Sights we'd like to see

Does anyone else have an irresistible mental image of the Queen solemnly watching the door close behind Brown before turning round and punching the air with a cry of "Yessss!"?

Farewell, Letters

Crowded as it has become, the blogosphere will seem an emptier place next week with the demise of Letters from a Tory.

Witty, intelligent, occasionally provoking but always a worthwhile read, the Letters have been regular reading for the Tavern inmates and will be sorely missed.

Coincidentally (with apologies to readers of a sensitive disposition), since the phrase appeared in a comment at LFAT on Friday, the Tavern has resounded to the cheerful tune of 'If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake' with revised words:

"How can we miss you if you won't f**k off....?
Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown!"

Happy earworm, everybody!

Get Gordon Brown out of my sitting room!

There he was on the screen, grimacing away in front of a field of waving corn (prosperity? a subliminal fertility symbol?) while the adoring multitudes howled with delight at every opportunity.

He was pronouncing what you might call New Labour's Beatitudes, listing the achievements of the past thirteen years, claiming credit for anything that could possibly be construed as positive - Olympics, black women peers, the number of teachers... the list went on and on, while the crowd prostrated themselves to touch the hem of his garment.

I see from the news that I must have been watching Brown addressing 'a morale-boosting rally of 300 activists in Manchester' - which raises the question of exactly whose morale was being boosted. By the time I switched on, Brown was grinning manically, which is not a sight you want to be greeted with after a hard day at work.

The reason for this particular self-satisfied smile? 'Under Labour, there are more students at university than ever before and I'm happy to say the majority of them are women'. Cue: whoops and squeals of delight at a level suggesting the entire audience had just won the lottery.

Exactly why is this a cause for rejoicing? I'm all for equality in educational opportunity, but why is this inequality a source of jubilation? the only reason I can think of is a sort of double negative; women lacking education is BAD, so more women than men in university must be GOOD.

So where does this leave my son? Finding a university place is hard enough already: he'll be set impossible targets because his school is above average for GCSE's - and it's not comprehensive and we don't live in a deprived area, so there are quotas operating against him as well. With application forms now asking about parents' qualifications, he'd be better off being adopted by wolves - or possibly urban foxes.

The slogan 'A Future Fair for All' has a distinctly hollow ring to it, in this household at least.

Those Gillian Duffy Blues

I met her on a walkabout in Rochdale,
She tried to make me think she was on my side;
She suddenly got tough on immigration,
Put me on the spot with nowhere I could hide.

They should never have put me with that woman!
Whose idea was that? I think it was Sue’s.

I do apologise and say it’s a pity;
I was only trying to be helpful and do it right.
The lady’s got it wrong if she supposes
I’d have said outright to her face what I had on my mind.

She’s just this sort of bigoted woman
Airing what I thought at the time were bigoted views,

(Yeah!) She’s just this sort of bigoted woman
And she’s left me looking a fool on the ten o’clock news.

(Yeah!) She’s just this sort of bigoted woman.
And I know it will all be her fault now if we lose.

PS: Quote of the day (or week - or year!) from Dungeekin', leaving on holiday Wed 28th April:

'Don't let Gordon touch anything while I'm gone.'

Gordon Brown versus the Daleks: AD 2010 - the PEB

Labour's party election broadcast:



Spot anything familiar about this man? That's right; Labour’s Everyman figure, the stand-in for Gordon Brown, is Sean Pertwee, son of Jon. And for those of us in our forties, that means only one thing.

When he says, "My father always said 'don't give up’. ‘Show resolve’, he said. He was so right", he’s talking about Dr Who.

The bleak rain-washed landscape has much in common with the sort of place the Time Lord used to end up in on a regular basis – give or take the odd alien life-form - even down to the implausible blue roadblock. You expect the Brigadier to put in an appearance at any moment. ‘Is it deliberate?’ we ask ourselves, ‘What are they trying to say?’

