I slept deeply after Labour’s conference this week, awoke in the Derbyshire
morning and walked outdoors for a lungful of fresh air. An old sheet of
plywood lay flat on the grass, blown there by the wind. I picked it up.
Beneath lay a discoloured, sun-starved square. It was sickly yellow and damply
white, a patch of grass that had missed the light: soft, colourless,
vulnerable and sickly.
Something stirred in recent memory. The new Brown Government on display in
Bournemouth last week. Pale, weak personalities who have waited too long in
the dark, led by a man who has waited too long in the dark. The substitutes,
the understudies grown bitter through frustration, hauled blinking from the
dressing room.
You might have thought that impatience for command and the long years during
which he was denied it would have turned Gordon Brown and his political
acolytes into a team bursting with ideas and energy, full of talent,
exuberant at the chance to put their ideas on show. You would have been
disappointed. They looked like a shadow administration, muscles wasted,
minds soured, lost for words, reaching for the comfort of old clichés:
second-raters surprised by the light.
Something seems to have died inside a promise that has been on ice for too
long. Hope, talent, originality have curdled. “British jobs for British
workers” – deport foreign drug dealers – build a network of state youth
centres – impose fines on parents of disruptive children . . . Was that it?
Was that all? Are the fines going to pay for the youth clubs? And are these
the big ideas that have been seething within Mr Brown’s vast and fabled
intellect all these years? This, remember, was to be the big bang, the
spectacular display of policy fireworks delayed for so long by the previous
Prime Minister’s refusal to quit.
We got hardly a squib. I’ve been attending party conferences since 1977; few
are memorable and all were overegged; but I don’t believe I’ve ever attended
a conference without a single good speech, a single front-bench spark, a
single idea with wings – before this week.
Of Gordon Brown’s own hugely hyped address, the less said the better. Those
who never did believe that Britain’s first unspun, tell-it-like-it-is,
intellectual giant and rough-cut political original was about to be launched
were not expecting much anyway. To him I suppose it seemed logical that if
saying “British” once gets a cheer, saying it 81 times will get 81 cheers,
and that if people liked your reference to your “values” and your “moral
compass” last year, they’ll like it this year too.
Fair enough. Most politicians rehash. Most run for the cover of cliché. Most
are magpies. But with what an unimaginative, reheated mishmash of cardboard,
plastic and bits of fluff did this magpie feather his nest! Somebody needs
to explain to the Prime Minister that the art of montage consists in more
than ploughing mechanically through old colour magazines with a pair of
scissors, like some kindergarten kid. There needs to be a presiding
intelligence behind the scissors. The composition has to say something. What
was this man trying to say? And here’s the problem. There does exist such a
thing as Brownism, and it peeped insistently though. There is a knee-jerk,
if not idea, but it wasn’t supposed to be his leitmotif. It’s an -ism all
out of kilter with the “new” of new Labour.
What is Brownism? It’s statist, it’s authoritarian and it’s profoundly
Scottish Labour. In the musical Chicago, Mama Morton puts it well.
Ask any of the chickies in my pen
They’ll tell you I’m the biggest mother hen . . .
Got a little motto
Always see me through
When you’re good to Mama
Mama’s good to you.
There’s a lot of favours
I’m prepared to do
You do one for Mama
She’ll do one for you.
Plenty in the Parliamentary Labour Party can testify to that. Now Mama
Gordon’s skirts widen to encompass the whole nation. Mama has a motto: “the
efforts of each for the collective good”.
And what is the collective good? Mama will be the judge. You stand up for
Gordon/He’ll stand up for you. This is Brown’s “big tent”: Mama Gordon’s
skirts are the canopy and David Cameron must brace himself for a flurry of
bad headlines as another useful Tory idiot or two scuttles beneath them
while Mr Cameron’s conference gathers in Blackpool.
He should not worry. Tactics Gordon can do but they’re looking increasingly
cheap. The rest will follow.
We are passing one of those transitional periods in politics when commentators
close to the action feel more or less dimly aware of a gap between what we
say and what we suspect. We have all been saying he’s had a good year;
better than expected. And so he has. But underneath there can be few who
have not asked: can he sustain this? Where are these famous ideas, this
vaunted national strategy? Is this real?
