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29th July 2008
Et tu Gordon Prentice?
"It ain't about how hard ya hit.
It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward… That's how winning
is done!" proclaimed the great political theorist Rocky Balboa. Unfortunately for Prime Minister Gordon
Brown, voters in Glasgow East last week delivered a stinging below the belt hit,
leaving Clubber Brown immobile on the canvas clutching a bruised pair of ballot
boxes. Managing to carelessly mislay a
majority of 13,507, it didn't take long before Labour backbenchers started
shouting for Brown to (wait for it, you can't rush a clichéd boxing metaphor)
throw in the towel. Step forward
political heavyweights Gordon Prentice and Graham Stringer to pound Brown out
of office. The government has "gone
a bit rusty" barracked Prentice. Whamo!
"We are going in the wrong direction" excoriated Stringer. Pow!
Brown had to go and cry in the corner until the pain of these verbal
barbs subsided. Naturally, more
important MPs with careers to lose donned their I Luv Gord rosettes and
declined publically to curb Brown's insatiable appetite for political crumble
fresh from the Westminster Oven. While,
of course, secretly tying his shoelaces together under the cabinet office table
and running off, sniggering.
In response to rumours of his potential
demise, Brown responded with "I'm getting on with the job and I think it's
important that in difficult economic circumstances we take the right decisions
for the future to get fuel prices down, to get food prices down, to make sure
we get the housing market moving..." Hoho, brilliant. Get food and fuel down but make sure those
flagging house prices are re-inflated. How
else will the wealthy continue to con the less than wealthy into working for 35
years to pay off debt on an overpriced pile of bricks? Leaping to Brown's defence like a conditioned
monkey in search of a rewarding banana was Harriet Harman: "I think Gordon Brown, more than
anybody, has done more over the last 10 years to make people better off." Or possibly feel better off. During his ten years as Chancellor, house
prises rose around 156% while incomes managed to limp across the line, puffing
and wheezing like a British Olympian deprived of his nandrolone at 35%. Oh yeah, feel that wealth.
The reported levels of discontent with
Brown must leave his effigy of Tony Blair doused in lighter fluid with a nail
through the crotch. "You people only
notice the debt mountain now that I'm Prime Minister? Gah, you shower of
bastards. You were happy to go along
with that muppet handed, Mr. Whippy tufted grinning shyster when times were
good, weren't you? And now you blame
me??? BURN little man, BURN!!" Brown might be saying. But despite the global economic downturn (or
the nothin' to do with me gov'ner, ooo look over there, a cow on a pogo
stick... downturn) Brown was never in for a smooth ride. Could it be that the vitriol being directed
at the Prime Minister has less to do with starving voters worrying about where
their next tank of petrol for the 4 x 4 will be coming from, and stems rather
from simple boredom? Everyone knows
David Cameron with his Blue Army will be just as vacuous a script reader as
Brown or Blair, but people do get tired of the same bullshit emanating from the
same arseholes. After eleven years of 'getting on with the job', 'look, John,
the real issue here' and 'what we really need to focus on'... from the usual
suspects, the public demand a new face to patronize them whilst he or she
liberally promises their money to the state.
So even if Brown could summon up an
economic miracle to ensure drones continue commuting two hours a day to work to
fund their credit black hole, he would still need to convince the public that
there was something new in Downing Street. So, here’s a few ideas on how he could do it.
1) Cross Dressing. Imagine Brown emerging to address a UN summit
on global poverty in heels, freshly rouged cheeks and slinky backless
number. Transvestism is an under used
tactic in politics, but Brown could be the man to pull it off.
2) Facial Hair - the death of the
political moustache has been a sad loss for the country. Last seen as Peter Mandleson’s ‘crusin in the
park after midnight’ incarnation, Brown could return to the Ministerial
whiskers a sense of gravitas, confidence and style. As the hesitant voter hovers over the ballot,
poised to endorse a fresh faced Cameron, the image of Brown combing an imposing
handlebar or a greasing up an intellectual ‘Poirot’ could sway matters back to
the left.
3) Write a novel - Disraeli raked in the
votes with his romantic potboilers, Brown can do the same. He needs to dispense with the worthy
non-fiction (Maxton: A Biography? There's no votes to be had there, man) and
knock out Codename Prime Minister:
Payback Time. Pull a few strings and
it could be selected for Richard and Judy’s book club, the greatest advance in human
communication since the Gutenberg Press.
There’d be no stopping him.
4) Star in a mismatched buddy comedy - Career
as a tough, no nonsense hard man flagging?
There’s only one thing to do. Reluctantly
team up with a cantankerous septuagenarian, a wise cracking child or a
flatulent dog and show another side to yourself. Never fails.
Actually, Brown’s already flirted with the cantankerous septuagenarian
by having Thatcher round for tea and buns and that didn’t work. Ah well, looks like there’s only the kid and
the flatulent dog left, Gordon.
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