Monday 10 March 2014

Gordon Brown's Scottish re-launch

Frequent readers of this blog will know that I hold few people in such low esteem as Gordon Brown. As Chancellor he over saw the biggest boom and bust for 100 years whilst trying to say he did the opposite, plus he has bequeathed us a structural deficit of such large proportions that it will be into the 2020's before it is under control. The list of sins goes on to many pages however brief one could try to keep it.

But it would be churlish of me nonetheless not to recognise his role in the Scottish Referendum. Today he is going to make a speech and has managed through his PR-enabled wife no doubt, to get this run in the Daily Telegraph. This speech will launch his role in the Referendum debate for the rest of the year.

Not for Brown this Independence - far to clean and easy for him. No better still a nice, complex devolution proposal for all four Countries of the UK including England. It's a classic more politics answer with sinecures for himself and his friends for eternity and the game of electioneering expanded to that everyone can get a prize.

If it were that alone, it would be of little interest. the two real belly laugh moments are that he has clearly been told to speak under his own banner, such is the political toxicity of his personal brand. So instead of Better Together he speaks for United for Labour. A real Popular Front of Judea moment (points awarded in the comments for knowing why the Popular front...)

Better still, is the fact that this is the same 'launch' of his independence line that he has made before. It is identical to this hot air served up last September and who could forget his 20 pub questions list of 2012? Might it be he is rather hoping we have forgotten his droning and monotonous wittering on the subject non-stop for the past 3 years - and is instead now hopeful that we have collectively a new found interest in his wisdom and counsel?

15 comments:

Jer said...

Impressed that this is tagged "Insanity", I might suggest that this is a time where the tag "Colossal Arse" is appropriate.

dearieme said...

Brown was a much better PM than he was a Chancellor, being ordinarily bad at the former and extraordinarily bad at the latter.

Wildgoose said...

I wouldn't mind so much if he truly believed in a United Kingdom of 4 nations - however whilst Prime Minister he would only ever refer to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and "the regions of Britain". So much so, there was even a campaign to try and get him to say "England".

England always draws the short straw - and always gets the blame and opprobrium. English Councils are suffering double the cuts that are being applied to Scotland, Wales and NI - and on a lower funding basis to start with.

Then there's the £9,000 tuition fees (England only) and the sell-off of assets such as forests that again, is England only.

Anybody remember the proposed road-charging scheme that tracked where you drove? That was England only as well.

Never mind Scottish Independence, it is time for ENGLISH Independence!

CityUnslicker said...

Wildgoose - yes the whoel North britain rubbish, there is that hogwash too.

The reality is there is a simple answer to Scottish Independence and that is to offer equal devolution too all 4 countries in the UK.

The house of commons becomes and English parliament and the house of lords gets completely re-formed into the Uk assembly for things like defence and national taxes.

No westminster politco's will vote for this as it defenestrates the house of commmons. But as a better way of governing 4 countries and ending thoughts of secession it must be. Plus we can add in another country like Ireland should we need to one day...or perhaps brittany when they tire of lese majeste of the isle-de-paris.

Bill Quango MP said...

I believe that even though he currently sits at the bottom of the league of post war Prime Ministers, history will judge him lower still.

Nick Drew said...

There is a new campaign afoot: it is a grouping who want to see the UK split along the lines of the old Soviet Union in the 1990's, leaving us with a fraternal bloc to be know as the Former United Kingdom

its slogan, designed to appeal to Glagswegians, is: For FUK's sake, vote Yes (Jimmy)

dearieme said...

So there would be a Former United Kingdom Crown. FUKC!

Blue Eyes said...

Splitter!

Blue Eyes said...

Gordon Brown suffered one of the largest swings against an incumbent in a very long time. The bit I don't get is why the governing parties didn't notice. We could have had a radically small-l liberal government and the parties could have argued that they had a good mandate to operate as such. Instead, despite the massive swing against micro-managed socialism we have EXACTLY the same. Gah.

CityUnslicker said...

BE - well I blame Cameron for not getting a majority as he was rubbish at the debates.

Then Clegg for being a bloody socialist in government.

Then the other tories for being a bunch of wets - in the Tory sense.

Now it seems we have had one term of slightly less bad socialism to be followed by tow more of the real thing again. sigh.

DJK said...

CU: plenty to blame Cameron for. Not least, yesterday's speech: "We are on the brink of a new industrial revolution and I want us – the UK and Germany – to lead it. Take British ingenuity in software, services and design, add German excellence in engineering and industrial manufacturing and together we can lead in this new revolution."

So the German contribution is to be the serious engineering in the design and manufacture of sensors, with jobs, investment and profit too, and the British contribution is a few teenagers writing smartphone apps in Shoreditch. What povery of ambition, what a narrow view he has of Britain.

david morris said...

Spot on DJK

Wine taken, but shurely Camerons' job is to ensure the relative impoverishment of
England in favour of other provinces of
the EU ?

Kind regards

Ossian said...

CU - there is an even simpler, simpler answer.

Scotland is the ONLY independent nation apart from England. NI is in reality part of Ireland. Even Tony Blair knows this as his children (NI grandmother have Irish passports) and Wales was never a separate country anyway.

So it is a divorce from E&W. NI can sort out it's own destiny with Ireland or a province of E&W.

Sorted.

andrew said...

In the TV debates, Clegg was the only one who remembered the name of the questioner - and the question.

Note to political parties:- talking to people who vote and taking them seriously is a good idea.

Calling them 'that awful woman' (c) GB 2010 behind their back doesn't help.

The best thing the cons can do is to raise his profile and remind everyone just how awful he was.

Trouble is Cameron is not really that much better.

The main thing this gowt will be remembered for in 10y time will be raising the tax threshold to 10k.

- that was Clegg's idea.

Cons should have stolen that idea and made it so that anyone on a full time min wage does not pay any tax or ni at all.


TheNameIUseToStateTheBleedingObvious said...

This place is starting to sound like a cabbies office....
CU in particular seems to have completely lost the run of himself.
Had one'a them foreigners in me cab t'ovver day....