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Gordon Brown - stay or go?

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14:06 / 29.07.08

Gordo's not having the time of his life at the moment. A barrage of criticism from media, opposition, voters and his own party has mounted ever since last autumn and the election that never was. He's brought the Labour to it's lowest poll ratings in living memory (almost), he can't seem to connect on the most basic of issues, even where he does care (child poverty for example). The economy is turning for the worse. UK is still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still gonna spend billions on nuclear re-armament.

So, should he step down? Be cast out? Or should he brace himself and try to seize this opportunity to steer the ship 180 degrees around in time for the next election?

Anna de Logardiere

17:24 / 29.07.08

He's brought the Labour to it's lowest poll ratings in living memory (almost), he can't seem to connect on the most basic of issues, even where he does care (child poverty for example). The economy is turning for the worse. UK is still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still gonna spend billions on nuclear re-armament.

1) Labour has been in government for over 10 years and that's the main reason that its poll ratings are so low.

2) He can connect on basic issues as much as the next politician. The press just don't report what he says or does as consistently as they do with politicians that are regarded as shiny and attractive. Brown's speech to the Lambeth conference was good, emotive fodder but it was barely covered. This is a tired refrain that is also total bullshit.

3) The economy is going through a downturn but Brown isn't solely responsible for that.

4) I don't think nuclear armament or troop movements are anything to do with this specific issue. We're not talking election, we're talking about someone making a decision to stay in power.

I'm not hot on the government or any other potential government that we could have but it strikes me as a bit brainless to join in the weirdness about his personality and take a position that seems to refer to the Prime Minister as the only person in government. Blame is broader than that and our problem isn't Brown, it's the decisions that the Labour government are making at the moment. Personally my hit list has James Purnell at the top, not Gordon Brown.

07:38 / 30.07.08

I don't think Brown has done anything wrong but Labour have no chance of being re-elected with him as PM. He just lacks charisma. I think being prime minister is as much about being a PR frontman than anything. David Miliband might have a chance.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:54 / 30.07.08

Since about 2001 domestic political reporting has been all about harassing a political leader until their party gets afraid enough to kick them out (IDS, Charles Kennedy, Michael Howard, Sir Menzies Campbell, Tony Blair sort of), so far only David Cameron seems to have survived that, compare the fact that during the first few months of Gordon Brown's leadership the Tory newspapers thought Cameron was finished, now he's the golden boy as it makes more compelling stories to talk about what a failure Gordon is, due to what is a combination of factors which mostly don't seem to be anything to do with him and the machinations of Blairites who don't have anything to lose now that the party isn't Blairite (Lord Levy, Cherie Blair etc etc)

That said, willingly or not, Brown bankrolled our middle-east clusterfucks, New Labour are ever increasing social monitoring in the belief it will make us (more easy to control) safer. They need to be voted out, it's just a shame that for most people in this country that means voting the Tories in, to do exactly the things that New Labour want to do, such as forcing people that are too sick to work to work for their benefits.

Labour need to be voted out, it's not Gordon Brown's sole fault. I'm beginning to wonder why we should vote our tyrants in, shouldn't they be made to seize power by force of arms or something? At least that would be more honest.

Anna de Logardiere

18:27 / 30.07.08

See, you just expressed why I find it so difficult to believe in democracy.

12:35 / 31.07.08

I like democracy. I think tyranny is bad.

trouble at bill

13:29 / 31.07.08

what you all said mainly - it's government by meeja and i almost feel sorry for Gordon (which is most unlike me). It's a lesson in how being hardworking and genuine will not just get you nowhere, but get you slammed. The future will probably be Boris-shaped whatever, though.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:20 / 31.07.08

Buk, I too like democracy, I'm just not sure that what we have at the moment qualifies. However, to quote the boy Edwards, "Who's responsible? We fucking are." With the help of the meeja.

