Wednesday, April 28, 2010

 

'Bigot Gaffe' Could Prove Crucial Turning Point.

Could this be the moment Gordon 'lost' the election? Mandeslon, desperate to apply soothing balm, insists Brown was only 'letting off steam', but perceptions, in the super-heated atmosphere one week before polling, will embrace much more than that. Brown's gaffereinforced Gordon's:

i) reputation for boorish grumpiness, so well documented in Rawnsley's book and others. Rawnsley makes the point here.

ii) reputation for gaucheness in public- a low level facility with the words which, after all, are a politician's stock in trade.

iii) reputation as a 'typical politician', saying one thing to voters' faces, yet another totally contradictory thing behind their backs.

The Tories must be chortling with disbelief. Just when he should have been scrupulously gaffe-free, he's blown it. if only the plotters had got rid of him last summer.

Finally, Rawnsley offers us some comfort: it could have been worse:

If there is one consolation for Labour, it is that this could have been so much worse. To Justin Forsyth, the long-serving aide at whom the prime minister was venting in the back of car, this would have seemed a very mild example of Grumpy Gordon. Mercifully for Labour, this was not one of the expletive-rich explosions to which he is prone when really frustrated and angry. The microphone did not capture him using the F-word or pummelling the car seat in front of him. On the Brownout Scale of volcanic eruptions this was only a three or four. For that small mercy, at least, Labour can be grateful.

Comments:
I think this gaffe will cost Gordon Brown votes, and that his opponents will use it to their advantage. However, we don't know what David Cameron, Nick Clegg, and other PPCs have said privately about the members of the public they have spoken to, so we don't know whether they are more or less honest than Gordon Brown.

Politicians shouldn't be judged on whether or not they like the members of the public they speak to. Like other people, they will like some people and dislike other people. Politicians should be judged on their policies and conduct.
 
Bill, I'm touched that you place so much faith in a tosspot like Rawnsley. Whatever I think of Brown, and it ain't that much, he is light years better than the gossip-mongering cappuchino supping millionaires you direct so much affection towards.
 
Bob
That's laughable. I wonder, quite frankly what world it is you think you analyse. I'm fairly sure I follow the real one; I suspect you are still seeing the dinosaurs of Old Labour. If it came to accepting your view of the political world or Rawnsley, Riddell etc, I know whose I'd choose.
 
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