If Brown can't learn to feel the electorate's pain, it will be him who suffers
James Forsyth 7:30pm
Fraser in his politics column, available online tomorrow, argues that in the current climate Brown’s lack of emotional intelligence will be less of a problem for him. This is one of those rare instances where I disagree with Fraser.
It is one of Brown’s great faults that he doesn’t do empathy or apologies. I think this is going to be a huge problem for him during a recession when politicians have to be able to do the ‘I feel your pain’ stuff if they don’t want to appear hideously out of touch.
Take Brown’s comments earlier today. Andrew Porter, a journalist who gives Brown a fair shake, reports that Brown was asked about rising unemployment and replied that the government was creating jobs insulating lofts. The Guardian has the quote as follows:
Now, this statement is factually accurate. But I suspect that a lot of the people who have recently lost their job or are worried about doing so, are looking for work other than this. Brown needs to become more emotionally literate, or people will come to see him as uncaring or detached from reality."We are expanding in a very radical way our insulation and draught-proofing central-heating provision for the elderly and other people in our country. We are training large numbers of additional people to do that work in insulation. That will be one of the employment programmes that will grow.”
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Comments
mitch
October 15th, 2008 8:07pm"people will come to see him as uncaring or detached from reality. "
he never had a real job, its always been easy street with expenses how more detached can you get.
Pete, Scotland
October 15th, 2008 8:08pmDon't forget he now has Blair's spinmiesters controlling his media presentation.
He may pull it off!
John Miller
October 15th, 2008 8:38pmI hope Brown is a dab hand at loft insulating himself.
When all this pans out we will lose our status as the centre of world finance. This was always a precarious position, given the ease of doing business electronically. But can you tell me that the world's great punters will be happy to use Labour controlled banks as opposed to a data centre in the Phillipines?
That will knock 20% off our GDP.
Higher unemployment, rampant inflation ( oh my god, all that money being printed - its like Germany in 1945) and a nifty little recession means we will never replace that.
So welcome to Brown's Little Britain - a once great country reduced to a quaint tourist attraction.
Everyone seems to forget our economic situation was dire a month ago - its just fallen off the cliff a few days ago.
CS
October 15th, 2008 9:39pmI can only imagine that your name isn't as Scottish as it sounds, James, given their excellent education system.
"It will be him who suffers"????? HIM!!!!!
TrevorsDen
October 15th, 2008 10:27pmHmm.. if Mr Miller is correct then Browns penchant for quoting debt as a % of GDP may blow up in his face.
I have to say I have a deep mistrust of statistics and I just wonder how the manipulation (sorry - calculation) of GDP has changed over the years.
TGF UKIP
October 15th, 2008 10:28pmSorry, James but Fraser's right.
The big picture here is the TV picture. Gordon's culpability in all this may be only too well known to Coffee Housers and to some readers of the broadsheets too, but most voters absorb news and form their opinions via the broadcast media and most specifically through TV pictures.
At this point let's not also forget that Gordon was always even more of a spinner than Blair and that he's now got his narrative of the "global economic crisis" which is why he's travelling and is going to keep on travelling.
So get used to it. It's going to be Gordon in Brussels, New York, Washington, Tokyo, Timbuctoo, Gordon in airports, Gordon in aeroplanes.
Gordon exhausting himself travelling the world "to help hard working British families out of this global recession" which has absolutely nowt to do with Gordon and it's only those unpatriotic Tories who so desperately and grudgingly claim it has.
And the hacks are going to love it!
Chris
October 15th, 2008 10:53pmNo, no. 'It will be he who suffers,' not 'him.' Remember the man identifying his wife's body, whose spontaneous cry of horror a vigilant sub altered to 'My God, that's she!'
Dirty Euro
October 15th, 2008 11:09pmArrest the bankers. The PM should charge the crooked bankers with criminal fraud.
Kevyn Bodman
October 16th, 2008 4:42amI don't want politicians emoting and 'feeling our pain'.
I can find plenty of twaddle and drivel like that on Oprah, Dr. Phil and the like.
I want politicians with cool, calm ,considered judgment. And some courage.
And I would like to be able to vote for a party that more or less shares my biases in favour of freedom, against the EU and in favour of one law for all in the UK, with no concessions to any minority 'community'.
Cameron and the Conservatives have not come out of this crisis well because they have lacked the courage to attack the government in a robust enough way.
Eliminate this emotive nonsense and strive towards *thinking* about policies.
patently
October 16th, 2008 9:12amErr... the UK has two million unemployed and about 40 million homes, so there are about 20 homes per unemployed person. If it takes two days (?) to insulate a loft, that means Brown is pleased that he has found two month's worth of work for the unemployed.
Out of touch? Surely not...
Susan Hill
October 16th, 2008 9:14amInsulation. The facts are these. 1. Many people who own their own homes already have it. And double glazing. And draught exclusion. The bills are still roaring up, the savings are not enormous.
2. Council houses. Those on low incomes who often pay by expensive meters for their energy are not paying for their own insulation, they will wait for the councils to do it. None of them are, they have no money.
3. Private rented accomodation. Would you pay to have someone else`s house insulated ? Landlords won`t bother, they don`t pay the heating bills.
4. Of those left, owning their homes but without insulation so far, government grants only cover a fairly thin layer of loft lagging. To save any money you need at least 10 preferably 14 inches thickness of the most expensive kind. To do two lofts in this way recently cost us £850 plus VAT. (Just as the price of oil has come right down anyway.)
Such jobs as there are in the loft-insulation field, are for young fit men only and there are plenty of builders and labourers out there already who are not building houses so they`re happy to do insulation.
What world do Brown and his advisors live in ?
Gordon Musgo-soon
October 16th, 2008 9:28amWith his protected pension pot worth (last time I heard) 4-5million, even if he is fired with ignominy, which normal people can't get without the extra tax penalties on funds over 1.5m (and whose fund is worth that today?), he will never feel any pain. He's got no skin in the game at all, he's set for life no matter how much he cocks up.
Dalesman
October 16th, 2008 9:29amUnfortunately it seems that many are seeing Brown as a financial saviour.
Those who watch a few minutes new on TV will end up thinking he's the Bees knees once his spinners do their work.
Wily Trout
October 16th, 2008 9:38amBrown's treatment of taxes as his own personal fund to be flung wherever he chooses already grates and this is where most of the anger exists out amongst the electorate. Even if the choices are nominally those of the Chancellor.
Don
October 16th, 2008 9:52amSlight problem with your idea to jail the bankers DES. They have done nothing illegal, they have done exactly what Gordon's light touch regulation allowed them to do. So are you in fact saying that the light touch regulation was tantamount to criminality? If so Brown should be the first in court, or does that not fit the ZanuLabour "narrative" of fat cat bankers. By the way still no response about short seller in chief Myners getting his finger in the Labour (taxpayer) pie.