Wednesday, October 25, 2006

What do Gordon Brown & John Reid Have in Common?

Is it...

A Neither of them will become leader of the Labour Party?
B Both have chips on each shoulder
C They can't stand each other
D They both display a contempt for their junior Ministers & the House of Commons

I'll leave you to speculate on A, B or C, but it is quite apparent that D is very true. Both Reid and Brown go out of their way to avoid answering any tricky parliamentary questions in their three weekly appearance at the dispatch box. Brown is a past master at it, but this week John Reid surpassed himself. He left all the difficult questions to his junior Ministers, only answering two questions himself. The first one was a patsy question on neighbourhood watch policy and the second one was this...

What action is being taken to reduce the antisocial riding of go-peds and other motorised two-wheel vehicles?

Dear oh dear. And yesterday when the Police & Criminal Justice Bill was debated again in the Commons Reid seemed only too happy to let his junior Minister make a complete fool of herself on extradition rather than speak on the subject himself

A leader and Prime Minister in waiting? I don't think so.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

They are both tabloid control freaks?

Anonymous said...

They are both Scottish. Just like their hapless First Minister Jack McConnell who is now boasting that he will dump nuclear waste in England.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3662494.stm

After his anti-English behaviour during the world cup can this man stoop any lower?

Anonymous said...

I noticed quite how silly she made herself look reading an unusually good piece from Andrew Gimson. All that guff about legal background , or lack of it though, is entirely beside the point . Anyone could quite easily aquaint themsleves with the simple principles involved.
People who are not lawyers and rarely deal with them are much to respectful of their priestly jargon.They are winging it like everyone else


Any way a QC would look equally silly trying to defend the indefensible and this is the real point .

As a young Lloyds broker when a dubious verbal agreement had to signed by an underwriter I was often sent in to blink foolishly until the gnarled codger got bored signed the papers and told me to bugger off. This is what has happened here and quite patently so .

I find it highly suspicious remebering the sort of shennigans that went on in my past that this tactic was used. My instinct tells me there is something very rotten at the back of all this which we may well never see.

Gracchi said...

They are both incompetent- see Romanians and Bulgarians as an eg.

Anonymous said...

I saw a bit of Home Office questions ans was wondering why Reid didn't answer DD's questions. Obviously just wants to play it safe.

The Hitch said...

Both like to hide things down the back of sofas

Reid cannabis.

Brown billions of £ of off balance sheet debt.

Anonymous said...

You make a very good point but it's the adversarial nature of Commons Questions which is to blame. Too often, it becomes a matter of trying to second-guess what question the opposition shadow is going to come in on, and then making sure that question is allotted to a junior minister. It's all about denying the enemy an opportunity to get the better of you, not about enlightening the public.

Anonymous said...

yes, dumping on the junior minister, a most distasteful character trait: as the song goes

When I screwed up on the Benefits front
I didnae wish to look a ****
So I pushed Primarolo oot in front
For I havnae any scruples!

(*Gordon, Where's Yer Scruples?* from Guido's CCHQ songbook, http://5thnovember.blogspot.com/2006/10/cchq-awayday-songbook.html)

Martyn said...

Could it be that they're both from ordinary backgrounds and have actually worked to get where they are, as opposed to being overpromoted trust fund kids who have always had daddy to bale them out of their scrapes.

Now who could I be thinking of ;-)

Sir-C4' said...

John Reid is the Himmler to Blair's Hitler!

There, I've said what I belief to be the truth. Blair has created the Fourth Reich.

Anonymous said...

Did you see Andrew Neil's 'Politics' show today? The two juvenile would-be political commentators (aged about 10?) who interviewed Cameron, Campbell and Brown at the party conferences agreed on their joint score-card:

Cameron: smoothie git; did not like
Campbell: OK but slow
Brown: friendly and informative
--- (I have paraphrased)

And they clearly were fed up with Blair.

(Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings...)

This confirms my view, expressed here before: people are fed up with and want to see the back of Blair and with him, the Blair style. Cameron comes over as Blair-light (that is, without any policies) which will go down like a lead balloon on election day.

This is shown by the fact that, despite the whistling in the Tory dark, the mid-term swing towards us when the Blair government is on its knees is actually pathetic. The REAL Cameron effect may even have been to reduce that swing.

THIS is what should be concerning us, not a sort of pi**ing contest (imaginary) between Brown and Reid. The plain, obvious fact is that neither Reid nor anyone else of substance in Labour will stand against Brown, because they'll want seats in his cabinet: Gordon will walk it.

And Dave will not. His reputation as a policy-free area is close to becoming his abiding public image, no matter how that may change in the future. Since his Blair-like style will be highly counterproductive, his only hope is policies. But effectively he has none.

(I'm beginning to wonder if he was any use even as a PR man. It doesn't look that way right now.)

Anonymous said...

At the risk of winding up the tartan hordes - they're both power-crazy scotch gits.

Yes, they'll all be pouring over the border waving their claymores and drambuies any minute now. Protesting at how they are all the victims of Sassenach discrimination etc etc. Well if North of the Border is so bleeding great why don't they stay there?

There, that's done it...