We have been reporting that the new, softer, “listening” image is proving a
media success. And so it is. But underneath, which of those who know him has
not marvelled at a Brown they hardly recognise, and wondered how long he can
keep it up?
The Principal Opposition, and its activists countrywide, who converge on
Blackpool this weekend in an uncertain mood, should steady themselves and
take heart. In David Cameron they have a leader who is not pretending to be
something he isn’t, and whom the voters will not like less as they know him
more. He and they stand for ideas and instincts that a country heading
dangerously into the red needs badly. They face a Labour manifesto that if
taken seriously would be unaffordable; an incumbent Prime Minister to whom
there is less, intellectually, than the nation has yet tumbled; and who is
emotionally the opposite of what he pretends. All the voters need to do is
find Brown out, and all the Conservative Party needs to do is help them.
Reality is on their side.
Brown knows this. He sees the storm clouds coming. That is why the idea of an
early election tempts him. Inside his head, fear of facing the electorate in
the years ahead battles with fear of facing the electorate now. His friends
beg him to do it now because they know him, and worry this cannot last.
Gordon Brown’s new era was stillborn in Bournemouth last week. Pull back the
curtains guarding this latterday Wizard of Oz and you will find a crafty but
unimaginative 20th-century Labour politician: a bully with a big ego, a
yellow streak and nothing to say. Whenever the election comes, the message
to Conservative representatives gathering now in Blackpool was whispered
last week on every sea-breeze in Bournemouth: this man, this Government,
is so beatable.
Matthew Parris is becoming a sort of soothsayer; a latter-day Nostradamus. I trust from this great gift madness and derision will not flow.
In short, brilliant.
(10/10/07)
Jono, Liverpool, UK
I agree entirely with Matthew Parris's view of Gordon Brown and with so many voters, particularly in the South East, seething over Labour's 10 year record of incompetence and daftness, the field should be wide open for the Conservatives. The pity is however that David Cameron has spent too long on silly stunts and issues that do not, in the voting booth, sway voters. If only there was something about what Labour is doing to the country made him angry. He is not helped of course by George Osborne's belief that Labour spending and tax levels are just right and if you don't like it vote for another party. All school prefect and not even appointed yet. OK.
RalphG, London,
All comments aside, It would be interesting to read Mr P's thoughts on what the political scene would have been like if GB had become PM before TB.
AIDAN BRODERICK, KYIV, UKRAINE
I was at university at about the same time as Gordon Brown and Jack Straw, and what I remember of them, and their fellow high-profile student activists, is my sense of awe at such young intellects that had already worked out the difference between right and wrong. They had been able to establish in their own minds such certainty of moral superiority that they felt justified to be powerfully dismissive of all dissenting ideas. It made me feel small and inadequate that I was apparently so far away from understanding the key issues of life's big debates.
Now, 35 years on, I listen to these same people, with the same degree of certainty and the same aggressive dismissal of opposition, promoting diametrically contrary policy to that for which they argued with such certainty all those years ago. Perhaps the force that has driven their unending will to prevail is actually no more than a hard-wired belief in the superiority of themselves, as people, irrespective of the ideas they promote?
Simon Stephenson, Windermere, UK
Don't bother with Labour, Conservative or Liberal, there is virtually no difference between them, they will all keep us in this destructive EEC and none of them will stop the the immigration madness either. Both major parties have had the opportunity of several decades in office and have only betrayed us by signing away our sovereignty and giving away our jobs to complete strangers.
Now our once lovely little island has bveen overrun with millions of illegal [without the consent of the nation, they are all illegal] immigrants.
Without the consent of the nation, our current position in the EEC is also illegal.
The only hope we now have is to vote for the British National Party.
Clive Burghard, LANCING, ENGLAND
Remind me, how much of a loss did we take when Gordon sold off our gold reserves?
John Ledbury, Kings Lynn, England
'Got no cash? Blame Gordon.'
lol! I like it.
