Friday 11 September 2009

Dale Is Wrong About Brown

Iain Dale is suggesting that we should somehow have "compassion" for Brown - assuming that he really is suffering from clinical depression. He finishes a long and winding post with these puzzling remarks:
I have several friends who suffer from depression from time to time. Life is often lived on the edge. They just don't know when the black dog is going to strike. If our Prime Minister is indeed suffering in this way he deserves our compassion, not insults.
'Fraid that won't wash, old boy. Aside from the baffling tone (I assume Dale's regular readers, of whom I am one, are not children) probably all of us have friends who suffer or have suffered from depression. I certainly do, and worse. But the difference is that none of them is Prime Minister. It's a private matter if it happens to be part of your private life. "Leaders" are never afforded that luxury. That is what they exchange for power. It's the old Antigone question - you know, the crisis caused for a king when his public and private realms collide. Dale, I think, knows this. So I believe he's being rather dishonest here - for reasons known only to himself.

Ollie Cromwell (he of "The Red Rag" blog fame) makes a strong point in an open letter to Dale/comment on the original blogpost:
Iain, I would of course have compassion for anyone suffering any illness who then finds it exacerbated by a stressful job. That is unless that person had smeared and backstabbed his way to it, not caring who he destroyed along the way, and then clung onto it at all costs even when it is abundantly clear that he does not have the capacity for it. I will reserve my compassion for the employees who have to put up with his abuse, flying mobile phones and rages.

I will offer Mr Brown compassion when he is in convalescence after standing down for the sake of his health and the nation’s. Until then I will insult him as he insults us with his lies and incompetence.

I believe the Lib Dems are looking for bleeding hearts.
Exactly.

4 comments:

  1. The thing is, if blogs like Dale's are posting about it and reputable journalists (An oxymoron in many cases) are reporting it then there must be truth in the rumour or they would be at risk of legal action. Number 10 can't stick it's head in the sand much longer but when will someone in the lobby have the guts to ask the question?

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  2. Good points, UB.

    It hasn't really hit the MSM yet, but when it does, it could be dynamite. Eventually, it will filter through. Perhaps Dale knows that and he's preparing the Tory ground. You know: "we [the Tory leadership] feel very sorry for Gordon Brown but for the good of the country, and for the sake of his health, he must step down immediately."

    In which case, my suspicion that something didn't add up about Dale's post would be about right.

    There have been rumblings about Brown's health for years, even to the point where it was speculated that he'd be quietly removed on those grounds at some stage, because he won't go any other way (the old "doctor's orders" scenario). Either way, this, and that terrible, Youtube moment-esque, article in the Telegraph about Turing today, and all that mindless Cruddas crap, are all further powerful evidence to me that he's isolated, losing it and about to be given the order of the boot.

    Speculation? Nah. The pattern is quite familiar. Think of the lead-up to Thatcher's removal. Constant rumours that she had gone mad (all untrue), constant briefings against her from within her own government and resignations of key players making her more and more isolated.

    So what I do know is that when he does go, it will be as sudden as Thatcher's fall was - but certainly not as shocking.

    I absolutely cannot wait.

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  3. I can barely remember Thatcher going (mind, I was only 11!), though I do recall Anthony Meyer being used as a stalking horse the year before and I went on a tour of parliament with my school shortly afterwards and our class bumped into him when we were being shown around by our local MP.

    It just seems inevitable now, with Dale picking it up it will get noticed as he's one of the few bloggers your average schmo who watches BBC or sky news could name. I know the blogosphere is quite an incestuous community but it is more and more being noticed on the mainstream. If someone like Adam Boulton latches onto it, it will explode. I would've added Newsnight, but theres no way the editorial team there would touch it unless it was already broken. Of course, were this story about Cameron or one his shadow cabinet, they would lap it up.

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  4. I was in my first year of university and the first I heard Thatcher had quit was from an American professor who walked into the seminar room and just said, gleefully, "She's gone!" I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't. I also remember wondering what on earth it had to do with him!

    There are other examples of the bad health scenario being used as an excuse to get rid of a compromised leader - more than one would think, actually - but all under different circumstances and none this close to an election: Churchill (severe stroke), Macmillan ('misdiagnosis') and the very fishy Wilson affair ('exhaustion'; 'retirement').

    So the ill-health thing might not be as much of a runner as I first thought, unless Brown really is that ill and it's not just a way of letting him bow out gracefully.

    I suspect we'll find out soon enough. And I agree with you: Boulton would be the one to pick it up. The pink sheeple of the BBC are clueless when it comes to this sort of thing. What a travesty of a public broadcaster it has been turned into by the left.

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Any thoughts?