SILLY COUP

It was all silliness, this coup......

......At least that was how Brown dismissed it in an interview with The News of the World. Amazingly, obviously unaware of his lack of drawing power, he also promised to serve a full term as leader if Labour was re-elected.

He told the paper (somewhat disjointedly and incoherently): "I can't answer for the feelings of one or two people. But politics is full of...you know, large numbers of people are involved and they have to make their own decisions. They have got to be free to make the choices they want. I'm sorry it happened. I think it was a form of silliness."

Then the signs of delusion started to show: "I am the Prime Minister and am determined to remain so. I am determined, I am resolute" he said.

Brown revealed too that he had been turning to Tony Blair for advice. "Tony and I talk a lot," he said. "We have kept in touch and I have been drawing on his advice, as I always do. Tony Blair is one of the greatest British Prime Ministers. He served the country with huge distinction and is, to give him credit, responsible for a large number of reforms that we made. He is a very good friend of mine and always will be."

Here we have to be mindful of the publication Brown chose for his post coup interview... TNOTW, it continues: Glamorous Sarah will be thrust into the election limelight after Labour chiefs identified her as the PM's greatest asset. She has redrawn her diary so she can be constantly at her husband's side during the hectic four-week run-in to polling day. Sarah says: "I will support Gordon and the party, the same way I always have."

Still the same old nut job then. He thinks that telling the public that he will be there for another 5 years will be some sort of incentive to vote Labour; he expects us to believe that he and Tony are good friends; and he, who promised that he would never use his family in politics, will be thrusting his wife into the limelight.

It’s a woeful state of affairs when you biggest asset is not in fact your leadership, your intellect, or any of your policies, but your ...erm "glamorous" wife.

LEAKED LETTERS SHOW BROWN REFUSED TO SPEND MONEY ON VITAL HELICOPTERS

Former defence secretary, Geoff Hoon who was behind last week’s attempted leadership coup and now has nothing much to lose (there’s never going to be a Lord Hoon), looks set to do further damage to Gordon Brown with the disclosure that he (Brown) vetoed the purchase of vital military helicopters.

Leaked letters show that, when chancellor, Brown prevented Hoon from ordering life-saving battlefield equipment for Afghanistan and Iraq. Hoon, who was dismissed as an embittered traitor by Brown’s allies (?) for the failed email plot, has the potential to further undermine his leadership in the run-up to the general election.


According to the Sunday Times, the leaked letters show Brown personally overturned earlier Treasury assurances that the Ministry of Defence would be free to spend extra cash on troop-carrying helicopters. Hoon had warned that, if Brown refused to back down, “We would have to scale back on major equipment programmes.” He went on to claim that the helicopter programme in particular would suffer.


Last night, Hoon refused to comment on the letters, passed to The Sunday Times by Royal Air Force sources, but this is hardly important now, as the Sunday Times has it splashed over its front page. It is likely that Hoon, who is due to give information to the Chilcot inquiry, will now be asked in detail about the letters.

The leaked letters show how Brown’s actions from 2002 to 2004 meant that the military were unable to buy new helicopters which could now be in service in Afghanistan. The lack of air support has forced British troops to take dangerous journeys by road, exposing them to deadly Taliban bombs.

Military chiefs have long complained that the Treasury under Brown starved them of resources.

The revelations will be personally embarrassing to Brown, and damaging to the image of a Prime Minister who has waved the union flag and lectured us at length about showing support for the troops who are fighting (so he says) to keep the Taliban off the streets of England (by which he really means is London).