I have to say I'm actually stunned the Tories havent picked up the ball on this one and ran with it. If any of you senior Tories are reading this then get your act together!! quickly!!
Labour are ruining this country and the people want an alternative to stand up for the English for once.
Phill Barlow, Wirral, England
Mr Brown's economic policy came unstuck a few weeks ago. It was he who inflated the housing bubble and credit boom that is now coming to an end.
It wasn't entirely his fault; other economices have seen the same thing, and Britain is in a much stronger position to withstand the coming storm than any competitor. However the great stability, and with it Labour's reputation for economic competence, is at an end.
And you blame him for making a conference speech largely about youth centres and Britishness?
Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK
There are times when a leader who appears to be dull, and without fresh ideas, can do a lot less damage than one who wants to change everything. Not all change is good; witness the BA tailplanes, or 'Consignia'. Of course, some change is good, but the good is not always recognised. Twenty - odd years ago, a system of universal secondary education in Mathematics was launched in this country. It proved outstanding in its capacity to improve the level of logical thought of children. Ten years ago it was found not to fit the latest set of criteria, and it disappeared. We appear incapable of judging between good change and bad change, between leaders who will bring improvement and those who will bring a series of disasters.
Gordon Cardew, NORWICH, UK
I start by admitting two things. I am, at heart, socialist and I adore how Matthew Pariss writes. And, here it comes - HOWEVER! Matthew, you state that Gordon Brown is "crafty and unimaginative", I would have thought that it would take quite a bit of imagination to be crafty. I would, even, go so far as to say that Cameron is unimaginative and, not in the least bit crafty.
As far as Mama Morton is concerned, the quote is good, "When you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you." It sounds like, what was, the Tory party's policy towards their wealthy supporters.
You are right Matthew, the Labour party have stolen the Conservative's clothes and, just like the emperor's, they are not worth anything. So much for politicians, so much for politics.
Marc , St. Barthelemy,
You have to ask the Tories why they sacked Portillo, the last potential leader they had. Any one else by comparison is either terminally old or wafer-thin.
The rest I agree with Parris, GB has got really nothing to say... he invites everybody around the table to copy ideas, and lives out of the political intuitions of Baroness Tatcher and Mr. Blair.
The only thing GB is really god at is party management and internal party politics.... a la Breshnev, so to speak.
Time a new leader for the UK comes on stage and kicks this big con out.
Michele, Richmond,
Astute observation. The scary thing is he'll win.
Ivor Griffiths, Lancaster, UK
Matthew,
You ask a very pertinent question "What is Brownism". The tragedy is not one person knows what it is, including the so called inner-circle of Gordon Brown. On the policy front, we have seen time and again that New Labour's policy (both under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown) has been to adopt Tory policies and sell it as a New Labour, on the ethics front, less said about the morality of this party (Iraq war, peerage etc) the better, on economy we know that Gordon, and as a result country, was lucky to inherit an independent Bank of England which led to longest period of stable economy and on future we know that Northern Rock is just the tip of the iceberg (mounting public and private debt). However, the problem is, Brown knows (and this is Brownism) that sound bites and fake lofty promises will sell better than thought out long-term plans. This Labour conference was all about that and sadly us, the voters, will buy it blindly. Spin is not dead. It has a new cloak on.
Prabhat, UK,
Classic dejected Tory. You must be joking that the Tory front-bench is better, sorry more "first-rate" than the Labour one. The one shadow minister with genuine ideas, David Willetts, was sacked by that great leader of men, DC. He comes across as lightweight because he IS lightweight.
As for Gordon, his craftiness ie naked political opportunism is a turn-off but don't be fooled that he has no ideas - there are lots of ideas but he can't be too public about because of Middle England - elimination of child poverty in Africa sounds better to Middle England than elimination of child poverty in the UK. Oh and btw, the UK is pulling out of Iraq, but deliberately, again, he has not made it a story- that is part of the deal with the US. The conference was about touching political hot-button issues for potential swing Tory and independent voters - and you don't usually have to do much in terms of ideas, to get voters to think about switching sides. That is what's sad.
