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Sounds frightening but it isn't. These are not people who can come up with solutions to long term problems; they are of the management consultant variety employed by Blair. They will come up with catchy slogans and sound bites and a new image and a new direction but little substance. The question is can they convince the media to support this type of vacuous marketing? Because if they can't it's just another waste of tax payers money.
Brown would impress far better if he did what he said he was going to do. Have a referendum and abide by the people's vote and open and honest government. One day a politician will come to the astounding conclusion that the electorate are actually quite intelligent and will respond well to honest and open politicians. I don't think Brown is that man; all IQ and no common sense.

Is it any surprise that team Brown is changing? 27% opinion poll rating the lowest since Michael Foot and his dustman's jacket is quite an achievement in only nine months of tenure.

The British public has woken up to the delusion which was the Brown boom - debt financed, without any accountability and failing in all areas. A tsunami of public spending that simply washed away everything in its path.

If you can't show people what they're getting for their money people will ask for it back. Just as the private sector would give the consumer its money back for failure to deliver so the government must return the cash for the failure of the New Deal, the PFI wastage, lost documents, the Rock fiasco, our gold sold at 230$.

The 'so what?' culture of Balls, Brown and co is finally on its way out. Spencer Livermore is having to return to the private sector and earn an honest wage like the rest of us. Good luck to him.

Nick,

That article was dated 5 March - they might have all left by now, realising that rebuilding Brown was beyond even them! He's still a Bottler, however they portray him.

I hope that they are being paid for by the Labour Party, and not from public funds.

Catch up with events, Nick - there's been so much to report - haven't seen you much on the telly either, so there can't be much that's positive to say about Bottler?

Judging from the recent clutch of opinion polls, including ICM in the Guardian, it's Brown and Darling that are next for the revolving door.

Speaking of opinion polls, I can't say I'd noticed the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ giving much coverage to them in the last few days. That surely can't be because you don't much like the output can it?

Thanks for the article, Nick. It was insightful and a good read - very captivating and reflective. I think, it hits a few nails on the head about Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the new team. The Prime Minister spent many years in the treasury in the same way Steve Jobs did with Next Computer, and bringing in his own team reflects the reverse takeover by Jobs when he returned to Apple.

As Steve Jobs faced a declining market for the Apple Macintosh and Apple's own next generation Operating System, Rhapsody, was stuck in development hell, so the Prime Minister's vision and bringing in the best of the best are set to create the OS X of government policy. How can the Tories Windows and Liberal's Linux compete? Answer: they can't. You have cool, or you don't.

Obscured by the cordite and noise of battle, Prime Minister Brown's take-off had all the appearance of a lumbering Wellington bomber but as it looms closer is emerging as a svelte Spitfire. The recent well received policies are like wheels lifting from the ground. Appointments, the trimming of flaps. Media welcome, the pull of joystick and roar of Merlin engine.

All hail Blessed Leader!

More spin and less substance for New Labour? Plus-ca-change.

Its a shame the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s politics reporters are not changing....
And as for Dull & Grey - looked in the mirror and your current blogs Nick ? Try changing your scope on what you report please, its getting rather overcast and very wet....

I wouldn't let any of them stroke my dog.

Following on from Charles Hardwidge's comments, I too feel that a comparison can be made between the Government and the commercial sector. Transtec (like so many others) was a failing business that resorted to fraudulent accounting to cover its tracks and pull the wool over investors eyes. Enough said.

I finally get it. Charles E Hardwidge is a parody. A comedian out to force a laugh from the reader. It's the only explanation for comments such as "The recent well received policies are like wheels lifting from the ground."

The alternative, that he actually believes his writings, is too frightening to contemplate.

Thanks Charles for your efforts in comedy, perhaps you were too subtle at the start but it's all become clear now.

Following on from E Hardwidge's excellent comparison between the Wellington bomber and the Spitfire, I must remind him that the Wellington had some uses. Bottler, I am afraid, is past any efforts of transformation that might be made in improving his image.

If the product is useless in the first place, then why waste effort in trying to repackage it? It must be easier to put wings on a sea turtle to help it fly than to make Brown acceptable now that he has shown himself for what he is - first a tax-grabbing Chancellor and now a dithering, Bottling (unelected)Prime Minister.

The only way out is for Bottler to call an election to give us the opportunity to put him and his crowd in the 'rejects' bin.

