from my vantage point of as far away as possible, it would appear hubris is setting in.


That's exactly what calling a snap election would be - hubris. And we all know what follows hubris.


Gordon's got away with reinventing himself so far, largely because here in the real world no one's been paying much attention.


Four weeks of an election campaign could prove a rude awakening as suddenly people awake to the fact that this conman pretending to be New Gordon is, in fact, the same Old Gordon who has his fingerprints all over the last ten years.


They will be reminded that this is the man who went missing every time there was a crisis; who has ramped up taxes at every opportunity; who wasted billions on the NHS and still thousands are dying of MRSA and C. difficile; who twisted arms to get Labour MPs to vote for the war in Iraq; fill in your own gripe.


They will be reminded, most of all, that this is The Man Who Stole Your Old Age. They may reach the conclusion that New Gordon isn't the solution, he's the problem.


And because he is a consummate politician, Gordon knows all this, too.


By this time next week, I may be proved horribly wrong, but that's why my money is against a snap election.


Call Me Dave only needs to get lucky in 25 seats and Labour's overall majority melts away.


Above all, Gordon is notoriously risk averse. Always has been. There will be a voice in his head telling him what Sergeant Carter had to keep reminding Jack Regan in The Sweeney.


Don't do it, guv. It's not worth it.




IT'S TIME TO 'REACH OUT' TO THE TORIES, DAVE


If Gordon does decide to go to the country, Call Me Dave will have to raise his game.
He hasn't only got to win swing marginals, he's got to convince traditional Tories to turn out, too.


That's not going to be easy. At the weekend, I paid a State visit to Borisville - Henleyon-Thames - for the book festival.


They may love Boris, but they're far from convinced by his leader, if those who generously gave up their time to hear me at the Town Hall are anything to go by.


Frankly, they're tired of the PR spivvery and the trashing of the Thatcher legacy. They want the Leader of the Opposition to oppose the Government - not agree with Labour all the time, on everything from levels of public spending to slapping two grand on the price of a car in the name of saving the planet.


Given half a chance, they'd dump Dave tomorrow and replace him with William Hague, were he daft enough to want the job again.


They'd rather the Conservative Party was led by someone who actually sounded like a Conservative.


CMD may be determined to 'reach out' to disaffected Liberals and appease the Guardianistas - who are never going to vote for him, anyway.


But he neglects the Conservative heartlands at his peril.
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Britannist

Just thought I would mention that a thread on Richard Littlejohn's article about Gordon Brown was opened before this one at:

"Why Gordon Brown is still the man who stole your old age" claims euroseptic writer