On really!
Posted by ewancrawford on April 16, 2009
After the avalanche of coverage about Damian McBride and whether or not there is a culture of lying and smear at the heart of New Labour, I think there is actually a far more revealing, although apparently mundane, example of the way that Gordon Brown treats people with contempt in today’s Herald.
In a signed article on p6 to co-incide with the visit of the UK Cabinet to Scotland, the Prime Minister writes:
“Today, we are meeting in Glasgow, for a very different reason – to discuss how we can work to bring Scotland and the rest of Britain through these difficult economic times as soon as possible, emerging stronger and fairer than before.”
Is that right? Everyone knows that the Glasgow visit is part of a UK wide PR exercise to generate pictures and stories in the local media by bringing the Cabinet to different areas. There’s actually nothing wrong with that – it’s the government trying to sell its message – but please don’t insult us by claiming that there is going to be some serious discussion about the economy around the Cabinet table.
Are Jim Murphy or Harriet Harman going to bring some new discussion point to Cabinet on the economy to which Brown is going to reply: ”Thanks for bringing that to my attention, I hadn’t thought of that before – now let’s have a round-table debate?” Clearly not.
