What Could Gordon Brown Be Thinking?
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Gordon Brown has said he will not call a general election this autumn.
The PM said he wanted a chance to show the country his "vision for change" and to develop his policies further.
He said an election could have been held based on "competency" in dealing with crises, but he wanted to develop housing, health and education.
This is bad news for the Tories. Oh, of course they would lose the election but perhaps if the stars aligned properly, they would also lose David Cameron as party leader in the process. Then, with a better leader--for "better leader," read "William Hague"--they could at long last travel back on the road to power.
Instead, Brown's decision has the effect of continuing to saddle the Tories with Cameron. And make no mistake. Cameron is the big winner here:
Conservative leader David Cameron said Mr Brown had shown "great weakness and indecision", and had made a "humiliating retreat".
Making the decision not to call a general election was especially bad for Brown--and especially good for Cameron--given the fact that it occurred in the wake of Cameron's speech at the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool. Whatever Cameron's demerits as a leader, his speech was widely viewed as a triumph and now that Brown has chosen not to press the advantage he still has as a result of his honeymoon, Cameron's speech and his performance will be seen as having the effect of stopping and intimidating Brown from calling a general election.
Perhaps at some point in the future, Brown's decision will be seen as the right one. But for the moment, it is befuddling why Brown--who still leads in the polls--won't call an election. The linked story references polls that appear to be going against Labour in marginal seats but I have a hard time believing that the situation has deteriorated so rapidly for Labour that what once was a sure election has now been put off.
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Cameron is an opportunist in the Bill Clinton mold. He looks at the polls and adjusts his beliefs accordingly.
Molon Labe!
are you serious? Tony Blair, with the exception of the GWOT, was Bill Clinton with a different accent.
Honestly, I'm just curious, since I've liked everything I've seen of him and after watching his speech Conservative Party Conference I could only envy the British Conservative Party for having such a strong leader. What makes you dislike him so much?
and I would not be surprised if he made another u turn to change the polls. I do not like him because he took a shot at Thatcher, holds liberal big government ideas on issues such as Kyoto, and because he tried to attack Blair by attacking the Iraq War.
Cameron has tried to crush those in his party who believe in small government and freedom. He has made a point of Turning against Thatcher and taking shots at the United States. Other than that, I think he is the best.
Molon Labe!
I would not be surprised if he made another u turn to change the polls.
That's just nonsense. The policy commissions are only just reporting now. The suggestion that he has made a 'u-turn' is obviously silly. Policy is only now being announced for the first time, so he can't have u-turned on it.
I do not like him because he took a shot at Thatcher
I am not sure what you are referring to here.
holds liberal big government ideas on issues such as Kyoto
No he doesn't. He wants to tackle environmental issues, certainly. So did Margaret Thatcher. She was passionate about it.
he tried to attack Blair by attacking the Iraq War.
No he didn't. He has been consistently strong on this. I think you are thinking of his predecessor, Michael Howard, who was misrepresented in the press as doing this. Howard has consistenly supported the Iraq war, but said that if he had known there were no WMD he would not have voted for the motion in the House that authorised the war, because it specified WMD as the reason. He was, however, clear, that the Coalition intervention was the right thing to do for other reasons.
Cameron has tried to crush those in his party who believe in small government and freedom.
I haven't noticed anyone trying to crush me. In his reforms of the welfare state - particularly education - he is going far further than Margaret Thatcher ever did.
He has made a point of Turning against Thatcher and taking shots at the United States.
He has done neither of these things. He doesn't want to reverse any of Thatcher's reforms, he just wants to take them further. He has no particular desire to be photographed with George Bush - any more than Brown does - that would not help the campaign at all. But it is just silly to say he is hostile to the US.
Other than that, I think he is the best
Sure. Once we have dismissed the false statements, it is very clear that he is the best Conservative leader in decades.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
I said- "I would not be surprised if he made another u turn to change the polls."
you said- "That's just nonsense. The policy commissions are only just reporting now. The suggestion that he has made a 'u-turn' is obviously silly. Policy is only now being announced for the first time, so he can't have u-turned on it."
I say- the policy commisions? Cameron has been the Conservative Party leader for two years. He took many lefty positions diring this time, if he is now moving to the right, it is a U Turn! He is not called David Chameleon for nothing. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article706777.ece
I said- "I do not like him because he took a shot at Thatcher"
you said- "I am not sure what you are referring to here."
I say- David Cameron said "We can never return to the policies of the Thatcher era" http://www.margaretthatcher.org/commentary/displaydocument.asp?docid=110...
