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Gordon Stands Tall
By Andy | October 8, 2007
Occasionally, I have the opportunity to watch the Prime Minster’s Press Conference live; I thought today’s would be worth watching.
Brown did very well, probably as well as he could have done in the circumstances. Yes, he’d considered the election. He’d talked to candidates in marginal seats (who were convinced they could win) and, of course, he’d looked at the opinion polls. It was always his inclination to play things long so that he’d fight on his ‘vision for Britain’. He made a rather telling point, I thought, that the crises that we have seen over recent months have not allowed the government to really begin to promote their policies for the future. Discussion and debate were everything. He’d always intended to make his intentions known after the conference season had finished. But, he conceded, perhaps he should have acted sooner.
The most important thing he did today was to take responsibility. This decision - and the responsibility for being where we are - is his and his alone. As Prime Minister anything that comes out of No.10 is his responsibility, and always will be while he remains in office. I was grateful for that. This is the mark of real leadership. Rather than being something that we seek to avoid, leadership, should be the starting point for all politicians.
This always was going to be a difficult conference and Brown stuck to his guns, not deviating from his message at all. But there were some other, more interesting, things to observe.
Firstly, asked about fixed terms for governments Brown stated that this would be considered by the Constitutional Review that is on-going at the moment. There should be a debate. He could see difficulties with fixed terms - there would still need to be the opportunity to go earlier if public faith in the government had become a real problem. And there were a number of other issues that we pitched into the constitutional review. Let’s hope that this review really is a s significant as it sounds that it might be. It should also, in my view (and that of people like Peter Kenyon) be looking at putting a limit on the amount that the parties can spend on elections.
Secondly, I was struck by the comments of the foreign press. Brown was asked questions from Australia, the Middle East and from the US. It was clear that - in their view - the UK was clearly withdrawing its troops from the frontline in Iraq. Despite all of the fuss and noise of this weekend it is the ending of the Iraq war that is our most immediate, and important, single policy. That the rest of the world now seems convinced that Brown is pulling out is a good thing; the message should be equally clear at home.
Topics: Reflections |
