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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Gordon Brown

107 replies

Higgledyhouse · 14/10/2013 23:29

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?

OP posts:
unlucky83 · 16/10/2013 08:35

I think Gordon Brown seems like a nice enough well meaning person...
I don't know if he was badly advised - or Tony was sticking the knife on on the side...but....
He did mess up the economy badly...the global crisis nonsense is absolute rot...we could have been in a much better position to ride the storm than we were (Germany anyone?) ...and as figurehead - chancellor - he has to take the blame.
Some really hard political decisions should have been made - controlling house prices being the one that effects everyone in the UK ...and they weren't -and I think the hardest political decisions still haven't been made...
The current government have gone over their spending targets - the fact that labour promised to match their predicted spending is irrelevant...political parties keeping all their promises once in power? Come on...
Of course the economic situation hasn't been sorted out in 3-4 yrs - it will take decades to sort out ...I think worse things are to come...
As I understand it we aren't even making our interest payments at the moment...
So as a country we ran up a massive credit card bill and are barely making our minimum payments and all the time the interest is increasing the balance ...
Either we need a IVA ...or admit we are bankrupt ...

fairisleknitter · 16/10/2013 10:39

I never was a party member and my familiy who were have either died or left after Blair's initial win. Interesting to hear your views wordfactory. Are there any people with normal life-experience coming through to the fore? Alan Johnson seemed to be the last of that type.

WaitMonkey · 16/10/2013 11:17

I really liked him, and still am very disappointed he lost the last election. I follow Sarah Brown on Twitter and she seems lovely. She actually might be on here too. .

Fluffyears · 16/10/2013 20:37

I had the pleasure of meeting him in 2007. I turned 18 the day of the 2007 general election so met him as shadow chancellor. He was a really nice man and I have a soft spot for him as he reminds me a lot of my late father. I felt so sad watching that wee family walking away hand in hand. Cameron is an idiot and I hate his wife with every fibre of my being despite her not doing anything to particularly pee me off.

Catmint · 16/10/2013 20:42

I liked him, although i felt that he lost perspective over some strange issues. I felt that he would have made a more successful job of it in the 1960's or something before personality became more important than policies.

I felt he was treated very badly.

Parttimelover · 16/10/2013 21:55

Alibaba GB would've won that GE most likely but with a slimmer majority so he chickened out which to my mind was the beginning of his undoing. The prospect of a little loss of face kept him from legitimising his mandate and taking away one of the sticks for critics to beat him with. That decision shows either he has a too-thin skin for practical politics or that he was given terrible advice by people who were too preoccupied with feuding with Tonys people and not thinking about the bigger picture.

You are spot on though with the problem with Yvette being Ed Balls, he will cause her problems. Argh- so who should it be? Who is there left in Labour that is leadership material?

Wordfactory I totally agree about preferring MPs who have done a job beforehand. It keeps them in touch with the real world and gives them more independence of mind from the party machine which is essential- that's why I like MPs like Alan Johnson (postie) and Sarah Wollaston (GP).

But the truth is that that ship has sailed and loads of them have come up to being selected as an MP through 'only' working in Westminster. Increasingly it seems you need to be a rich and well connected insider to get selected. In many places we won't get the option of a candidate who has lived a more normal professional life. Yvette Cooper was a journalist for a couple of years so has more real world experience than some of them.

LessMissAbs · 16/10/2013 23:22

Perhaps if the UK wants to regain its former economic success, it could lead the way in introducing a requirement for MPs to have at least 10 years employment experience in a recognised career. Doesn't have to be one of the professions, but parliament is becoming full of career politicians, who are there not because of any particular talent, but because they want to be. And have the ambition to get themselves there.

I do think it puts off candidates who would be better at the jobs and achieve better results. Political debate has mainly descended into petty name calling and nit picking, along the lines of "you said, he said, she said, no you didn't".

My local MP has no proper work experience at all, and an Arts degree then straight into being a local councillor. He is in his early thirties. What on earth does he have to offer the electorate? He came round canvassing and I gave him a fair chance and asked him some general interest questions, and he was so thick it was as if he didn't really understand about 10% of the words used. For instance, I asked him what he thought about coalition governments, and it became quickly apparent that he was completely unaware that several European countries actually function very well with coalition governments, and have done so for years. He also didn't know what secondary legislation was, so I assume from that he didn't understand how bills passed through parliament and become law.

It actually seems easier to make politics a career path than many fields, since no basic minimum qualification is required and the questions that would be asked in any interview regarding experience, life skills, etc are clearly glossed over.

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