Brown will get off the plane at Northolt, waving a piece of paper in front of the cameras, and saying “Financial stability in our time.” 

“It was a masterpiece,” said The Sun’s political editor George Pascoe-Watson, describing Gordon Brown’s speech to the Labour Party conference.

You do have to wonder just how biased or dumb a journalist would have to be to say something so clearly at odds with the evidence before everybody else’s eyes, but Pascoe-Watson did say that on Talk Sport’s John Gaunt Show today.

To the general public, Brown’s speech, if anyone had the moral fibre to listen to it all, (and I almost did) was a mishmash of platitudes, lies, and bragging about what normal people see as failure. Perhaps the most nauseating part was when Brown, the bullying, incompetent, arrogant, coward now getting a welcome bout of come-uppance, went on about how he despised David Cameron’s use of his family as props, about 10 minutes after he’d used his wife in exactly the same way.

Pascoe-Watson did qualify his remarks by saying he meant that as far as the conference attendees were concerned it was a masterpiece. But given that were a couple of thousand Labour useful idiots in the hall who will vote for him come what may in an election, and a scores of millions of potential voters potentially watching on TV, or last least the TV news, this boring, apology for a call to arms by yesterday’s man was a miserable failure

Love my wife, love me
After the speech, various talking heads on TV and Radio said that it had been a masterstroke to have his speech introduced by his wife. This showed the human side of the man, we were told.

These people must be seriously brain-dead if they believe the appearance of a politician’s wife could make any difference to our view of a speech. The experts also told us that this move had been planned for days, but that went against the evidence of our eyes and ears. Any women planning to make an appearance on national TV would not have dressed in clothes that were too tight, showing rolls of fat. A jacket would have made all the difference. Also she wasn’t well rehearsed, almost forgetting to say Gordon Brown’s name. And would Brown have uttered that hypocritical hostage to fortune, trashing Cameron for exploiting his family (which I agree with), so soon after Sarah Brown’s appearance? Even Brown couldn’t be so unprofessional, could he? No, this was a last-minute stunt dreamt up by his wife, which Brown knew nothing about.

End to Tory boom and bust
Brown stuck to his weird belief that he is some kind of financial wizard, despite the overwhelming evidence of crumbling house prices and massive over-borrowing. They will write on his political epitaph “We will put an end to Tory boom and bust”. Brown tried to impress us with his visit to New York with Chancellor Alistair Darling to save the world’s financial system.

Brown gave us the benefit of his economic experience with his 5-point plan to save the world.

• “First, transparency - all transactions need to be transparent and not hidden.
• Second, sound banking, a requirement to demonstrate that risks can be managed and priced for bad times as well as good.
• Third, responsibility - no member of a bank's board should be able to say they did not understand the risks they were running and walk away from them.
• Fourth, integrity - removing conflicts of interest so that bonuses should not be based on short term speculative deals but on hard work, effort and enterprise.
• And fifth, global standards and supervision because the flows of capital are global, then supervision can no longer just be national but has to be global.”

Er that’s it.

Can you imagine the look on U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s face when he hears Gordon Brown’s plan to save the world, cribbed from some O-level exam paper.

Chamberlain echo
Brown has such a tin ear, that I can almost see him getting off the plane at Northolt after his flight back from New York, waving a piece of paper in front of the cameras, and saying “Financial stability in our time.”

Towards the end of his speech, Brown rushed though a sentence full of what he apparently thinks of as the towering achievements of the New Labour years. This is what he said.

“And just think where our country would be if we'd listened to them. No paternity leave, no New Deal, no Bank of England independence, no Sure Start, no devolution, no civil partnerships, no minimum wage, no new investment in the NHS, no new nurses, no new police, no new schools.

Dumbed down schools
Paternity leave is a good thing? Ask a few small businesses. The New Deal has been a miserable failure but cost kerzillions. The Bank of England reorganisation giving it “independence” (it’s run by a board of Brown appointees) and the change of responsibility for regulating the financial world via New Labour’s Financial Services Authority, has been one of the factors behind the collapse of our financial world. Sure Start/failed waste of money.

Devolution was a success? He didn’t have the gall to mention the House of Lord’s reform, even though he has much gall. Civil partnerships were unnecessary; anyone wanting to buy a house with a partner could just as easily draw up a contract. The minimum wage either causes unemployment if set at a rate which raises wages, or has no impact if set below the market rate.

The NHS is a voracious, incompetent trasher of health care resources. Many nurses have been plundered from 3^rd world countries which desperately need them, not trained in this country. The police force has been demoralised by political correctness. Schools have been dumbed down to the extent that universities are being forced to lower entrance standards to cope with the poorly prepared unfortunates from the bog standard comprehensive schools.

Brown went on and on about fairness and Labour’s values. But we know what this means. Fairness to Labour means levelling down to the lowest common denominator. Sure that’s “fair”, but who would want it? As for Labour’s values, envy of the successful and class war hatred just about sums it up. Labour hates real England and its traditions.

Harperson-Dromey
Brown will not concede the keys to the limo without being fronted up by brave elements of his cabinet. Think Alan Johnson, Andy Burnham, David Miliband, Jack Straw, Harriet Harperson-Dromey to know that is an oxymoron. Brown could quit now, and hand over to a new generation. Sure, that would mean certain defeat at a general election which would have to be called early, but with the possibility of a return within one parliament as the Tories are tainted by the economic crisis. 

But Brown will stumble on as leader until the last possible moment, and lead his repulsive, counter-productive party to a defeat which will leave them in the wilderness for a generation. Cheers for that at least Gordon.

 Neil Winton – September 24, 2008