Tough on Grime, Tough on the Causes of Grime

Gordon Brown has tried hide to shake of the shackles of the Blair era. But has he really moved so far from Tony?

His speech to the Labour conference, yesterday, reminded us that, like Blair, he is a top-class political act. He may not chime with many Tories, but he chimes with enough of the country as a whole, just like Tony.

Some of the reasons for this are not so different either. Gordo’s focus on cleaning hospitals made me think of that most vibrant of Tony’s conference speeches. The variance was not huge and he only just side-stepped,

“Tough on grime, tough on the causes of grime!”

Like Tony B, Gordon B also wanted to reach out to Tory and other non-natural Labour voters. He had a nice blue background and managed to pull off that most Blairite of tricks: pleasing both the Gaurdian and the Daily Telegraph at the same time (see their headlines this morning) .

But it was the one thing that I could not stand more than any other about Blair that made me cringe. The Reverend Blair used to continually emote rather than argue. He would assert his moral authority more than present a case based on facts. It was that, more than anything, that led to the British involvement in Iraq. And what of Gordo? He is guided, it seems, by his own ‘moral compass’ above all other instincts. While this sounds like a virtue, it reminds me only of the problems we had with the last chap to say that.

It seems that Gordon’s greatest political trick may just be to have convinced anyone that anything much has changed at all. Maybe the Blair-era has not passed at all.