Anorak

Anorak News | Brown’s Black Looks

Brown’s Black Looks

by | 6th, December 2005

‘THE forecast is gloomy. The Times’s front-page graphic shows the UK under a relentless Army of grey rain clouds.

You’ve got to pick a pocket or two

There’s Gordon Brown doing his best impression of Michael Fish telling you there’s nothing to worry about as a hurricane rips the roof of your house and a Ford Mondeo lands in your kitchen.

The Telegraph puts things in clear numerical terms: “3.5% – His growth forecast last March. 1.75% – yesterday’s revised forecast.”

A pall of darkest gloom hangs around Brown’s dour face on the Telegraph’s cover page. He might wear a day-glow Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, as on the Times’s cover, but there’s little disguising the fact that bad times are ahead.

The Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report was hardly all good news, even if the Times spots some winners, notably how the National Youth Community Service will give less well off people the chance to escape the country on a gap-year.

And it was good news for George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor. If the Guardian is right and Brown has been forced onto the defensive for the first time, then surely young Osborne can score some easy hits.

Indeed, the Times says Osborne is “up for the fight”. The Guardian looks on as the man who would be Chancellor launches a “direct, personal and ambitious attack” on Brown.

“His golden rule is now tarnished and discredited, productivity growth has slumped, business investment has collapsed and Britain has some of the weakest economic growth in the developed world,’ thunders Osborne in the Commons.

Brown’s “single-handedly destroying the public finances”. And it’s personal. “This is the tragic story of a chancellor who has been forced to wait so long to go to No 10 that his reputation in charge of No 11 is crumbling,’ says Osborne.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Young Osborne’s scoring some hits. Things are getting brighter for the Conservatives. A rosy-fingered new Tory dawn lies just over the horizon.

Or it might be the lights going on at No.11 as Brown prepares to move house…’



Posted: 6th, December 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink