Gordon Brown

[Higgledyhouse]

I'm just watching a re-run of Gordon Brown on Piers Morgan from the time he was PM. Now I'm not a particularly political person but I always liked Gordon Brown, I mean the person he is and watching this again tonight has made me sad that we lost him as our leader...... Sarah Brown too, just really nice people. Anyone else feel the same?

I don't like Gordon Brown.

I have a bit of a soft spot for Alistair Darling though.

I live in rochdale and her views are sadly shared by many people there (not me I should add). Alistair Campbell wrote in his diary that while campaigning they came to a pub very local to me and he was shocked by the racism and bigotry on display, and that was years before. GB met that woman. I could never really blame him for what he said about her in all honesty, he should have just checked his mic first..

I think as much as public spending needs to be controlled, GB would not be letting ordinary people struggle as much as we are. This current government does not care about the price ordinary people are paying for austerity. I don't know if I wish he was still PM but I do think there is a better way of doing things. I cannot see how a Tory government will ever be do anything to help the ordinary working person, or the ordinary family. Its all about big companies making money at any cost. Forget job security, forget a decent wage. Have a zero hours contract and be grateful you have got a job. That is the attitude. Its not good enough.

Lovely post OP. Would never usually sing the praises of a Fifer but I cried too when he, Sarah and the boys left Downing Street. Wonderful, honest man just lacking in the crappy spin needed in politics now.
He and Sarah continue their good work though.

He has many great characterisitics as a person.

But as a politician....no.

As chancellor he became highly arrogant. We were in the rush of a world wide boom, yet he convinced himself that it was his excellent handling of the economy that helped the UK.

He trully believed he could stop 'boom and bust'. Which is quite breathtaking for an economist.

He ran his office in a paranoid and hostile manner, bringing about the downfall of many a good politician wihtin the labour party,who he saw as 'on the wrong side' or a competitor.

When he became leader he actively silenced any descent in the rank and file. Being a party activist became a very dark and gloomy existence. He was neither in touch with ordinary working class people (who e felt to be unenlightened) nor with the middle class middle (who he felt were to Blairite).

I for one am very glad to see him out of Labour politics as many many other party memebers!

I think Labour should have been out there debating with people and challenging bigotry and racism rather than smiling with one face and then turning away holding their noses.

Then there was the ugly bit when GB didn't brush off the encounter but sought to lay the blame on an underling. I don't think he was unlucky, he was caught out, there's a difference.

Personally I am sad that the smile, wave (don't engage with the lower orders or their concerns for God's sake!) and leave style of politics has just encouraged the emergence of UKIP and worse.

I shudder whenever I hear/see his name. Odious man. Some of you have very short memories - he ruined the economy.

Flap though I'm no fan and I think he made huge mistakes, I don't think anyone can say he ruined the economy. He was simply in the hot seat when the shit hit the fan!

That said, his previous endless declarations of fiscal genius did make him look a twat. But Gordon, being Gordon, would never ever have seen it that way.

I don't know if anyone's read his book, but he gives himself credit for effectively 'saving the world' post the crash.

Honestly, the man is delusional!

I agree.....GB didn't ruin the economy on his own. The crash was coming regardless.

What he is responsible for though is spending all our money during the good times so when the storm came, the cupboards were pitifully empty.

He should have tucked some money aside during the good times and controlled our welfare spending better.

Because once the crash happened we needed more money as tax receipts fell and benefit payments went up. But of course we had no money so we had to borrow even more money than we already were. Thereby creating an almost perfect storm.

And those who think the Tories should have sorted the problem out by now are sorely deluded as to the scale of the problem we face. This is something that will linger on for a generation. We're still borrowing an obscene amount of money per year.

Despite all the cuts we've made, we're barely scratching the surface of what's needed. All we've been doing it seems is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Until the government deals with the elephant in the room (aka pensions and an aging population), we're all doomed.

Gordon Brown was a disaster as PM, and as Chancellor a few fundemental mistakes. Interestingly, I was howling about the mistakes that didn't effect me. However my parents were livid about his raid on the pension funds, and the increased social welfare costs, and the incresed gap between rich and poor (which he said he was going to close and never did)

People re-write politics to favour their own views. I have no time for Brown and never did, or for Blair. Even less for Cameron and Osbourne. Milliband is unelectable. What hope have we - none.

