|
Week on the web
Andrew Alexander
The bars of Westminster - some of them refurbished - opened for business this week, and Labour MPs were sorely in need of fortification.
Gordon Brown's first major wobble has arrived, and it was a bad one.
He began the week on the defensive after deciding against calling an election - or 'bottling it', as the Tories would have it.
The Press Gazette says Brown's honeymoon with the media was officially over when he gave the news to the BBC's Andrew Marr.
He attempted to brazen it out in front of hostile Westminster reporters on Monday - Nick Robinson posts about why he chose that particular "masochism strategy" - and succeeded in further annoying the fourth estate with his incredible claim that he would not have gone to the country even if the polls were going his way.
Stephen Tall wrote this incisive post on Monday, looking back to 1992 when Brown was apparently unpopular among TV producers for memorising soundbites and repeating them ad nauseam.
Brown's notes for the press conference were captured by the TV cameras - this seems to happen to him more often than others, though presumably Cameron is now a paperless leader - and they showed those phrases like "vision" he just could not leave alone.
John Harris at Comment is Free dissects Brown's failings. He thinks "meeting the rising aspirations of the British people" is already beginning to grate, and notes the "Soviet-esque recitations of New Labour achievements".
Speaking of which, the newly revitalised Boulton & Co blog picks up on some of Brown's refrains from Wednesday's prime minister's questions - Bank of England independence, the minimum wage and massive investment in the NHS and asks when did they happen? A few years back now...
Tuesday's pre-Budget report and comprehensive spending review went badly wrong for the government, allowing George Osborne to write the next day's front pages.
But Brown's undoubted nadir was at PMQs. Sparky newcomer Westmonster points out that the sketchwriters were united in imagining Brown as a tormented bear. The Tory blogs were understandably cock-a-hoop and quickly compared the contest to Blair v Major in 1995, the Rumble in the Jungle and the Wizard of Oz.
Matthew Parris in the Times says that the line "I'll take no lectures" is the PMQs equivalent of the reserve parachute, leading one to wonder: where was Brown's A material?
It certainly was not his reference to the petition on the Number 10 website calling for an election, signed by 26 people - now 10,000 and counting.
It sounded like Cameron's conference reference to the Facebook group 'David Cameron is a hottie', but while the inevitable rush to sign up worked for Cameron, it just looks bad for Brown.
An analogue politician in a digital age, perhaps?
An interesting thread of comments on Brown's problems at Labour Home, here.
The week was capped with a bad poll result for the PM, as the Tories took a three point lead. Perhaps the most interesting result in the survey was the Lib Dem slump to 11 per cent, their worst since May 2001.
The knives are being sharpened for Sir Ming, but anyone who thinks giving him the putsch will solve all the parties problems would do well to read this excellent piece by Simon Titley in the Liberator, via Jonathan Calder.
|
Published: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:02:18 GMT+01
Submit Comment
|
| Name |
|
| Email |
|
| Location |
|
| Comment |
|
|
Remember Me |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
