Who believes in Santa Gordon?

Why is it all going so wrong so soon for the Brown government? Here’s one view. „It is like Iraq. They Authentic Prada Shoes Outlet deposed Tony Hussein, but they had no plan for the occupation of No 10. As a result things are detonating all around them and they don’t know what to do.” What a great analogy. I wish I had thought of it. Still, hats off to the anonymous newspaper political editor who did, as quoted by Fraser Nelson in his Media Guardian assessment of the Brown government today.

Nelson’s chum is spot on. Six months since Brown took over, it has become dismally apparent that he and his circle had – and still have – a remarkably limited and quite seriously misplaced view of the questions facing the Labour government and British politics and how to deal with them. The Iraq metaphor gets horribly close to the mark. The Brownites thought the problem was all about Blair. Just get rid of him and the general joy would be unconfined. A grateful nation would see Brown as its liberator and, after 13 years, the true leader would become the beloved father of a contented people.

At first, as we know, it all seemed Authentic Prada Bags Online Singapore to work. Then, as we all also know, it all went wrong. But the problem was never all about Blair. What is happening now seems About Prada Products to me to prove the full ghastly accuracy of the Iraq comparison. Faced with a rapid-fire succession of serious setbacks – an economic downturn, the collapse of Northern Rock, the loss of the child benefit records, shambolic Home Office record-keeping, unlawful political donations All Prada Nylon Bags and the rest which scream of the need for a different approach – Brown’s response is not to do things differently but to do the things the same all over again. It strongly suggests that, like George Bush (another man who governs with a clique of Authentic Prada Shoes Sale advisers who never say no to him), Brown is in denial about the nature of his failures.

So, ever since the polls put Labour 11 points behind the Conservatives a week ago, we have had an outbreak of initiativitis more hysterical than anything to which Blair ever resorted. In the past five days alone, we have had another detention without trial initiative, another shake-up of the education system, another blast of renewable energy plans, a new reform of care budgets for the elderly – and God knows what else. Then, Agatha Ruiz Prada Online Shop yesterday, Brown flew to Iraq again, just as he did so tackily and disastrously at the end of the Labour conference, to make yet another re-announcement of something we already knew. And then, as if all that wasn’t enough, Brown found time this weekend for the small matter of announcing a plan for ending world poverty.

Have we ever had a prime minister with a cruder, more cynical – and above all more misplaced – view of human nature than this? Brown evidently pictures Agatha Ruiz Dela Prada Shoes Uk himself as a political Santa Claus – reaching into his sack with a ho-ho-ho to produce tough anti-terror powers for the Daily Mail, troops home for Christmas for the Sun linked site, wind farms for the Independent, and an end to global poverty for the Guardian. I think he must really imagine that, when we read these things, we all glow with delight and thank Santa for being so good to us. But Authentic Prada Handbags Wholesale this is insulting stuff. Authentic Prada Nylon Messenger Bag What Brown forgets is that most people are not children. Grown-up voters know that these headline-seeking plays are just tricks. There can hardly be a person in the country who does not grasp that Britain’s problems – which are actually not as great as this flurry of responses implies – require a more serious response than this. The best thing the government could do is just get on with governing and let the headlines take care of themselves. Since football seems to be the only other thing they talk about, what they need is someone who can put their foot on the ball and calm things down. Yet Brown and Bicester Village Prada Bag Price his coterie just don’t get it. They want instant political gratification. They don’t seem to have noticed that grown-ups don’t believe in Santa Claus.