L'Ombre de l'Olivier

The Shadow of the Olive Tree

being the maunderings of an Englishman on the Côte d'Azur

16 April 2009 Blog Home : April 2009 : Permalink

Brown 'sorry' & more...

I really ought to recheck the news / blogs before I hit post. My update on McBride, Brown etc. needs another one because amongst other developments G Brown said "sorry" (The scare quotes aren't mine they are the BBCs). As Samizdata notes:

The BBC gets a lot of flak from right-wing bloggers, but the BBC is now objectively anti-Brown. Just by solemnly reporting everything that this ghastly and now absurd man says, with or without any further comment, they are destroying him.

I'd go further. In the linked article, as well as the 'scare quotes' headline we also have phrases like:

Making a fresh attempt to close down the row...

Which reads like the BBC writer wants to add a few words (making yet another surely doomed fresh attempt..) and the caption under the video "Mr Brown said he was working to clean up British politics", which also deserves a blogger like NOT at the end. I think the BBC is joining the rest of the British MSM and giving Mr Brown a good kicking now that he's looking wobbly.

But to go back to the sinking Gordon deserting his rat, I thought it was amusing that he gave his 'apology' in a dockyard. Perhaps he was looking for tips on boat repairs since ZANU labour's Ship of State seems to have sprung some serious leaks.

The seaworthiness of the Ship of State isn't exactly helped by the fact that, as Samizdata (and Guido's commenters), note the "apology" managed to include a beautiful piece of logical inconsistency:

"I take full responsibility for what happened. That's why the person who was responsible went immediately."

Strangely Mr Brown went on to neither announce his own resignation or to call a general election. And of course the words "went immediately" are beautifully non-judgemental. Despite the fact that Gordon claims to have been "horrified" and "very angry", he didn't actually sack McBride. Instead, some 24 hours later McBride was allowed to resign, This is not the action of someone "very angry" unless what they were "horrified" and "very angry" about was that their smearing had been found out...

In fact rather than announce his own resignation what he then does is follow the example of his beloved predecessor A Blair and attempt to "move on" to serious matters like the upcoming "budget for jobs". It occurs to me that this is an excellent hostage to fortune and one that will probably allow the Cameroons to resurrect an old poster when he finally summons up enough courage to call the election.


PS In regard to the "budget for jobs" this Spectator blog piece explains why it is insane in an Einsteinian sense.

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