Labour have left the country in an economic mess on the last 2 occassions that they have left power. The tories have left the country mired in sleeze and with an increased view of division between have and have nots.

No, I don't think he was very talented. He spent 10 years doing a phd titled "The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918–29" after his degree in history, all at Edinburgh University. He didn't take the opportunity to travel or study abroad and expand his knowledge of the world in this period, nor did he have to work to finance his studies.

He then gained his only work experience outwith politics, as a part-time lecturer in social policy with the Glasgow Institute of Technology (now I think the University of Paisley) and a very brief stint as a political adviser in Scottish television. Then he was elected to parliament.

Once an MP, he eventually achieved his ambition of becoming PM, having one of the worst and brief records in living memory. During this time the following stuck in my mind:

• in his constituency in Fife, a new hospital was built in the massively expanded town of Dunfermline, which was partially closed due to cuts. A bizarre decision. The local media were full of it for years. Cancer patients etc had to travel to an antiquated Victorian hospital in Kirkcaldy, miles away, instead for treatment, while the new hospital was sidelined. Gordon Brown kept conspicuously silent on this major issue taking place in his constituency. It was a quite appalling dereliction of duty.

• He was an eternal bachelor until realising that a PM needed a respectable wife, suddenly got married.

• He let his personal circumstances dictate his policies eg on child savings, and indeed uses them for political gain.

If you have ever lived in any time in Central Scotland, and are not Scottish, you will realise that there is a sort of entrenched way of thinking "like father, like son" than sort of assumes everyone else thinks the same. People don't have to be talented to rise to the top because everyone will constantly tell them how wonderful they are, because the way it works is that their friends and relatives will get promoted up the greasy pole if they do so. They hate people who work in the private sector and don't automatically agree with their way of thinking, or who can think for themselves.

'nice'guy, so I'm an ultra lefty then? Because I want the banks and the rich to be subject to the same capitalism the rest of us are? Neolib logic in action, that's what that is. Aside from attempting to insult me, please explain which parts of my previous post were not factual. And for once back it up with facts of your own. TIA.

The bit about the budget surplus in '97? Completely irrelevant. Budget surplus is just about this year's net borrowing requirement (and the fool Osborne is pissing £2billion a week up the wall on that front)

National debt - the actually important measure - was 47% of GDP when Major left office, and 36% when Brown left. Growth and repayment had got it down below that, but then there was investment; the debt as a percentage of GDP grew, but in ways designed to recoup the investment.

Then, in the 2008/09 financial year, a large amount of financial securities turned out to be so much pig flatulence and titanic quantities of debt got defaulted on. Now, lending and borrowing is how money is created (commodity standards like gold and silver are a myth: money was first created by extending credit for goods and services and the first writing systems were invented to keep track of it, looking up the relevant scholarship is left as an exercise for the reader) so when a load of borrowing and lending collapses, suddenly there's a lot less money. Contractions in the money supply are what causes recessions (look up Paul Krugman's babysitting circle analogy to understand why, it's really clear and simple) and the whole thing was caused by unregulated banking.

Labour's response, correctly, was to dig into government borrowing - putting debt as a percentage of GDP up sharply, because they increased borrowing while the economy contracted) and the graph of UK growth reversed. And then from Q2/3 of 2010, with the fool Osborne at the helm, it went flat with occasional dips. Recession. It took them less than ten years to undo Brown's ten years of good work. What he's doing, in economic terms, is the equivalent of slamming the brakes on with a hill to climb.

Result: from 36% of GDP when they took office to 91% estimated for this fiscal year. After having killed off an improving trend, they've shrunk the economy and added to debt.

Summary: deficit is not debt, and deficit is not a useful measure of government performance (and that makes it all the more hilarious that the economically-illiterate tories are relying on it, because they're failing by THAT measure too). Debt is a useful measure of performance, relative to national wealth, and on that score Brown was a success and Osborne is so far below him in the league tables he's barely playing the same bloody sport.

(comforting note: we've had national debt at levels like 600% of GDP and the nation didn't implode. It's not the size of the debt, it's your ability to service it that counts. Whoops. The market's doubting that, too, hence the downgrade in our credit rating.)

Would never usually sing the praises of a Fifer

Oi! What's wrong with Fifers?

Kisses how blessed we are to have your propaganda wise words of wisdom on thoughtspeak. The comforting note is particularly magmanimous. I shall immediately replace any thoughts of my own forthwith.