I said- "he holds liberal big government ideas on issues such as Kyoto"
You said- "No he doesn't. He wants to tackle environmental issues, certainly. So did Margaret Thatcher. She was passionate about it."
I say- Yeah, he is a tree hugger. He is a global warming alarmist, he is adopting the views of the radical left. Here is a link where he does not denounce Kyoto, I could find more but I am getting bored. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1582012-5,00.html
I said- "he tried to attack Blair by attacking the Iraq War."
You said- "No he didn't."
I say- Cameron voted for an inquiry into the Iraq War in 2006, many Tories were astounded and did not follow their "leader"
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/party-politics/conservatives/camerons-iraq-inquiry-stance-absolutely-crazy-$456683.htm
I said- "Cameron has tried to crush those in his party who believe in small government and freedom."
You said- "I haven't noticed anyone trying to crush me."
I say- Cameron has many times rejected traditional Conservative Party principles, he has consitently tried to move the party to the left. Check out this article http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1621763.ece
I said- "He has made a point of Turning against Thatcher and taking shots at the United States."
you said- "He has done neither of these things."
I say- Cameron has criticised Blair for being subservient to the USA. He also said that the Bush foreign policy is "simplistic" http://www.nysun.com/article/39463
I said- "Other than that, I think he is the best"
You said- "Sure. Once we have dismissed the false statements, it is very clear that he is the best Conservative leader in decades."
I say- Sir, I do not know you, but you have basically called me a liar. I will not engage in that type of fight, I have no interest in that. I responded here because you called every point I made false, I can not just leave it at that and have everyone assume you are right about Cameron.
I could post and link to many critical comments and facts about Cameron but I don't see the need or point. I hope Cameron has changed his style, since he obviously is holding power, I hope he gets it turned around. I will watch his latest speech and Cameron version 3.0.
Molon Labe!
and I am sorry if you got that implication. I actually rather value your contributions on a lot of issues.
But I do disagree with you on this, very strongly.
Cameron has not "adopted many lefty" positions. The policies were set out for the first time last week. So there have been no u-turns. I think you are swallowing MSM thinking whole here. As for the "David Chameleon" thing, he is not called that for nothing. As far as I know, he is not called that at all. It's the first time I have heard it.
Your justification for saying he supports 'big government positions' is that he once failed to take a pot shot at Kyoto. That is incredibly thin. He is no more of a 'climate alarmist' than Margaret Thatcher, so if she is a lefty, so is he.
Your claim that he took "potshots" at Thatcher is risible. So he doesn't want to go back to the policies of the 80s. Good. His job is to set out policies for the second decade of the 21st Century. There is a lot to be said in favour of the policies we pursued in the 80s, but you can't simply move them 30 years later when the problems we face are different.
He is setting out much more radical policies on the welfare state - certainly education - than the Thatcher government ever produced.
You are being unbelievably sensitive on Margaret Thatcher's behalf - though you have taken a huge 'potshot' at one of her favourite issues. Saying we aren't going back to the 80s is not an attack on Margaret Thatcher.
He has never attacked the Iraq War. You obviously don't appreciate the role of enquiries in UK politics. Enquiries are to learn things. To see if we can do things better next time. The enquiry into the Falklands War was ordered by Margaret Thatcher. That does not mean she was attacking the war, or herself. Blair is the first PM who thought he should be immune from being questioned or criticised. Of course the Leader of the Opposition challenged that.
I stand by my claim that no-one has tried to crush me. The claim that Cameron has adopted lefty positions is simply wrong. Policy was announced for the first time last week, and the policy announced was radical and fully in line with the traditions of my party. Your link to the Independent is dead, so I don't know exactly what you were referring to, but, take my word for it, that paper is not a very good source. An American (Republican) friend of mine who lives in London calls it Prozac-porn. It enables depressed lefties to amuse themselves: the world is ending tomorrow; women and minorities hardest hit.
I don't have a problem with the Leader of the Conservative Party crticising the (then) Leader of the Labour Party. That does rather go with the territory. Blair set out in 2003 what he was going to get from supporting the Iraq War in terms of getting Bush to back Labour's other agenda items. He failed.
Did you notice in your NYSun article that the word "simplistic" stood alone in inverted commas? They didn't include the sentence, just the one word. You should ask yourself if there is an MSM agenda here. I think what Cameron said was that the Bush foreign policy "is seen as simplistic" and needs to be better sold. He criticised Blair for not persuading enough people in the past.
