baldysblog.co.uk

I always browse through the broadsheets most mornings, grazing on this article/writer or that if only because professional journalists as they twist and turn each day in a struggle to get a new angle on the “current running story”, interesting even when they get it wrong as in this rather tasteless example :- http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/04/gordon-brown-purnell-polly-toynbee

But this morning in the Independent Stephen Foley an American writer wrote a thought provoking piece which whilst I totally disagreed with every word, did set me off on taking a different view of Gordon Brown. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/stephen-foley-ditching-brown-looks-crazy-from-here-1697248.html

It is Just Time to go…

Essentially Steve Foley was saying that Gordon was great seen from his perspective on the other side of the Pond however it sparked some other thoughts, realisations ?

My immediate reaction was that this article was totally misguided in just about every respect but essentially because it failed to read the political realities. Brown is not a Dead Duck prime Minister because of the expenses scandal or even any other specific failing, it is simply that both he and his Party are past their sell by and, use by dates and must go.

But as I thought about it, the Libdems came to mind and I must admit that about a year ago I felt that for the first time in 100 years, they would be poised to become the second largest party in Westminster by overtaking Labour and pushing them into third place at the next General Election. And although as I write we do not have the results from the local and European elections where that may well be the case, at the next General Election, they will still be third, they will not breakthrough.

Why ?

In simple terms, the Libdems have not grasped a single overarching idea or issue that defines what the Liberal Democratic Party stands for, it is a political “brand” that lacks a clear position in the marketplace. It reminds me over many years ago when involved in advertising, there would be “odd brands” one I can remember being Max Factor cosmetics which in every country was an up market brand except in the UK where it was just “expensive mid line” and lacked cachet. Why nobody could ever work out but it was more Selfridges than Harrods.

The sheer deftness and brilliance of David Cameron should not be underestimated because he has taken his “brand” with all its bosses, toffs and establishment overtones and welded it into an acceptable one to the public at large. In comparison Labour under Blair and Brown have taken their “brand image” of workers, working class people, taxing the rich to benefit the poor and totally trashed them with “New Labour” which was never a political philosophy, just a way of getting elected.

It is about Ideas

The question of Brown’s Leadership has less to do with him than it has to do with the Labour Party itself which no longer has a clue as to “what it is about”. All political parties need to have a core theme that describes what they are all about and from that they will chose a Leader that embodies and reflects those qualities.

Unlike Margaret Thatcher, Cameron and despite his privileged background, through his personal life projects a genuine desire for a more caring but none the less, an efficient type of Government prepared to tackle the problems head on. When he talks about change, he looks like someone who will bring change.

What Does Gordon Brown represent ?

Mr secret grumpy machine type Labour politician that quite a lot of his own Parliamentary Party detest. A man who represents as Chancellor, someone who had the power and the revenues to implement every socialist fantasy imaginable and made a total Horlicks of it all so when the economic tide turned, the Country was virtually bankrupt.

It is not just him, it is all the other meddling busybodies we have had to put up with like Harriet Harmon, Blears, Balls, Cooper, Campbell, Straw, Millipedes, Smith, gangsters moll Jowell, Big Ears and Noddy – Clarke and Blunkett and all the other would be Lords of Misrule.

The hard facts are that the Labour Party lost its way some years ago under Tony Blair and has no idea what it stands for any longer. They have run out of ideas, they did a long time ago hence the bossy, niggling busybody legislation that we associate most with Harmon, Hewitt and Blears and now they have run out of people. Brown is not to blame, he as leader is the consequence rather than the cause of it all although because of his years as Chancellor he deserves the Tower.

It is not just Brown the Country wants shot of, it is the whole Labour Government because either they resign, we have a General Election, they then go into the Priory for R and R or else we will all need mind altering drugs on the NHS to get through this next year of paralysis and stasis with that lot eating us out of house and home having already sold us into EU bondage. If all political careers end in failure then so too it appears do political parties, at least for a couple of decades, for now Labour’s time has come and gone so, BE GONE BROWN AND TAKE YOUR CREW WITH YOU !