14:15 / 03.08.08

This can't be good. (heads up: Link to the Mail. Alternate source here. [Reuters])

Anna de Logardiere

18:13 / 03.08.08

I like democracy. I think tyranny is bad.

You just keep bringing home your ability to oversimplify political systems! Yeah! Woo! Democracy good! Tyranny baaadd! As far as I'm aware there are no tyrants on barbelith and that kind of suggests that none of us are gunning for tyranny. On the other hand I live in a country where polls suggest a significant majority would bring back capital punishment and ban abortion so I'm disinclined to believe that true, unfettered democracy is going to produce a society that I want to live in. I just don't think foundling schools and innocents killed by the state is where my brain is at. As has been pointed out the populace of London elects representatives like Boris Johnson, what a great coup for democracy, that really demonstrates the brilliance of the electoral political system.

As for the Daily Mail article... well, stop reading the site/paper and maybe they'll lose some fucking money for once.

Anna de Logardiere

18:21 / 03.08.08

Incidentally Tsuga do you realise that everytime you hit their site it gives the Daily Mail an online circulation figure that they give to companies who then pay the Daily Mail so that their adverts appear on the site. Basically your hits indicate that the articles are popular and you are essentially funding the paper/website/type of information/editorial policy by visiting the site. In terms of business all hits are good. It's your choice to link to the site but I would appreciate it if you identified the source next time you link to a newspaper like that because even if it's only one hit I just don't want to visit the Daily Mail's website.

18:54 / 03.08.08

Sorry, I can never remember the political bent of papers over there (though now I'm remembering the thread that bitches about the Mail), and I didn't mean to enhance their ad revenue. I'll put in an edit for that, post-haste. Personally, I always check the bottom browser bar that shows the address when the cursor hovers over the link.

Anna de Logardiere

20:59 / 03.08.08

Yes, I'm sorry to be fernickety, I just hate the Daily Mail and I didn't check the browser bar because I didn't think about it... but it's so easy not to! I actually considered popping that little lecture about reading websites of the sicker national newspapers elsewhere but decided that would be a bit too vicar and pulpit.

21:45 / 03.08.08

Really, it's fair enough.
I'd like to know more of just why Brown is so unpopular, we only seem to get snippets here saying he's in trouble, the party is in trouble, but not much of the explanation.

08:54 / 04.08.08

The economy is going through a downturn but Brown isn't solely responsible for that.

This is true but Brown was very happy to take sole responsibility for the economy when it seemed to be going well - he can't have it both ways.

13:57 / 04.08.08

Gordon Brown faced further embarrassment today when a new poll revealed that voters believed that Brown would come bottom in an opinion poll, should one be conducted.

The YouGov poll asked voters who they thought would come "bottom of an opinion poll, causing embarrassment for him and his party, especially on the heels of last week's disastrous opinion poll in which Gordon Brown was voted man least likely to be liked by people". Gordon Brown got 98% of the vote, which of course translates to coming last, as that was what the poll was about.

trouble at bill

16:26 / 04.08.08

%Hmm, well that'll get my vote for the Least Leading Opinion Poll Question of 2008!%

I'd like to know more of just why Brown is so unpopular

well i think reasons are all up-thread - party been in for a long time, problems with the economy and the meeja deciding to have one of their not-entirely-explicable hate campaigns. Oh and also Scotland seems to be having a frenzy of nationalism and has gone off the English Labour Party totally (again, not Brown's fault).

What to do? In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is Prime Minister...

08:10 / 05.08.08

The YouGov poll asked voters who they thought would come "bottom of an opinion poll, causing embarrassment for him and his party, especially on the heels of last week's disastrous opinion poll in which Gordon Brown was voted man least likely to be liked by people". Gordon Brown got 98% of the vote, which of course translates to coming last, as that was what the poll was about.

What's going on with all these weird meta-polls? Isn't voting to see who would come bottom of an opinion poll basically an opinion poll in itself?

14:48 / 05.08.08

yeah the media has definitely gone crazy for sure!