Chris, WASHINGTON DC,
Delighted with our analysis of Gordon Brown's speech-I too thought it was dull as ditchwater and soon forgotten.
Not surprisingly the robots in his Cabinet and the brain-washed delegates and Press too gave resounding applause - but this man is not a man of substance and is full of himself and his image. His desire to be PM for the last 13 plus years has overwhelmed him and as a result he will bring this country down even further than he did as Chancellor.
David Cameron I believe will surprise everyone when he speaks at the Conservative Conference and I hope people will sit up and listen to his ideas and make a clear choice in what the country needs now.
Brown and Blair took a healthy economy and destroyed it - much like what Bush has done to the USA! Britain cannnot afford a deficit nor can it afford the loss of our gold reserves and all the other financial losses suffered by the people over the past 10+years.
Chips Westwood, SARLAT LA CANEDA, France
"British Jobs for British Workers".
I suggest that we test the Britishness of job applicants by asking which cricket team they support. (Football for Scotland and Rugby for Wales).
Tom Sykes, Huudersfield,
Labour Party Conference? What conference? There was precious little confering. All the delegates did was listen to long boring speeches that said next to nothing and dutifully clapped on que. It is a great shame that Walter Wolfgang or one of his ilk was unable to get in past the security.
If that is the future of British politics count me out.
Davidka
W D Toulman, Walkington, East Yorkshire
"All the voters need to do is find Brown out, and all the Conservative Party needs to do is help them. Reality is on their side. "
Perhaps, but what are the Tories? What is conservatism? What is david Cameron and his Etonians?
brown will survive while peopel are left with the devil they know rather than the devil they don't.
Neil Murphy, cromer,
people should wake up,gordon brown is a bigger con man than tony blair,browns responsible for destrying private and company pensions he his responsible for giving us the biggest tax increases through stealth this country as ever known,he his responsible for allowing immigration and asylum too run out of control,and for these people who come into britain too abuse are benefits system,and next week we will see another brown stealth tax with a 2p increase in tax on petrol and diesel at are garages,brown talks about britishness but browns love belongs to europe,and thats another con by gordon brown,brown will bot give the british people a referendum because he knows this treaty= constitution will be voted out brown is taking britain even deeper into full european control off britain browns next move will be to join the european single currency that would wipe out the billions he as borrowed over the years he was chancellor,gordon brown cannot be trusted.
thomas, wallasey, england
Mr Parris, I so look forward to seeing your column every Saturday morning. I must say that this morning it seems a little limp. Or rather twisted and limp.
In my eyes you will always be a sweety, but at the moment I feel a little scared by this ravaging invective. I don't like him either - but Cameron - purleese - i'll choose monotheism - one Gord - anyday.
Big Jesse, london, uk
You mean anyone truly believes anything this man say's. Even if you do believe him he will have changed his mind in a few weeks. Remember the referendum promise....like everything else now out of the window.
N.Woodger, Mkt.Weighton, E.Yorkshire
Nice article and sums up the Labour party conference exactly. What a bunch of light weights they truly are. Hazel the Witch summed it all up when the vindictive little loud mouth resorted to insulting Boris just to add a sparky to a very dowdy speech about nothing.
D Case, newquay,
They have a definite timetable to ban lightbulbs.........wow!!
Bernie Edwards, Whitby,
I'd sooner Gordon ran the country than you.
mike, lincoln, u.k.
Brown is a throwback to the old days of labour: authoritarian, almost Stalinist, with a hatred of people who do bettter than the majority and a determination to stifle individuality. I don't want to live in Brown's world thank you very much.
Paul Laing, Bedford, UK
If a German politician gave a speech in which he kept repeating the mantra "Deutschland" over and over again, the rest of the world would be reaching for the smelling salts. Why is authoritarianism okay if it's nurtured in Britain?
Mike Mitchell, Spalding, England
Good piece, Matthew.
But part of me says let Gordon stay and reap what he has sown.
Even if Dave could magic up some macho stuff, he would walk into office facing the biggest economic mess in fifty years.
