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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To want Gordon brown back as PM

118 replies

Gaballout · 18/01/2019 07:04

Such an underrated politician that always speaks so much sense. He would be so much better than any of the current lot!

OP posts:
BejamNostalgia · 18/01/2019 14:24

In fairness about the note, his Chief Secretary Liam Byrne wrote it. There has been a tradition since the 1930s of leaving joke notes for the next residents of the treasury.

But given the economic climate it was in extremely poor taste, not entirely benign. Plus it’s even worse because he tried to blame it on the Tories for not having a sense of humour and being dishonourable for releasing it.

Firesuit · 18/01/2019 14:26

I always disliked him, left-wing and dour are both unattractive to me. Came across as an arrogant bully.

But this made me think, there have been virtually no times when there's been a Prime Minister I'm comfortable with. I was broadly in favour of Mrs Thatcher, but given the hatred of others, politics wouldn't be comfortable with her in charge. Tony Blair had that used car salesman manner, made me a bit queasy.

So who are my favourites? John Major, slightly irritating voice, but otherwise nothing wrong with him. David Cameron was OK, even though he's to blame for the incomprehensible-to-me fuck-up of holding the Brexit referendum.

Neutral: Theresa May, didn't really like her when she was a cabinet minister, but seeing her as PM with an impossible job has made me feel a bit sorry for her, so she's more palatable now.

RedWineIsFabulous · 18/01/2019 14:28

Fuck me.

Gordon Brown couldn’t even organise a piss up in a brewery.

He was an incompetent and useless fool.

TakemedowntoPotatoCity · 18/01/2019 14:33

I want Nick Clegg back because he was nice eye candy and spoke lots of languages which is sexy because he always seemed a nice bloke.
pity he became Cameron's b and now Zuckerberg's.

badlydrawnperson · 18/01/2019 14:37

YABU OP, but not as unreasonable as people trying to claim with a straight face that Thatcher wasn't pro-apartheid.

As for fucking Major - he was so hard-faced in the 1986/7 winter that Thatcher (not known for her compassion but a consummate populist) had to intervene to trigger cold weather payments for the pensioners.

BorisBogtrotter · 18/01/2019 14:39

"Gordon Brown couldn’t even organise a piss up in a brewery.

He was an incompetent and useless fool."

Ahh shows how little you know.

You realise it was Brown that led the response to the world financial crisis?

"Tax credits were primarily introduced to lure millions of low skilled Eastern Europeans into the UK in order to 'stimulate economic growth''

Bullshit. EU immigrants have always been proportionally under represented ( even Eastern ones) as tax credit claimants and with other benefits.

The reason we are leaving the EU is because the Tories have been fighting about it since the 80s, nothing to do with Blair or Brown, the referendum was supposed to quell a internal party dispute.

At the 2010 election the EU was a low priority for most voters.

Seniorschoolmum · 18/01/2019 14:49

Mr Pension Raider who honestly believed “no more boom and bust”.

We’ve suffered 10 years digging ourselves out of the hole he dug.

No. Just no!

BorisBogtrotter · 18/01/2019 15:35

"We’ve suffered 10 years digging ourselves out of the hole he dug"

Economically illiterate rubbish.

Who deregulated the banks? Thatcher

Where did the banking crisis start? The USA

Why did UK banks need bailing out? Because of way they had been allowed to grow, and products they were allowed to sell after deregulation.

"no more boom and bust" true was the wrong thing to say.

BejamNostalgia · 18/01/2019 16:34

Who deregulated the banks? Thatcher

Thatcher arguably increased state regulation of the banks. Even those who argue that she deregulated them would admit that she merely fiddled around the edges compared to Blair and Brown removing state control of the BofE and therefore any meaningful government control of all banks in the UK. To trot out ‘Thatcher deregulated the banks’ is a stunningly dishonest and misleading statement.

Why did UK banks need bailing out? Because of way they had been allowed to grow, and products they were allowed to sell after deregulation.

Yes. Because of the Blair and Brown deregulation of the BofE, not because of any Thatcher policy. If pre-‘97 banking regulations had remained in place the government would have had the power to regulate it really easily.

Where did the banking crisis start? The USA

And why were we so exposed to the fallout? Because ^^see above. Blair and Brown’s deregulation of the BofE had created a banking free for all without even the pretence of attempting to encourage a bit of restraint. Because is created the illusory debt based boom which allowed them to keep hold of power.

I’m surprised at you being supportive of the Blairite regime Boris. Surely Momentum HQ don’t approve of the government who declared ‘We’re really relaxed about people getting filthy rich.’

HelenaDove · 18/01/2019 16:46

@badlydrawnperson From 15 May pensioners with a younger partner will no longer be able to claim PC It will be UC instead for new claimants and for ppl already claiming it will be triggered by a change in circumstances like a change of address.