When Brown said of Cameron, “I don’t know him as a human”, was there more to the statement than we thought? Why else enlist an actor who is such a chip off the old block that the opening shots had forty-somethings diving behind the sofa as the conditioned reflex kicked in?

There’s a clue too in the use of speeded-up clocks – time, see? And if that were not proof enough, listen out for the final voice-over. Yes, that is David Tennant, Dr Who in person. The subliminal message is clear.

'Vote Labour or the Daleks will get you.'


Update: Many thanks to Demetrius for this - try playing both at the same time (start the Harry Lauder first). Was it the soundtrack they originally intended, I wonder, or is it purely coincidental?

Why the voters like a bit of rough

Seen any trailers for Eastenders recently? A kaleidoscopic medley of people shouting at, pushing and occasionally murdering each other, all designed to attract viewers in much the same way as bear-baiting or the Roman circus.

That the formula is successful cannot be doubted - the soap opera's recent anniversary confirms it - and Gordon Brown's publicity machine has merrily jumped on the bandwaggon.

Addressing the Welsh Labour conference in Swansea, Brown laughed off recent allegations that he had bullied staff at Number 10 saying he had been accused of everything short of killing Archie Mitchell in EastEnders.
He added: “I promise you, I didn’t even lay a finger on him.”

And therein, perhaps, lies the key to Brown's inexplicable rise in the polls. While Cameron continues his stiff-upper-lip old Etonian politeness, Brown secures the misery-memoir vote with a public display of grief, then sweeps in the Eastenders fan club by offering - allegedy - real-life aggro in Number 10.

We've had the sit-com and political drama of the expenses scandal - now we're being treated to a soap opera with all the personality clashes, rivalries and aggression the viewers have come to expect and relish. And of course they're going to want more.

Does Gordon Brown really hear what you say?

Back in the early days of this blog, when the only readers were a few Newgate inmates and the Tavern cat, we put forward a suggestion that may, perhaps, bear repeating at this juncture, when Gordon Brown's behaviour is being minutely scrutinised by all.

For anyone with hearing loss, a dinner party is a refined form of torment, featuring constant background noise and the need to make polite responses to questions you have only half understood. This becomes far worse if, for some reason, you cannot admit to your deafness.

Now read Minette Marrin's description of Brown's behaviour at a dinner party - her evidence for describing him as 'a dangerous weirdo':
'At times he fixed a broad, exaggerated smile to his face, almost randomly it seemed, and directed it at someone, but he kept getting it wrong — the wrong moment to smile, the wrong person to smile at and occasionally the wrong place to smile at. When challenged by one guest on some difficult economic point, he kept baring his teeth in the opposite direction, at the lovely bosom of a guest on his other side who was not part of the conversation. He made me think of an android with faulty programming.'

Consider a man of dour temperament placed at a table where he must show he is entertained by the company but is unsure when and whether he has heard a joke - a table, moreover, surrounded by journalists and London chatterati whose collective sense of humour is almost entirely alien to a manse-born Scot.

Add to that the removal from his side of his wife and accomplice - a supportive dinner partner in the know can help effectively disguise a substantial hearing loss from the assembled company; all it takes is constant attentiveness and the ability to repeat relevant information without seeming to do so.

I don't say this is at the root of all Brown's behaviour - far from it, although it does help explain his well-documented habit of ignoring people when they speak to him (see the link above for other examples). It may, however, be an unconsidered factor in the complicated picture now emerging from Downing Street.

Hey Christine, Can You Keep a Secret?

So Gordon's in trouble for picking on the wee kiddies and his mum - sorry, wife - has decided to stick up for him and tell everyone he's a lovely boy, really.

Guns blazing, she's come out to defend him in public - how embarrassing is that! - and, in a typical move, has decided to do so from the comfort of the GMTV sofa. Piers Morgan, Tesco magazine then GMTV - I suppose that indicates some sort of logical progression.


