Gordon Brown – Habitually Disingenuous

Last week in Parliament, Gordon Brown claimed that official capital expenditure will rise between now and the Olympics. It turns out that in fact (according to the governments own figures) it will fall each year between now and the Olympics. Apparently what Gordon meant was that up to 2011 there will be more capital expenditure than in 2006/07. Gordon’s explanation: - “I was just explaining how we had brought forward capital investment to last year and this year. The figure in 2006-07 for capital investment was £26 billion. It has risen to £38 billion in 2008-09 and to £44 billion in 2009-10. That is so we can advance capital expenditure to deal with the downturn."

But then this is the sort of trick our great leader has been playing for as long as I can remember. When he was chancellor he was forever announcing new money for this and new money for that when in reality he was just talking about stuff that had previously been announced months before.

He did the same sort of thing shortly after becoming PM. In a big fanfare he went off to Iraq and announced the withdrawal of 3000 troops as if it was some momentous decision he had just made and a show of decisive leadership. In reality half of them had already left Iraq and most of the rest were leaving shortly anyway (a decision that was made months previously).
“British jobs for British people” he booms (That’ll make a good headline). But when in reality this proves not to be the case (as in the Lindsey oil refinery) he defends himself by saying that he didn’t actually mean British jobs for British workers, he was actually talking about training (silly you for misinterpreting him).

In a recent press conference he denies he planned to replace his chancellor despite everyone in the room knowing that’s exactly what he planned to do (as number 10 had given out press releases to that effect). That moves from being disingenuous to a downright lie. I suppose he’s not the only politician to be deliberately misleading but I can’t think of many others who just 5 minutes earlier gave a lecture about how his father had taught him the importance of always being honest! Pass me the sick bucket.