My favourite prime minister was and remains Tony Blair. Back in 1997, he promised that things could only get better and they did. His legacy of change was tainted for many by Iraq, although for me it was actually enhanced, having a national leader who stood up to genocidal maniacs likes Saddam Hussein made me quite proud. But for today, Iraq no more. While Tony was my darling, Gordon Brown was the best PM.
What? Gordon Brown? He didn’t have Tony’s smooth charm, his charisma. Why, he became PM without even fighting a General Election. He wasn’t “a bit of a laugh” like Boris Johnson, he was the dour ‘son of the manse’ (Preacher’s kid.). Deadly serious, not an entertainer or a poseur. Who wants someone dour and serious? Did we really say that? We surely did.
Gordon Brown saved the world. Literally. In the worldwide financial crash of 2008, Gordon, as I call him, led the world in stabilising banks and finances. When tawdry little bankers – let me think of one in particular: oh yes, Rish! Sunak – were literally making millions by betting against Britain’s economy, Brown was saving us from catastrophe.
I would like to think that 14 years on from booting him out in favour of Big Dave Cameron, followed by Theresa May, Boris Fucking Johnson, Liz Truss and now pint-sized loser Rish! Sunak, that the good folk of Britain may have realised we made a mess of that. Serious, deeply caring bloke or a succession of shysters, liars, hucksters and frauds? It shouldn’t be a tough call.
Let’s look at Gordon (and Tony’s) record in government:
Not only is that ‘not bad’, it’s all true. It all happened. Labour did everything it promised to do and more. 100,000 off NHS waiting lists? They virtually ended them.
Today the Labour Party showed an interview deputy leader Angela Rayner carried out with Gordon Brown. She pointed out that as a struggling young parent, who worked in the care sector, he had changed her life with the changes he made. And it’s true. This dour politician changed lives. But what struck me most during the interview was when Brown said this:
“When we left government in 2010 there were 35 food banks in Britain. There are now 2,600.”
35 was a terrible number. 35 food banks serving people who could not afford the basics in life. People who could not afford to eat. But 2600? Really? Yes, really.
I volunteer one of these food banks – I think I may have mentioned this before – and it disgusts me that I need to be there at all. Millions of people who no longer can afford to eat. In a country where Rish! Sunak and his wife increased their personal wealth last year by £130 million, without doing anything. I accept that it is hardly Sunak’s fault that he enjoyed the best education money could buy, which would have given his access to the top jobs, or that he married a woman from a multi-millionaire family. For some people, their wealth doesn’t erode or entirely remove any sense of empathy, but it did with Sunak. His relentless attacks on those with little or nothing stand in stark contrast to a man, Gordon Brown, whose mission in life was to serve. Now 73, it still is.
Labour leader Keir Starmer is obviously not Gordon Brown but where he is similar is that like Brown he is there to serve people. Not for self-enrichment, to see how much money he can make, not to hand massive public sector contracts to his mates, not to fuck over the poor. No. The simple matter of making people’s lives better. Gordon Brown proved that not all politicians are the same. I strongly believe that Starmer, in a different way, is, too.
What Brown and Starmer have in common is that they are not showy, that they are not entertainers and are accused by a media of being boring, robotic and all the rest of it. They are, of course, neither boring nor robotic. They are serious people for serious times.
As the Gibb brothers so aptly put it, “We’re living in a world of fools breaking us down“. Fools like David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and now Rish! Sunak who have handed us a country where everything is broken and nothing works.
We have the power to change, but change will not come by just wishing for it. Change will only come if we vote for it. On 4th July 2024, I humbly ask my loyal reader to help the country get rid of this awful government by voting for the candidate most likely to defeat the Conservative, be that Labour, Liberal Democrat or Green. Yes, I know the Lib Dems played a terrible role for the Tory government from 2010 and I for one can never forgive them, but if they were the main challengers, I’d hold my nose and vote for them. Similarly, for the middle class luvvies of the Greens, who seem to importing many of the dregs who nearly destroyed the Labour Party from 2015 to 2019. Just this once, do it. To quote the great bard Roland Orzabal, “Change, you can change. Change, you can change“.