MarkS, Leeds,
I have oft read lately the term, End of History, (This is all there is - there is no more) or TINA as Mrs Thatcher said, (there is no alternative)
Looks as though the End of History sums it up, democratic politics is exhausted.
George, uk,
As much as Gordon Brown might seek to distance himself from Tony Blair, and present himself as the new deal, he will always be the man who robbed pension funds, introduced thousands of stealth taxes, funded the war with Iraq, introduced tuition fees, and presided over the introduction of a spiv culture where debt and greed are good and saving is for losers. Have you got CCJs? Low credit rating? Been refused a loan elsewhere? Got mountains of debt already? Watch TV and see how in Brown's Britain none of these handicaps will stop you getting a loan. So much for prudence and sound financial management
Anthony Hollis, Frimley Green, Surrey
Just about spot on. Just a rehash from Brown of the same old sound bites and promises we have heard for the past ten years. We all know that nothing will, or can change with the present Government in power.
chris, woodbridge, suffolk
If Mr Cameron highlights traditional Tory value's over the next week he will walk into No 10 in November and for those of you who have forgotten or are too young to remember I will endeavour to outline a few.
Freedom ( remove the big brother nanny state interference)
Grammer schools (more of them)
Robust prison service (more prison's)
Robust police force ( scrap the human right's provision )
Robust immigration policy (shut the door provisionally until we know who's here already )
The N.H.S will not be fixed until the way it is funded is changed and we do not need another "root and branch " review that will take five year's to compile and ten to implement.
Nick Dixon, Sutton Coldfield, England
If he won't go for re-election before the looming housing crash hits then he is a truly silly politician.
Bruce Robertson, Brighton,
Matthew,
On your podcast recorded just after Brown's speech you were very impressed by it (you gave a B+ of A- mark). How come you have changed your mind so dramatically?
Philip Bird, Gisors, France
There seems to be a strange divergence between employment of a Political Convention Management specialist for the staging of this event, and the publicised proposed change from style to substance, generally interpreted to mean
less reliance on spin than was the case with the previous incumbent.
Those who tend to be unhappy with the idea of poaching from rivals will have noted that the professional ethic which used to inhibit such behaviour seems to have been modernised and brought up to date.
drf venables preller, Warminster, UK
Matthew Paris is spot in in his analysis of Gordon Brown. Only one thing lets the Tories down - the Tories.
Until they come to terms with Britain as part of an EU that is becoming increasing federalist in nature they will always be at each others throats - and the electorate will not vote for a divided party.
As Labour in the 1980s was divided over economic theory so the Tories are divided over a view of Britain. Too many see Britain seeminlgy stuck somewhere around VE day as a force to be reckoned with. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Tories need their Clause 4 moment with the likes of John Redwood sent on their Militant Tendency way.
Eddie Reader, Sutton Coldfield, uk
Nice work Mr P. - Naturally there's been a negative response from the pseudo-intellectual labour supporters, most of which have never seen a shovel, let along would know which way to use it. No, they just sit smugly in their politically correct little world whilst Brown and his ilk promise the same promises they've not yet delivered over the past decade and spouting their holier than thou rules for us. They of course are exempt from our rules, we pay their taxes and pay for their good life.
How can anyone say that we're better off under labour? The average working man can barely keep his head above water due to the overburdening taxes that this shower have loaded on us - yet nothing improves. Labour has lost control,they have to go.
Nigel Clark, Lincoln, England
Gosh, Gordo's got all the socialist acolytes out today hasn't he?
Better go over and have a look to see how many are at the DT
Minnie, LA, CA, USA
Mr Parris
I fully understood that as a commited Tory, you week after week argued for the disappearance of the unbeatable Tony Blair. You thought GB would be a disaster. Well you were wrong, And your poetic bleatings about flotsom on the pavement, or whatever, aren't going to change a goddamn thing.
Stephen, London,
Mr Brown lost me as a potential voter with his cynicism.
He will not gives the nurses their well deseved increase "as I will not let the infation rate rise" This after giving himself and his cronies an obscene rise in their salaries!
Sorry mr Brown les than3% over 2 YEARS (that loweres it to an under2% rise!). He now promises us a better post office??? Look at the letter boxes - the post office is now no longer going to do weekend solutions - is that a "better sevice?
