IT was this time last year in the run up to the Labour Party conference that there was the sense that Gordon Brown was ready to go to the country. He would say three things – the first, "I am not Tony Blair"; the second, "I've delivered ten years of economic growth"; and the third, "give me my own mandate so I have five years to create a more socially-just Britain".
Unfortunately for Brown he bottled it. How he – and so many of his worried ministers and backbenchers – must wish he had held an October election after all.
Since then, his reputation has been assaulted from all sides, but especially by economic e
vents such as the Northern Rock fiasco, rising inflation and increasing house repossessions. After losing by-elections at Crewe and Glasgow that in the past Labour could have been expected to win while standing a donkey, his own Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, set out his stall as a replacement for the premier.
He never pressed the idea further, having made the calculation that it was better to let Gordon lose the next election than replace him and lose it himself. Now, at the weekend, his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, has announced that the UK economy is facing its worst economic prospects for 60 years. A more damaging statement could not possibly have been uttered.
Out goes any Labour talk of the damage done by Heath's three-day week in the seventies, Thatcher's rampant unemployment of the eighties and Major's currency collapse in the nineties – these now shrink before the mother of all economic catastrophes right back to the Great Depression.
Darling has screwed up and thrown away, in one interview, countless future Labour campaign slogans, sound bites and urban myths – and we should never again hear Brown to tell us that he has ended Boom and Bust.
Well, we shall see what actually transpires. It might be only as bad as every other Labour government's economic legacy, but the sight of a Chancellor actually talking the economy down is as rare as Osama Bin Laden signing autographs. It is normally only done in private, if at all.
Brown has to respond. He has to show he does not dither, that he has a moral compass worth following, that things may get tough but he's the new leaner, meaner, leader with a just and fair route out of the coming hardship. He has to roll up his sleeves and play a central role at the Glenrothes by-election. He should start it as soon as possible and he should use the Labour conference to appeal to the voters of Fife.
If he fails he will have won our respect – but if he looks for cover he will be a lame duck Prime Minister waiting to be fed to a ravenous and angry electorate.
Palin for PresidentI'm smitten. There's no other word for it. As I stood and watched her speak without notes or an autocue, as she told her own personal story and described how her personal values had taken her from a hockey mom to Governor of Alaska, I fell politically in love. Forget McCain or Obama; just elect Sarah Palin as the next President of the United States.
She pressed all my policy buttons and she has the looks of a naughty librarian – which, even fully-clothed, is sexier than any naked page three girl.
It wasn't long before her opponents started trying to find a weakness and, lo and behold, one of her daughters is five months pregnant out of wedlock.
So what does Mrs Palin, the corruption fighting, moose hunting, salmon fishing mother-of-five do? She issues a statement of support to her daughter and welcomes her decision to have the baby and marry the father. That's the Christian vote sewn up then!
Barack Obama, careful to leave the attacks to media pundits, says that families should be off limits. Well he would, wouldn't he, lest too many people ask why he doesn't do more to support his 12-year-old vagrant half-brother who lives in a mud hut in Kenya (I'm not making this up). If ever there was an abduction waiting to happen it's that poor lad.
What price rail link?So property prices have actually fallen in Edinburgh? The first time since 1971. Well, if it has happened here it must be far worse elsewhere – for the one thing about Edinburgh is the high level of demand from so many sources. It must be tough in Shotts or Tranent.
This news coincided with the realisation that local council plans for schemes such as refurbishing Meadowbank and replacing Portobello High School are now on a knife-edge, as they would be financed by land-for-housing sales.
While we're at it then, can I ask that, if the Borders railway line is to be part-financed by a planning levy on new housing beside the route, what prospect has that got of going ahead now? About as much chance as Sarah Palin being revealed as a Playboy cover girl.
The full article contains 858 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