Meanwhile, Christine Pratt gives a whole new meaning to the word confidential with this update:
“I have even received an email from someone who is alleging that they have [an] issue with Gordon Brown also, but we will be addressing that confidentially.[...] I have received an email. I cannot discuss the detail. It does name Gordon Brown but I'm not able to go into that."

Leaving aside the woman's tortured grammar (and the dubious relationship between the helpline and her business consultancy), there is something distinctly unsavoury about this disclosure; you can see its counterpart in any primary school playground - 'I know something about Gordon, but I'm not telling you what it is!'

In fact, what with Gordon's tantrums and Christine's stories, combined with a fair amount of name-calling from the sidelines by each of the rival gangs, the whole affair is becoming distressingly juvenile.

What it boils down to, after all, is whether Gordon's a bully and whether Christine should have kept a secret; perhaps the best thing would be to call in an experienced primary school head teacher to sort the whole thing out.

And I think I know just where to find one...

Britain's Got Bread and Circuses

Well, actually the bread's in pretty short supply at the moment - what with the global recession and all - but we've sure got circuses. The opiate of today's masses is a ghastly amalgam of glitz, sequins and sob-stories, heavily seasoned with viewer participation.

Thus the Prime Minister, aiming for popular support in an election year, must be seen to endorse this farrago to the extent of public pronouncements - what price dignity these days? - but does it go deeper than that?

In the Sunday Times this week, Rod Liddle interviewed Piers Morgan :

I ask Morgan how well he knows Brown. He says he has always liked him, thinks of him as a friend. They speak once every three or four weeks; Brown will ring for a chat, or ask him over. He says he speaks to Sarah Brown once every week, sometimes he offers advice, same as he might do to Gordon. Advice about how to get the message over to the public.[...]
Crucially, he speaks to the prime minister about the programme he does, Britain’s Got Talent. “Gordon is obsessed with Britain’s Got Talent,” Morgan says, laughing.

Allowing for the fact that this is Piers Morgan relayed by Rod Liddle, think about the implications of Piers Morgan with the confidential ear of the Prime Minister and of Brown actively seeking contact with Morgan. And above all about the Prime Minister being 'obsessed' with a show featuring trampolining pigs and someone farting 'The Blue Danube'.

After all, they do say you can judge a man by the company he keeps.

A Slow Bicycle Race to No. 10

Like one of those magic eye pictures, the events of the past week, when viewed in a slightly different way, suddenly present a whole new political vista. Sir Nicholas Winterton channelling Marie Antoinette, Heseltine's gloomy prognostications and Portillo's doubts, all surfacing at once, add up to one inevitable question.

What if the Tories don't want to win the election?

Think about it - whoever ends up in Number 10 will be tackling a mess of epic proportions with a side order of chaos. It's difficult to identify any area of the public sector which does not constitute a ticking time-bomb, from our unemployable young to future pensions crises, from elderly care to childhood obesity.

Far better to let Gordon et al. return with a perilously slender majority to face inevitable decline and fall, Gotterdammerung and votes of no confidence, after which Cameron can ride in on his white charger and pluck the helpless Britannia from the jaws of disaster to riotous applause.

Meanwhile, Gordon's cronies don't want to have to clear the mess up either. Gordon himself may be clinging on to power with both hands and his teeth, but I can't see his minions relishing the prospect of years of public vilification as chickens come home to roost.

So Gordon and Sarah are given free rein to make use of their organs of choice, Piers Morgan and a supermarket magazine, to court the misery memoir generation. It's hard to imagine the sort of person who contentedly 'shares Gordon's pain' with a nice cup of tea actually getting out there to vote, so no danger there.

And we're likely to end up not only with a hung parliament, but with the undignified spectacle of both leaders trying to avoid power while pretending to campaign for it sincerely. And if that happens, we might even get Clegg for PM.

It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)

I wasn't going to post this one on the grounds of taste but when I read this at Plato Says I decided it was probably fair game after all....

