Labour Of Love
‘WE are told that neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown watched Channel 4s The Deal on Sunday night, but neither is unaware that their relationship is under closer scrutiny than ever this week.
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| Brown celebrates 50 Labour mentions |
And the Chancellor did nothing in his speech yesterday to the Labour party conference to dampen thoughts that a desire to be Prime Minister still burns brightly inside him.
The Telegraph is in no doubts, its headline suggesting, Bold Brown Stakes Claim To be Leader.
Gordon Brown, it says, set himself up as Labours leader-in-waiting yesterday with an impassioned appeal to the party to rediscover its soul and traditional values.
The Guardian agrees, calling the speech a barnstorming defence of the Governments reform policies in unmistakable old Labour language.
It says he paid enough loyal tributes to the Prime Minister to scotch, or at least camouflage, suggestions that his repeated appeals to Labour values were a concealed leadership bid.
But with Tony Blairs speech today apparently not going to give any ground to his critics, the Chancellors position within the party is only likely to get stronger.
Whereas journalists used to play a game of guessing how many times Brown would use the word prudence in his Budget speech, yesterday the word to count was Labour.
According to the Times, he used it 64 times. Tony Blair will have to go some to beat that unless he starts relating stories of Cheries various pregnancies.’
Posted: 30th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