Whoops!

I think history will be kind to Gordon Brown. He may have been guilty of some errors of judgement but he's the only prime minister in my lifetime who prioritised doing the right thing for the poor and the vulnerable over pandering to the rich.

"... all propaganda's lying, even when it's facts are true,
whether it's for Goebbels or the PPU..."

Orwell was right about that. Of course, propaganda with true facts in it is less insulting to the intelligence than than the happy horseshit that comes out of Conservative Central Office.

Nothing at all primal, am friends with and work with many Fifers, all lovely. Will take myself off to Scottish bashing thread.

So far the Tories have spent more than the Labour party intended to. The Office for Budget responsibility has the figures. Apologies, currently unable to link.

Glad to hear it .

No, I don't think he was very talented. He spent 10 years doing a phd titled "The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918–29" after his degree in history, all at Edinburgh University. He didn't take the opportunity to travel or study abroad and expand his knowledge of the world in this period, nor did he have to work to finance his studies.

LessMissAbs, with respect, I find that quite offensive. Have you ever done a PhD? I'm doing one right now, and have nearly finished it. It's bloody hard work. GB would not have been able to write his thesis without extensive research and fieldwork on how the Labour Party operates and has operated, because without acknowledging the past we go into the future blind. How do you know he didn't travel or study abroad? A doctorate, contrary to what some may think, does not allow you the time to fanny about, doing whatever you please. If your funding will allow you to study abroad. If not, then you're going to have to pay for that yourself and make sure your university will even allow you to do so. I've been funded for research trips to the USA and to speak at conferences. The funding covers your travel and the most basic accommodation. You are not on a jolly.

I don't have to work to finance my studies, because my PhD is my work. If Brown was funded for his PhD, as I was, he would have been paid a stipend. And you only get funding if you are deemed to be a particularly excellent candidate (not to toot my own horn here). I did my masters at Glasgow and am doing my PhD at Glasgow. That doesn't make me parochial - it means I stayed where I was offered funding and where the resources I needed for my research were available.

He was an eternal bachelor until realising that a PM needed a respectable wife, suddenly got married.

Do you honestly think Sarah Brown is stupid? A trophy wife?

If you have ever lived in any time in Central Scotland, and are not Scottish, you will realise that there is a sort of entrenched way of thinking "like father, like son" than sort of assumes everyone else thinks the same. People don't have to be talented to rise to the top because everyone will constantly tell them how wonderful they are, because the way it works is that their friends and relatives will get promoted up the greasy pole if they do so. They hate people who work in the private sector and don't automatically agree with their way of thinking, or who can think for themselves.

I'm Glaswegian. I don't identify with this. Hell, if I could have got a great teaching job because my DM had one, I'd be laughing. If I could have sailed up the greasy pole of publishing, simply because my dad had a good job in the sector, that would have been lovely. Didn't happen. My achievements are my own. As are Gordon Brown's, I would say.

Rallytog

He may have prioritised it but he didn't achieve it. The wealth Gap grew under Labour.

If history is kind, then he will have written it.

"like father, like son"

I don't identify with that either, thank goodness. I'd rather be almost anything than like my father. And know nobody who has got where they did because of an 'uplift' from their parents. That sounds like total nonsense to me.

Gordon Brown was one of the worst things that happened to the UK. Appalling politician.

rallytog but this is the huge error that people make. 'Oh he was so kind to the poor, blah blah blah.' No he wasn't.

As Chancellor he introduced the awful Tax Credits which saw families on double the average salary brought into the fold as clients of the state. They discouraged self-reliance and ambition, because it was easier to work in the lower paid job and get tax credits than it was to push for promotion or look for a new job and end up with the same net income.
They discouraged businesses from paying good wages because they knew people could afford to take badly paid jobs because the state would top up.
They encouraged people to borrow more than they could really afford, because TCs were taken into account as income for mortgage purposes, and so directly contributed to the huge house price inflation which is now so harmful to those on low incomes because a) they can't get on the property ladder, and b) it has pushed rents up.

All that money would have been far better spent on infrastructure, or improving care for the elderly and disabled, and on not running a budget deficit when he didn't need to have done.

The UK would have then been in a much better place to cope with the financial crisis and there would not need to have been such hard cuts. Which have hit the poorest the hardest.
Gordon Brown friend of the poor? Don't make me laugh.