We are in a world recession - is this really the time to listen to the media about 'boring' Brown?

[Monkeytrousers]

Boring is good, isn't it. Maybe not for the media, but definelty for us. Isn't the media agenda for 'dynamic' news worthy politics contry top our national interest at this time? Have they been a bit spoilt by the drama of the Blair prime ministership?

Is is really the time to hand over power top the Tories who have an ideological interest in preserving the privledges of the rich - especially at this time?

Good god, Dr Who's got WAY too big an ego to do anything other than run himself.

He might even use his real accent this time and take Paisley in one fell swoop.

Now that I'd stand anyone a round or two to see!

It's a date then. (Well, a date in the sense that we haven't actually set a date.)

As long as we don't hit a pub in Paisley .

Paisley, Richmond... I imagine they're fairly similar.

There is something about GB that I like.
I think the media are treating him very unfairly, and I really don't like the way they are portraying him.

m and j I really do you really believe that champagne socialists are like that? I don't get it. It will never happen, surely everyone can see that? Surely the best that we can hope for is to create a meritocratic environment so that people with the drive, talent and skill can achieve it? That is why I will not vote labour. They try to make everyone the same even to the extent of dumbing down exam results and abolishing grammar schools etc. Ed balls assertion that he wanted to get rid of them all was a head in hands moment for me. Did they just ignore the evidence that shutting grammar schools has lead to less social mobility? And what about 50% going to university? If there were fewer places we could afford to pay tuition fees and grants like we did before. There surely is no point in having the huge drop out rates or graduates not getting work that we see now

have a read of Matthew Parris in the times this morning policy, he's saying much the same as you. In fact, maybe you are Matthew and this thread was just a tester for your column .

If Gordon Brown can't personally take credit for the 10 year good spell that we had when he was chancellor, how can he be held responsible for the downturn in affairs now?

Either they were both chance, or they were both effects of policy and management. To say the good spell was luck and the bad spell is a result of his stupidity is rather biased, surely?

I'm all for champagne socialists. In the same way, I am all for men being feminists, and all human beings being anti-racist. You don't have to experience something to know that it is intrinsically wrong.

it is only a good spell in some eyes.The fallout will be spectacular and then it will be seen for what it was

suey2, I'm not a socialist so they are not my views particularly. I do, sadly, come to the conclusion that you have to let the free market have some leeway to create wealth and sometimes extremes of wealth. So I'm not a socialist.

However, I am also not a Tory because what the last 30 years have shown us is that the trickle down effect (which is what the Tories famously rely on to ensure reasonable standards for everyone and wealth for some) does not work properly.

You have to put in place some mechanisms to create standards for those who will never be at the top of society. That's what the minimum wage was for (and Welfare to Work, and the Working Families Tax Credit). None of these things existed pre 1997.

I kind of agree with you about grammar schools except that there is nothing more antithetical to social mobility than a bright child dumped in a secondary modern so there are no easy answers.

Policywonk, I'm all for a southern softies/champagne sort-of-socialists' meet. Open to anyone from Scotland who promises to let us drink shandy as is our wont without laughing at us.

M&J and oi - I've only just revisited this. I always said that Matthew Parris talks a lot of sense...