John Sime, Cheltenham, England
Hold on a moment Matthew..I seem to recall you writing some 10 years ago, when Blair was making his 'visionary' speeches and New Labour was all very exciting, that his words didn't count for much as the reality of power would very severely reduce his options. So..applying your argument to Brown's conference speech, it seems as if Brown agrees with you, i.e. the reality of power boxes in all Prime Ministers; so why both conjuring up big ideas. I would add that I'm neither a fan of Blair or Brown but let's have a bit of consistency from our leading commentators.
Alan Robbins, Haslemere, Surrey
None of this would matter if we had an real ( and effective)
opposition.
Sadly we don`t., not as yet anyway.
Peter Bolt, Redditch, UK
I have no confidence in GB since he allowed the housing market costs to get away in the way it has.
I have always had suspicions about these North of the Border 'Socialist' Members of the Labour Party .
As the years go by I can see that they hold the Political ground that prior to M. Thatcher the Conservatives used to hold.
Having said that, I see nothing that you (MaPa) as a failed politician have to say that is constructive.
It seems nothing more than "Sour Grapes" to me.
M Sheridan, Oldham, UK
Mr P got it wrong again. After lambasting Blair year in year out Mr P has turned to focusing his wishful thinking on Brown.
A question., What PM or Party needs to go on a policy announcement spree of so called bg ideas when they're already in a significant lead? Mr P seems once more to have missed that people actually like continuity, they want what they know so long as they can have a good old moan about it and guess what the reailty is they know they are better off now than they have ever been. Morevover, hasen't Mr P noticed the Tories have 0 polices and with each small prod their whole boat starts to fall a part.
Ian, London, England
Excellent item Matthew but the problem is that D.C. IS a lightweight. The Tories have no-one else right now (that I can see) which is why there has been no opposition for 10 years. Added to that the British public are just plain seriously stupid with only about 10% (and falling) with a real education the rest are benefit fodder and 'corrienders'. Brown and co. realise this and treat them wirth the contempt they deserve. Thus are flying high.
Victor M., Malaga, , Spain
The other problem is that he's a bully. And like all bullies, many people will mistake his bullying for confidence and competence rather than bluster and unsupported aggression. Someone needs to prick his bubble but that may require quite literally standing up to him, eyeball to eyeball, and staring him down. The problem Dave has is that people think he's flakey, all style, a lightweight, so what he must do very soon is stand up to the big bully and face him down to restore his credibility and advantage. It's as primitive as that.
Andy, London,
At last, a truly honest---and truly brave---editorial!
Oh, that all those fooled by 'the new Gordon' would read your article, Mr, Parris, and wake up!
For this man, if elected, is going to bring this nation to ruin.
Emma Potts, Carlisle, UK
Having read Mr Parris' brilliant piece on Mr Brown it is clear that Mr Parris does not think much of Mr Brown.
But what will you say Mr Parris if Mr Brown calls an election and wins?
Carl Teper, Jerusalem, Israel
Brown is there to be beaten and all the Tories can muster is Dave. Is it possible to pull the blanket over your head between Scylla & Charybdis?
gwilym rhys-jones, costa del sol, spain
Of course Gordon Brown is beatable. What happened to all those ideas that were going to burst out of him in the first 100 days? There are none. We are just promised what they've been promising us since 1997 with the words changed. The fact that the public are buying all of the spin (they're even spinning that they're not spinning) is down to the failure of the Tories to score the open goals with which they've been presented.
This week we were told that the public deficit is worse than expected yet we have had years of continuous growth. Taxes are sky high. God help us if there's a recession. Why aren't the Tories pointing this out?
The Labour slogan is 'he's not flash he's just Gordon.
The Tories should retaliate with 'Got no cash? Blame Gordon.'
Cameron needs to put on the performance of his life this week. We need answers on NHS Reform, gun crime, cutting police paperwork not giving them gimmicky new handheld computers, abolishing the useless PCSOs. Hit Gordon hard.
Paul Owen, Birmingham, UK