Friday, January 23, 2009

Did Evan Davis blow his interview with Brown ? (or did Brown blow his chance ?)

The Mole has been quick to report criticism on Evan Davis interview this morning with Gordon Brown on radio 4's today program, here.

Personally I don't think Evan Davis will be too pleased with this interview. His biggest mistake was trying to jolly Brown along by saying he agreed with him and allowing Brown to summarise the interview by saying we have agreed in this discussion ( not even an interview ).

Also Evan Davis seemed to think that Brown should not be blamed for the debt bubble ( because we now know that what its is ) because he, Evan Davis, didn't spot it either. [ Notice the presumption that Gordon Brown didn't know about the debt bubble - I doubt that's true, and if it is the Treasury should be sacking most of its staff ]. There are plenty of people who warned, including on this blog. As Guido reported some economists even kept pestering the Treasury, but where fogged off.

But the political impact, in my opinion, isn't advantageous to Labour. The public are getting fed a series of horror stories about the Banks bottomless debts and their taking ownership of them, the developing Sterling crisis, the new pensions crisis, the recession and jobs and housing crisis.

Brown's yet another repeat of his Tractor Stats announcements that we've been getting for the last 6 months just confirms to the public that he is either a charlatan or not up to the job. I would expect support for the Conservatives to have gone up the longer people listened to the interview.

Some discussion on the interview is also available at Conservative home here, where Tim Montgomery describes Brown's performance as self evident nonsense - and that is the problem for Labour dwindling band of narrative believing apologists .

Personally I think Evan Davis just had a bad day. He did challenge Brown on his attempt to use the "Do Nothing" spin against the conservatives - pointing out the Tory policies that Brown was implementing, and also trying to skewer him at the end by comparing the state of the Economy Brown inherited with that he'll be leaving the next government. ( There are some colourful rum ours about what Brown said on taking office in 97 on discovering how great the UK economy at the time was . )

But Brown had a worse morning as he was handed enough rope to show just how empty and out of touch his handling of the crisis is.

Update: See also Burning our money where Wat Tyler was actually listening tot he details of what von Brun was saying.

Further: Somebody (possibly not a Labour supporter - but the post is tolerated ) on Labour Home thinks Gordon may not be playing with a full deck, see here. Welcome to the programme Labour homies - many of us have thought Brown's bonkers for some time ! Now what are you going to do about it ? Its also intresting how they have picked up on how negatively people react to Brown's complete failure to engage in the interview.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

On the way to work I have grown used to shouting at my car radio when Brown is ignoring questions but this morning I found myself shaking my head at Evan Davis. The Today apprentice did not have a good day. C- Must try harder.

Praguetory said...

Evan Davies failed, but that's rather beside the point. It was car-crash radio. Nobody feels neutral about this crisis, but our supporters will have been galvanised by Broon's obfuscation and indeed the apparent BBC bias whilst natural Labour supporters will have been non-plussed by Broon's decision to launch into an apparently pre-planned tirade.

WV - upersest

Wyrdtimes said...

I know how Sockjockey feels...

The first question had me screaming "answer the f@cking question" repeatedly at the radio.

He just cannot give a straight answer.

Worst PM ever.

Anonymous said...

I heard the interview on the radio and Brown didn't come across as a politician avoiding the question in the usual ways, answering a question with a question and so on.

It was more like he'd got a set of phrases dealing with an alternative reality and he mechanically repeated them. It was strange.

I think he really believes he's a marvel and has shut out the real world.