IT'S MY PARTY
(To be sung in a lugubrious Scots accent)

Nobody knows where my mojo has gone,
But Mandy and Ed say it’s time
For baring my soul on the Piers Morgan show;
Then the hearts of the voters will be mine.

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to,
You would cry too if Ed and Mandy said to.

Say that one fails, then I’ll still be alright,
I can still win through with style,
Using Tesco’s store magazine
And my irresistible smile.

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to,
You would cry too if Ed and Mandy said to.

-----------------
To pursue my campaign there’s no loss I’ll ignore,
No heartstrings I won’t try to wring,
Hoping the voters won’t realise
That New Labour’s wrecked everything.

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to,
You would cry too if Ed and Mandy said to.

Gordon Brown's Beauty Tips

Forget the Beauty pages of Vogue, throw away your copy of Cosmo – we can bring you glamour secrets right from the top!

In the recent Government tradition of leaving important documents around in public, a vital state secret has emerged – how the PM does his make-up.

Yes, the exact techniques used for the fresh-faced natural look modelled in his recent webcast have been revealed to the world:

1. Transparent Brush. Foam all over.
2. Small pot under eyes, dimple, creases, blend in.
3. Clinique. Super balanced make-up. All over again, like painting a wall, and ears. Shut eyes over lids then with make-up pad smooth over liquid.
4. Powder (dark brush) terracotta Guerlain, all over.

And so all the flaws are disguised under an elaborate facade. Sometimes a metaphor is just too apt.

Cometh the hour...

Health Secretary Alan Johnson told the BBC that Mr Brown was "a man for these times".

Swine flu and economic crisis and society going to the dogs, a public disillusioned beyond repair (46,236 signatures and counting) and rumblings among the party faithful; something of a backhanded compliment here, perhaps.

But what better figurehead for a nation plunging into recession than the man whose unshakable belief in the myth of his genius led to hubristic economic policies? Who better to represent the morass of NuLab’s gravy-train cronyism than a clannish Scotsman, walled in behind his privileged coterie of attack dogs?

Or perhaps it's an allusion to goverment by text-message and YouTube, and Brown's attempts to ingratiate himself with that NuLab target audience 'Yungpeeple' - I'm still having nightmares about the funeral-home makeup and creepy smile from that webcast.

Still, you’ve got to hand it to Johnson for standing by his man while the rest of NuLab jostle for positions in the lifeboats, or, to quote UK Commentators, the ship deserts the sinking rat.

Is Gordon Brown going deaf?

It's probably lese-majeste or something to suggest it, but anyone who has observed the gradual onset of deafness in a close family member might be forgiven for thinking something rather familiar is going on in Number 10.

Look, for example, at the footage of Brown staring directly at Obama while the President was speaking, and ask yourself whether he is trying to see the man's lips move. There have been occasional errors in pronunciation; surprisingly for a man for whom attention to detail is crucial, he apparently referred to 'Jane Goody' - suspiciously like the consonant confusion typical of hearing loss.

Or consider the Prime Minister's behaviour in the European Parliament; forced by protocol to remain in place for the subsequent seven speeches, he chatted, made notes and manifestly failed to listen. This is consistent with his reported habit of continuing to write at his desk when colleagues try to discuss business with him. Is he being rude, or is it simply that if he is obviously not listening, he cannot be held accountable for details that escape him?

A close relative with relevant experience drew my attention to Brown's head movements - with sight in only one eye, lip-reading requires a particular angle of vision. Anyone familiar with gradual hearing loss can attest that sufferers are often skilled actors and mimics, seemingly following a long conversation while actually having little idea what has been said (and likely to agree to suggestions they have not fully heard - such as 'Shall I send this e-mail?').

Rightly or wrongly, we expect our political leaders to be superhuman. Vince Cable's hairline may have lost him the LibDem leadership and the Iron Lady's tears were front page news; the pack is always ready to fall on a failing alpha male (or female). If I'm right, Brown faces a terrible dilemma; either admit a weakness that could bring him down or struggle on and risk a potenially disastrous misunderstanding in future.