In the brown stuff

They let Gordon Brown make a speech to Labour conference. He didn't do as badly as I thought he would, but let's a have a wee look at some details:

Because what let the world down last autumn was not just bankrupt institutions but a bankrupt ideology. What failed was the Conservative idea that markets always self-correct but never self-destruct. What failed was the right wing fundamentalism that says you just leave everything to the market and says that free markets should not just be free but values free.

Remind me, just for a laugh, who was in Government and pursuing this "bankrupt ideology" that supposedly belongs to the Conservatives? If "right wing fundamentalism" was at fault, who was the Chancellor who drove that fundamentalism into the financial markets? Who created the FSA, eased banking regulations, encouraged debt growth, and destabilised the financial markets? I put it to you that at fault was one Gordon Brown MP!

Like most families on middle and modest incomes we believed in making the most of our talents.
But we knew that no matter how hard we worked free education was our only pathway to being the best we could be.

Then why did Mr Brown and the Government of which he was part take away free education? It was Labour that imposed tuition fees (which we only got rid of in Scotland with the election of the SNP Government and which they still have in England), and it was Labour who took away student grants to replace them with loans (Conservatives started Student Loans, but they didn't remove grants - Labour did that).

So we will pass a new law to intervene on bankers’ bonuses whenever they put the economy at risk.

Couple of questions - how do you judge that bonuses are putting the economy at risk? Taking risks is part of building an economy, if it's not at risk it's really at risk! More importantly, why just bankers? Politicians whose actions put the economy at risk must be as culpable as bankers - and I'm sure there are other professions who can put the economy at risk.

this coming election will not be a contest for a fourth term Labour government, but for the first Labour government of this new global age

Wow! Year zero!

So we will create a new national investment corporation to provide finance for growing manufacturing and other businesses; our £1 billion innovation fund will the back the creativity and inventions that are essential to the economy

That'll be copying the SNP's Scottish Investment Bank. Well done Brown.

From now on all 16 and 17 year old parents who get support from the taxpayer will be placed in a network of supervised homes

Locking up teenage parents? Somehow being 16 or 17 is the problem rather than the behaviour exhibited by some people! There are perfectly responsible teenage parents, hard-working youngsters doing well by their children and by society with a good family support network around them, and child benefit is a universal benefit so every parent is at least entitled to support from the taxpayer, so how big will these parent prisons be and why only 16 and 17 year-olds? Surely he's not trying to steal the BNP vote?

They told me debt relief for the poorest was impossible – but we refused to give in and now thanks to debt relief and aid 40 million more children across the world are going to school.

No-one ever said that debt relief was impossible, just that many people doubted that the politicians of the time had any real intention of allowing debt relief. It would seem that they have been proven correct, as the IMF is busy increasing the debt of the poorest countries and the G20 countries, including the UK, are failing to live up to their promises.
This image is from the Jubilee USA Network report linked to above.


How appropriate the lyrics to the song that was played as he left the stage:

M People - Moving on Up

You've done me wrong, your time is up
You took a sip (just a sip) from the devils cup.
You broke my heart, there's no way back.
Move right outta here baby.
Go and pack your bags.
Just who do you think you are?
Stop acting like some kind of star.
Just who do you think you are?
Take it like a man baby if that's what you are.

Mind how you go!