Tuesday 20 July 2010

Brown vs Cameron: The Contrast

There's Dave...
Sky News' Jon Craig has posted an interesting piece on the latest Brown-sighting this evening. After Cameron's highly adroit - even deft - performance in the US, it's becoming pretty clear that, in absolute fact, Britain is far better off, both at home and abroad, now that she is finally being represented by a prime minister that isn't either a) a hopeless attention-seeker obsessed with his own image rather than concerned with the needs of a country he laughably purported to lead or the world that he generally preferred to start wars in, or b) a socially inept weirdo with terrifying delusions of grandeur and a pathological inability to recognise, much less tell, the truth.

Jon Craig writes of the latter's latest noises well-off performance:
So what did Gordon Brown do after his brief appearance in the House of Lords?
(See previous blog.)
Speak in the Commons during the third reading debate on the Finance Bill?
Er, no.
Pop down to Strangers' Bar or the terrace for a few beers with old comrades?
Er, no.
The former Prime Minister, I can reveal, had already invited new Labour MPs elected for the first time on May 6 - about 70 in all - for a chat at 4pm in his grand and spacious new office on the top floor of Portcullis House.
An audience with Gordon.
Aah. So the room was packed, then?
Er, no.
Apparently, so my informant tells me, only about 10 turned up to listen to the former PM.
I'm also told that some of the bright young things turned up hoping to ask him worthy questions about the Alternative Vote referendum and other current topics.
But they were disapppointed to hear him talk at some length - no change there, then - about how the Tories kept trashing his record in power.
Oh dear.
In denial?
That's what some Labour MPs are claiming.
Where's Wally Gordon?
I'm quite surprised to be writing this, but Cameron is actually beginning to look great. Now that could just be because he's normal compared to the two contemptible Labour has-beens this country and the world have been forced to tolerate for over a decade in unequal shares until very recently.

But he did look and sound great today - a real independent force. Having seen some of the clips of his performance with the latest incarnation of the US president, compared to the rather brittle-looking, slightly spiteful-sounding Barack Hussein Obama, he was, well, just great.

Hang-on, I know it's early days, but it is possible Cameron is great - as in an unusually gifted statesman and leader (at least in the making).

One day maybe it'll even become a famous quotation: "Andy Burnham [or whoever], you are no David Cameron! (You're actually a bit like Tony Blair - but not quite as bad as Gordon Thingumyjig)," says someone or other who's fairly famous in politics .

Hmm. Maybe not (yet). But he's clearly better than Blair. And way, way, way better than the unspeakable (and nearly vanished forever anyway) Brown. We might still be in the 'thank God for small mercies' stage of Cameron's premiership, but there can be no denying it: there were one or two glimpses of greatness there today.

What a contrast!

4 comments:

  1. Agreed. Cameron is impressing me more and more. Have you noticed nobody's calling him "call me Dave" any more?

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  2. Seems I might have spoken too soon, given his little gaff over the war. Still, forgive and forget, eh!

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  3. I'm just glad he's turned out to be competent. I'm even more happy that Osborne's given two fingers to the doubters. Still early days but an awful lot seems to have been done in the last two months.

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  4. And, UB, we seem to be 'growing'. Not sure what that means, but it sure sounds better than the alternative.

    I think "great" leaders in history are actually just plain lucky. I reckon is Cameron is lucky. What follows isn't so much his greatness - or lack thereof (that's just smoke-blowing in the end, after all - doesn't matter), it's that the luck he has as leader rubs off on everyone. And that's priceless.

    Hope I'm right. Think I am.

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Any thoughts?