An alternative, but cogent, view of Brown and his drawbacks by Matthew Parris:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article1811270.ece

What is known if anything about his cultural and artistic interest?

Don't disagree with you Tony W when it comes to their personal preferences, but I meant the question on a wider base, it seems to me to be high time that the contribution of the arts and culture to social and personal well being was more deeply understood by the political class. They always seem a so depressing decade or more out of touch with the evidence, incapable of articulating a positive stance and pursuing a positive policy. Indeed, being good on the arts probably means a carrer consigned to the sidelines as an eccentric but interesting politico - Banks, Smith etc. Art & Culture is a lot more important to our society than bloody casinos are to the exchequer.

i am wearing the hat, it doesn't look like i will be eating it

Well, the government has hardly put a foot right since he took the PM job.

And, not being sexist here, I'm getting fed up of seeing all those women ministers staring at the TV camera making excuses while sounding like some old dear down the post office 

<duck-out-of-the-way emoticon>

oh this'll do,



or maybe this,

Until this country gets a decent electoral system (how is it that PR is good enough for Scotland, Wales and London but not for the UK as a whole?) and a properly reformed second chamber I see no hope of improvement. I have finally decided to give up voting as my vote will never, ever, make any difference to the makeup of the House of Commons.

Who now remembers that, when the Tories abolished the then highest rate of income tax, Brown was so apoplectic that the Commons sitting had to be suspended? He seems to have had a brain transplant since then. The 10p tax band abolition was one of the most stupid acts by a Chancellor that I can remember - he only did it so that he could get cheered at the end of his last Budget speech by announcing a reduction in the standard rate of income tax. I suspect that even he had not thought through the implications. And I fear he is turning out to be a completely crap leader like John Major.

As for national depression, see the writings of Oliver James, who argues that one of the root causes is the increase in inequality of wealth and the decrease in social mobility. New 'Labour' have only continued, or even intensified, the policies of the last Tory government in encouraging these things.

So how about Robin Cook? Or Nigel Lawson? Or Kenneth Clarke? Are you equally concerned by what they look like?

What exactly do you mean by an 'abortion voter'? Presumably an abortion campaigner, or protestor - but pro or anti?

I've heard that before.

The sacrifices you make astound me. A round of applause is called for here.

Hello Rauschwerk, haven't seen you around much recently.

Apathy among voters and arrogance among politicians feed off one another. These days people like George Bush and Boris Johnson can get elected by a "democratic" process because in most elections neither side has anything real to offer. Back in the 1960s (which I can just remember) elections were dominated by the parties setting out ways in which they would improve the lot of voters. Now, with globalisation and other factors reducing their leeway on economic policy to a matter of window-dressing, all they can do is encourage a climate of fear from which each party claims they can better "protect" us.

And much of this of course began during the Thatcher years. She may have "presented" herself well, though the sight of her face even now makes me sick to my stomach, but her ruthless dismantling of this country's infrastructure was I think the most catastrophic event to befall it since the second world war.

John, may I respectfully suggest that you are either out of order or pretending to be, neither of which is very amusing.

Hi Richard. Suddenly felt the need to expel some bile, but was not feeling bilious about anything musical. You are spot on about globalisation, of course. In the Thatcher era, politicians seemed willing to surrender a great deal of their power to global capitalism, though they must have realised that there would be no going back. I think Thatcher and her supporters (and by the way the sound of her voice still provokes the same reaction in me as the sight of her face does in yours) twigged that, whatever else happened, it would be the end of socialism in this country. It's not clear to me that any of the major parties has an ideology any more - as you say, it all come down do window dressing so that the choice of party in an election is no more profound than the choice of shopping at Tesco, Sainsbury or Morrison.

I very much regret my electoral apathy. I believe that in a democracy (or should it be 'democracy') one has a moral duty to vote, but now I think: Oh sod it, what's the bloody point!