A Very Brown Speech
Phew, that was a long speech – but I have to say a rather good one. Gordon Brown’s first conference speech to the Labour Party as leader has just finished. And, going by the standing ovation, he is extremely good at talking to the converted! But how it played to the rest of the country, the actual voters, is another thing entirely.
Brown obviously made a very clever decision to keep the speech to what he wants to do, how he will do it and roughly when it will happen. But he avoided any talk of an election, he made no reference to the opposition parties, or many references to the past. In many ways it was a very old fashioned kind of speech, a rallying speech that attempted to answer the questions people most regularly ask. And not the media, but the people who actually put crosses on voting papers.
The Labour government has had a surprisingly good summer. They have been presented with a series of problems, from Terrorist attacks in Glasgow to Foot and Mouth, and from the public point of view they have done the right thing as much as is possible. The result of this plus the normal new leader bounce has given Labour a good poll lead. On the other side of the fence, Cameron has been seen to make some bad judgements, for instance blaming the government for Northern Rock when the majority of the public were already aware that it was a situation caused by the American Markets.
Like the speeches of many leaders from many parties over the years, if Brown managed to achieve everything he wished for he would be governing the perfect country – and of course the reality is that this is JUST a speech, and what he achieves is a long way off as yet. But within the aspirational ideals there was also some fairly solid policy arguments on subjects such as immigration, street violence, the NHS and education. And he kept much of what he hoped for in the realms of the plausible and resisted the temptation to wander into a utopian wish-list which has, at time, made the Labour Party a bit of a joke.
So, Where Was Cameron?
The tactic of not mentioning other parties is a clever move by Brown in several ways. Firstly it suits him as a self declared “conviction politician.” He is an obviously serious man when it comes to the things that he views as important, and enjoys explaining his view. I am not convinced he is into rugby tackling his dissenters just because that is what politicians do. Secondly, and I hope this is true, the public has time and time again said that they are fed up with what has become known as Punch & Judy politics, and perhaps Brown has latched onto that. He has given indications before with his idea of a government of the talents, something that he repeated today. If the other parties continue to use criticism and spite they will just end up making the PM look good.
Lastly, as someone with a little bit of a marketing background, I have always been confused why political parties spend so much time talking about the other parties. If Coca Cola spent all their time sayign that they thought Pepsi was rubbish, people would end up buying Pepsi. Why? Because is is not just the opinion people hear but the number of mentions – that is how marketing is worked out, the number of mentions.
By avoiding mention of the other parties as much as possible it is arguable that Brown will starve them just a little of Publicity. They did not get a single mention in the speech and even the commentators were hard pushed to get a mention in.
How Brown will do in the next few months or longer is yet to be soon. Will he be able to build upon this image of trust he was so keen to promote? Will he be able to get the policies he promises working, and at a cost the public is prepared to carry? There are ni guarantees here, there never are, but for the next couple of days I think he had put himself in a very good starting position. The Westminster village will be watching the first PMQs of the season very carefully.
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