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that's right c4 - the Labour Government is exactly the same as Nazi Germany, what with all those millions of jews and homosexuals being rounded up on the street every day to be gassed. Really, grow up and stop acting like such a twat.

Anonymous said...

"Yeah, that's right c4 - the Labour Government is exactly the same as Nazi Germany, what with all those millions of jews and homosexuals being rounded up on the street every day to be gassed. Really, grow up and stop acting like such a twat."

Anonymous, you've obviously not been keeping up with events. You're right that Blair is NOT rounding up Jews and homosexuals - he's rounding up Muslims and who knows where that will end.

Anonymous said...

They do not differ in that in short term they look competent, but in the long term and with closer scrutiny look totally out of their depth.

Brown is a psychotic control freak, and Reid wants to be one but isn't near clever enough to be so.

Neither, I will put lots of money on, will be elected to the highest office, so all four apply.

It makes me ashamed to be a Scot when I see these mongs and how they embarass Scotland just be using air.

Martyn said...

Could it be that they're both from ordinary backgrounds and have actually worked to get where they are, as opposed to being overpromoted trust fund kids who have always had daddy to bale them out of their scrapes.


Ahhh, Labour class war where you have to be from a poor background to be any good or exercise any competence...if this was the real case then these two would be exercising their royal credentials.

Neither, BTW, are from what could be called poor or deprived backgrounds, despite what the spin doctors woild have you believe.

2br02b said...

Did you see Andrew Neil's 'Politics' show today? The two juvenile would-be political commentators (aged about 10?) who interviewed Cameron, Campbell and Brown at the party conferences agreed on their joint score-card:

Cameron: smoothie git; did not like
Campbell: OK but slow
Brown: friendly and informative
--- (I have paraphrased)


I saw them when they gave the original interview to Andrew Neil, and your version differs from the truth doesn't it? Now don't be shy...you can tell the truth, or are you Millibland or Ballsack?

Anonymous said...

Reid and Brown loathe each other but that is Scottish politics - they are like Afghan warlords guarding their poppyfields..........

Brown is too late for the post-USSR world - he was perfect as the Chairman of the Lenin Cement Works regaling Party Conference with statistics on pig-iron production and harvest yields...........he does it every budget

Reid is simply a better operator - he is hard and decisive whereas Brown is just hesitant like Portillo...........full of preening self-conceit but wholly incapable of biting the bullet

They had a contest in the US to eat live cockroaches...........I wonder how Miliband survived ?

Anonymous said...

Cameron: smoothie git; did not like
Campbell: OK but slow
Brown: friendly and informative
--- (I have paraphrased)

I saw them when they gave the original interview to Andrew Neil, and your version differs from the truth doesn't it? Now don't be shy...you can tell the truth, or are you Millibland or Ballsack?

I don't know what "original interview" you saw. But that (paraphrased) is what they said today--to Andrew Neil.

Sorry if the truth hurts. But if you're interested in winning elections, the first thing is to face reality. Try it sometime.

Anonymous said...

Both are Communists

Both destroy small businesses

Both lie about the EU

Both have no common sense

Both are unfit for purpose

Anonymous said...

2br02b said...

Cameron: smoothie git; did not like
Campbell: OK but slow
Brown: friendly and informative
--- (I have paraphrased)

I saw them when they gave the original interview to Andrew Neil, and your version differs from the truth doesn't it? Now don't be shy...you can tell the truth, or are you Millibland or Ballsack?

I don't know what "original interview" you saw. But that (paraphrased) is what they said today--to Andrew Neil.

Sorry if the truth hurts. But if you're interested in winning elections, the first thing is to face reality. Try it sometime.


My but you did paraphrase didn't you?

They didn't say Cameron was a smoothie git at all did they? In fact, only the girl said she didn't like Cameron because he lectured her. They also said Brown was freindly, and that was about it.

If you must paraphrase, at least get it right. I might paraphrase and say ou deliberately lied, or maybe were just disingenuous to imply.

You can if you want see the daily politics again, and also see the original interview given by the two youngsters after the conferences, but maybe you might not want to see them as you might have to paraphrase again.

I couldn't care less about the Tories if truth be known, but I hate Labour and their mong supporters with a passion because they will dump every ideal and principle for the barest crumb of power and are the most dishonest bunch ever to darken the good name of the UK.

Anonymous said...

Aye, but your hero Davis is very wary of Reid

Anonymous said...

They are both Tax Guzzlers.

Sir-C4' said...

Yeah, that's right c4 - the Labour Government is exactly the same as Nazi Germany, what with all those millions of jews and homosexuals being rounded up on the street every day to be gassed. Really, grow up and stop acting like such a twat.

Hello Jo!

Anonymous said...

There's only one thing worse than a drunken Scotsman (Reid), and that's a sober one (Brown Gordon).

Anonymous said...

You wouldn't get Cameron doing anything so sneaky as avoiding getting involved in the rough and tumble of real policies...

Anonymous said...

Reid hides his true agenda and Brown just has a gender problem.

Anonymous said...

Why ever should we have either of a pair of Scottish communists/socialists (anyway authoritarian) politicians vying to run England? Has all conception of how far Hatfield is from the North been lost?