Gordon Brown

Your future and ours
Gordon Brown has decided to pretend he's Tony Blair. Remember "Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime"? When Blair trotted that one out he did it with eyes like dinner plates and a spooky manner that was supposed to indicate passion and concern. Actually what most people remember is Rory Bremner taking him off, the whole thing was ridiculous; but that won't put Brown off! Brown is in a hole and digging furiously. Whatever the result this election can only be a crushing defeat when we remember their majority of over 200, following the 1997 election. So he has come up with a diversion, talking about crime, telling half truths about CCTV and DNA retention.

The unelected Deputy Prime Minister is, as we know, always keen to help. He has started talking about Lord Ashcroft. Mandy is keen to suggest that Ashcroft represents some 'foreign' influence on UK politics. It is said that Mandy cannot criticise the euro or any aspect of the attempts to bail out the Greek economy as his EU pension might be affected. So foreign influence, it all depends what you want it to mean! Also Mandy will be happy to keep quiet about the UK economy too.

The reason for the diversion from Brown and Mandelson is to deflect attention away from the falling pound and the possible outcomes.

Once mighty oak?
There's so much wrong, the EU economy is in trouble, the climate warming scam has been exposed and the Chilcot Inquiry is inflicting pain. There's also a lot wrong with the Tory party and Fraser Nelson has written about this following a speech he gave as the 2010 Sir Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture. In this Spectator post Nelson justifies his lecture via an ongoing disagreement with Daniel Finkelstein, who is critical of Nelson in his post in the Times. Still with me? I hope so.

So we have Finkelstein, said to be very chummy with the Camerons. And we have Patrick Hennessy political editor of the Sunday Telegraph, said to be a Brownite loyalist. Both play a part here. There is a link in the Nelson post to his speech, it's generally very supportive of Cameron. However, the truth is that Cameron makes many mistakes. Nelson suggests we must -

Yes, it was Cameron who changed it to always following Nulabour. And 2007 cannot be a tipping point as politics is dynamic, always changing. What is the point of 'Nulabour Lite'?

Stand well back!
I thought we might need bit of light relief from, "is Gordon Brown a bully?". A question that may one day get an answer but not just yet. A question that is still rolling along despite the best efforts of the spinners to make it go away. All along the common response to this story has been laughter. The thought of John Prescott talking up the PM's gentle side is hilarious, but then that is what he has been doing. I wonder what Craig Evans, the man punched by Prescott is up to? He did not become a celebrity after throwing an egg at Prescott, he was famous for not much longer than 15 minutes, it was different in those days. Mandelson never likes to be left out either, so he has delivered a smooth rebuttal of the charges against the PM. But this, coming from a man who has trouble filling in a Craig Evans eggs on John Prescott mortgage application form is no help at all! And then the PM's wife has a go, prompting the notion she is well on her way to a safe seat, what a laugh!

But down to business. The Blair/Bush relationship has always had a gruesome fascination. Did they pray together all those years ago before the invasion of Iraq? When Blair gets close to Bush something happens. For proof of this look at the picture. Blair must have been photographed a trillion times, for him the rictus is both instinctive and natural.

Corus, a desperate and big problem
An interesting story on the BBC radio 4 'Today' programme this morning. This evening the Teeside Corus steel- making plant will close, to be mothballed. On the radio we heard the history of steel-making in this region and the huge impact its closure will have. It was a short report and we may assume that the BBC felt listeners needing more could go to their website, that report is HERE. From this, much longer report, we learn that -

New number 1
Will they, won't they? A week ago it was all stern words regarding the Greek economy from the rest of the EU. It was generally seen as a Greek problem. They got into the mess, they could get out of it, tough love stuff. What was being said by member state politicians was very different from the comments of EU politicians. The former was for the domestic audience while the latter, well, what was it for? One cannot imagine that Barack Obama wasted sleep on this and the world's financial markets and traders were not fooled either.