Do watch the speech. It is not "Cameron 3.0" it is the original and only version, in which he sets out policy commitments for the first time. No u-turns involved. The process of publishing policy will now slow down dramatically. It will be mosly hints between now and the election - at least 18 months from now. The manifesto will be published much nearer that time, and probably only after the election has been called (3-5 weeks before it takes place).
This speech shows two things:
The pessimists were all wrong. You cannot equate being popular with being left-wing. Adopting a modern style doesn't mean being a lefty.
Decontaminating the brand has worked. Conservatives have earned the right to be heard. We can now set out radical policies, on areas where even Margaret Thatcher feared to tread, and people will listen. Check out Matthew Parris on what brought home to him that the Conservative Party is now more relevant in its style.
Quentin Langley International Editor of
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
forget the liar stuff, I know we are here to debate and support what we believe is correct. I thought you came down a bit hard, but I realize you are supporting your man. I think we want the same things, a Tory victory and conservative policies in the UK.
I will watch the speech, you guys have talked it up a bit, I am excited to see it :)
Molon Labe!
You will see that in most areas the policy commitments remain vague. There are two that are very specific and new:
New schools from the private and voluntary sector will be allowed, and will be funded with capitation fees.
Inheritance tax threshold will be raised from £300,000 to £1,000,000. This actually from George Osborne's.
Even if the rest remains vague and a Conservative government changes nothing else in five years, these two would be huge.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
I didn't understand why this was bad news for the Tories--it seemed like unmitigated good news electorally--until you made it explicit that more Cameron is bad for the Tories in your view. I presume the Tories would rather win with a squish than lose with a strong conservative.
If the choices are a lefty Brown or a center-left Cameron, then how is the country going to go anywhere but in the wrong direction?
Better for Cameron to lose, get booted, and have the party back on track to take the country in the *right* direction with its next win.
But it is not, and not even close.
Cameron is promising wholesale reform of the welfare state, including school choice, and major tax cuts, starting with raising the threshold for inheritance tax from £300,000 ($600,000; the price of a small duplex where I live) to £1,000,000 ($2,000,000).
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
As you point out, this isn't the first time he's gone in a different direction. Let's hope he sticks with this one. I think I'd be skeptical though.
I presume the Tories would rather win with a squish than lose with a strong conservative.
That's probably true. Fortunately, that is not the choice. The only other Conservative leader of recent years who ever advocated the strong conservatism in Cameron's speech was Iain Duncan-Smith, but he was not a strong leader, and would have lost badly had he not been recalled as leader by the Party.
The choice would be lose with someone squishy, like William Hague, who began his time as leader advocating a freedom agenda and then backed down from most of it, or win with a strong conservative like Cameron. Easy choice, if you ask me.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
He would have lost an election. A temporary boost to Labour's popularity based on having a sorta-new PM would not have stood up to much scrutiny. He has been in charge of economic, and much domestic, policy for the past 10 years, and people are rightly fed up. Brown lacks Blair's political skills, and would not have been able to pull this out of the bag.
His real problem is that none of his problems are likely to improve much. That's why he has said no immediate election and no election next year either. The economy is likely to be weaker next year than this. Another bank-run would be fatal to his reputation, and probably force him to completely reverse his signature decision to change banking regulation in 1997.
With reform of the welfare state, Cameron is treading where Thatcher, Hague and Blair were all scared to go. Brown - though a coward - is not scared of this issue, he simply doesn't want to reform the welfare state.
The real contrast here should be with Iain Duncan-Smith. He was willing to say things about empowering consumers in health and education, but no-one was willing to listen. He was hopelessly unpopular.
The combination of an actual conservative agenda - far reaching, and not just at the margins - and the ability to win elections marks David Cameron out. He is our first leader since, at least, Margaret Thatcher to combine these two.
A willingness to tackle education with something more than superficial reform puts ahead of Thatcher. This is something my country has been waiting for for generations. Yours too, actually.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
I don't necessarily view David Cameron the way you do. I went to school for six months when Hague lost the general election. He is Conservative, but he's not electable. David Cameron I believe is more conservative than he appears on TV.
All I know is that Blair was more Conservative than Brown is. Brown is definitely old labor, and right now, he's trying to be all things to all people, and eventually he'll have to make some choices that will piss off more than half the British Electorate.
If the election was held today, the Conservative Party would win a plurality of all the votes, but be the 2nd party still in the Commons. Give Brown enough time to hang himself.