The London Mayoral race had nothing much to do with the region but was symptomatic of the national visceral shift from Labour. (I also like this picture of Boris scowling at Ken). Clare Short describes the current Government as 'Blairism without the charm'. Gordon Brown has a serious problem with the country's perception of him and a seemingly innate inability to adapt to circumstances. His performance on Andrew Marr's show on Sunday underlined the malaise of his leadership. He was like some political monolith. He had very little to say about how Labour policies were to benefit people on lower incomes referring several times to assistance in setting up small businesses. So what's Labour for? He follows his brief so closely it is easy for skiled interviewers like Marr to wrong foot him. Andy gave Gord the David Frost easy chat before landing a couple of belters, "people think you're strange" was a new approach. Several times Brown finished his reply expecting Marr to say, that's all we have time for. But he kept coming at him with depressing alacrity.
Brown cannot grasp the immensity of the Tory surge and it is certainly substantial, making crucial ground in Lancs and Yorks. A note sent round after the debacle to Labour party members talked mainly of the pitifully few triumphs on an otherwise disastrous night. Ipswich for reasons yet to be discerned had a swing to Labour and picked up three seats.
The loss of 330 seats was way beyond the worst possible scenario set out in most papers. So phrases such as political meltdown and landslide were for once apt.
1 comment:
Interesting stuff - mind you, Andrew Marr was on dodgy ground by commenting that Gordo "looked a bit strange" which was adding a touch of the Pot and Kettle scenario perhaps
Post a Comment