Team Brown will become known as 'Team so what' after Ed Balls' disasterous parliamentaryy intervention. 'So what' that he moved to have it struck out of Hansard? So what they sold all our gold. So what they ruined the pension system. So what they lost all our data. So what they promised a referendum and refused to give us one. So what they invaded Iraq on a lie. So what there is higher child poverty now than when they came to power. So waht the new Deal failed and one million new jobs were all taken by immigrants. So what because this is the government that is responsible for this un-holy mess and is unapologetic about it.

In fact they want the credit for a global boom and benign global inflation conditions to which we should all say; so what, we ended up as the most indebted country in the developed world thanks to the profligate Brown.

The wheels have come off the NuLabour Wellington bomber and it's now crash landing. So, what?

Does "Charlie H" work for our blessed leader? If so will he be going on the mis-State visit to Czechoslovakia.

Mr Darling referred to "stability" 23 times in his Budget because he is stuck in big hole dug by his predecessor.

It is no coincidence that Prudence disappeared out of the Treasury when they moved to the PFI funded 1 Horse Guards. Up until then it was a statue in the old Treasury building.

No matter how grim things are (and by God this country's in a mess), Charles E Hardwidge's posts can always be relied on for a good laugh.

Your opinions are a wind-up, surely?

A previous comment says that Livermore will have to return to the private sector and earn an honest crust. I think you may find that he has never actually had a "proper" job before. He went straight to the LP on leaving uni so the real world may be a bit of a shock to him!

Reading the list of people being appointed to the Brown team suggests they have no particulalr political bias or convictions just that they are career people who do a job for money. Is this not what is really wrong with politics? The public used to believe politicans and their associated policy makers at least believed in the core ideology their 'Party' purported to represent. Spin has now taken over and everything is stage managed to get votes. Here we have a failing Prime Minister who is hiring a team of essentially non political career 'PR' people to spin himself back into favour. I feel sure all the political parties are just as bad, but Brown is Prime Minister and has continually said he will do away with spin and have a more honest Government. As such Brown should be making his own decisions and giving leadership not wasting tax payers money trying to spin popularity and find an easy route back to electoral glory. Brown has proved himself to be a politcal coward who cannot take Premiership responsibilty It was fine whilst he was hiding away in the Treasury bullying everyone into submission and keeping his head down whenever there was a big problem. Now he is truly under the spotlight with nowhere to hide we can see the true Brown. The deluded and freeloading Blair was bad enough, now we have another disfunctional man at the head of the country. Will it ever end?

Reading the list of people being appointed to the Brown team suggests they have no particulalr political bias or convictions just that they are career people who do a job for money. Is this not what is really wrong with politics? The public used to believe politicans and their associated policy makers at least believed in the core ideology their 'Party' purported to represent. Spin has now taken over and everything is stage managed to get votes. Here we have a failing Prime Minister who is hiring a team of essentially non political career 'PR' people to spin himself back into favour. I feel sure all the political parties are just as bad, but Brown is Prime Minister and has continually said he will do away with spin and have a more honest Government. As such Brown should be making his own decisions and giving leadership not wasting tax payers money trying to spin popularity and find an easy route back to electoral glory. Brown has proved himself to be a politcal coward who cannot take Premiership responsibilty It was fine whilst he was hiding away in the Treasury bullying everyone into submission and keeping his head down whenever there was a big problem. Now he is truly under the spotlight with nowhere to hide we can see the true Brown. The deluded and freeloading Blair was bad enough, now we have another disfunctional man at the head of the country. Will it ever end?

Ah, the Spitfire! I prefer the Hurricane. Totally THE WORKHORSE of WW2, not some light and fluffy show-off.
Also while we are at it,
Never has so much been so taken by so few, or
He shall take them in their wallets, he shall take them on the roads, he shall never surrender (unless it is Europe!)

They come from the nebulous world of PR, and depart to the vacuous world of advertising.

Why in, heaven's name, would anyone think these people suited to work in government in the interim?

The choice of such people indicates a lot about the poor character of our PM: in spite of his supposed 'intellectualism' (for which I've never actually seen any evidence. A ghost-written book about 'courage' - a concept completely alien to its supposed author surely doesn't count), he is, like his predecessor, concerned more with style and presentation than with substance.