Im sure that will free up loads of social housing when pensioners decide to take the risk and move into sheltered housing...............oh wait Hmm

BejamNostalgia · 18/01/2019 16:53

You realise it was Brown that led the response to the world financial crisis?

Oh yes. When he claimed he’d saved the global banking system from collapse and the entire world laughed at him. I believe a few far left economists have attempted to claim similar but they’re not viewed with much, if any, credibility.

In reality his ‘leading of response’ is a lot less stellar. When RBS collapsed Brown was left with effectively no choice but to nationalise it. He didn’t know if it would work. It didn’t work out that badly so the US tried it and it was much more successful for them because they handled it better. Brown was no trail blazing hero. His bumbling and lack of options led him to to inadvertently hit on a solution. Not his genius.

BejamNostalgia · 18/01/2019 16:58

At the 2010 election the EU was a low priority for most voters.

How about the 2015 election? You do like ignoring votes when they don’t go the way you want, don’t you.

GirlsBlouse17 · 18/01/2019 18:36

The reason we are leaving the EU is because the Tories have been fighting about it since the 80s, nothing to do with Blair or Brown, the referendum was supposed to quell a internal party dispute.

That may have been the reason the referendum was called but one of the reasons that lead to people voting to leave was the large amount of immigration from 2004 onwards caused by Blair/Brown

TheBigBangRocks · 18/01/2019 19:00

Tax credits have to be one of the worst things ever introduced. They enabled so many to not work, work the magic number of hours, refuse overtime and promotions, claim childcare when not even in work those hours/days etc. People quit work to claim or used the calculators to work out max benefits for min effort. Not to mention getting more and more money for every child born.

Graffitiqueen · 18/01/2019 19:05

YANBU. Gordon Brown was very underrated.

pyramidbutterflyfish · 18/01/2019 19:07

GB, yay he ended boom and bust on no he didnt

HelenaDove · 18/01/2019 19:31

Well then @TheBigBangRocks im sure you will agree that more affluent people who are against the claiming of tax credits could always offer to pay more for childcare so that the childcare workers dont have to claim the tax credits you are so against.

inews.co.uk/news/childcare-jobs-underpaid-education-epi-report/

user1471590586 · 18/01/2019 20:19

He sold off some of the UKs gold reserves and apparently lost our country a lot of money. Also did a tax raid on pensions which brought about the end of final salary pension schemes.

cinnamontoast · 18/01/2019 20:34

I LOVE Gordon Brown. All the good social reforms New Labour introduced were down to him - Sure Start, tax credits etc. I met him at a book signing a year or so ago and he was lovely. I told him that his tax credits had basically saved my life when I was a single mother of two very small children and he appeared genuinely interested in what they were doing now.

He was/is a flawed politician in many ways but a great one too – one of the last great orators, with politics based on values. I'd far rather have him that the cookie-cutter corporate-type New Labour politicians. Comparing him to Blair, I think you only have to look at what the two of them have done since they stepped down to see who is the better man.

Walkingdeadfangirl · 18/01/2019 21:04

He ... saved the world during the financial crisis

Ha Ha Ha Ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

needmorespace · 18/01/2019 21:34

I’m surprised at you being supportive of the Blairite regime Boris. Surely Momentum HQ don’t approve of the government who declared ‘We’re really relaxed about people getting filthy rich

You see, this is a problem that makes me not take what you say seriously. The suffix you seem to be missing is 'as long as they pay their taxes'.

But presumably that wouldn't suit your narrative.

badlydrawnperson · 18/01/2019 21:39

@HelenaDove I think you tagged me by mistake I have no clue how Universal Credit changes were related to my anti-Thatcher and Major ramblings?

donquixotedelamancha · 18/01/2019 21:42

I'd have anyone over May. I think she's the worst PM this country has ever seen. I really mean it: Brown, Blair, Anthony Eden, Jeremy Corbyn, Thatcher, Major, even Michael bloody Gove (and I'm a teacher).

Not Boris Johnson, obviously- there are limits.

notdaddycool · 18/01/2019 21:53

Rather have Thatcher back

BejamNostalgia · 18/01/2019 23:55

I think May and Brown are equally bad. Thatcher might be useful for Brexit, she’s held up as a gorgon by the left which is untrue, but she wasn’t a great PM and her intransigence and inflexibility was a problem and she failed to deal with social problems. People say homelessness is bad now, but I remember cardboard city in Waterloo and it has nothing on that. It was a shanty town. Some info on it here:

people.virginia.edu/~ds8s/moyra/bullring.html

Major was underrated, especially his work in NI.

I think you really have to go back to the post war years for good ones though. Attlee, Macmillan, Wilson.