Thursday, April 01, 2010
Prime Minister or pariah?
The Sun has dubbed Gordon Brown as The Invisible Man after a short analysis of 120 campaigning leaflets and letters by their reporters found that 93 per cent of Labour's General Election candidates omitted his photo from their leaflets.
They add that in a clear sign that sitting MPs and new Commons hopefuls believe the Prime Minister is a liability, 86 per cent have no written mention of his name. The bigwigs in the group whose literature was included in the survey includes former-Cabinet minister and Olympics supremo Tessa Jowell, Mr Brown's former spokesman at Number 10, John Woodcock who is Labour's candidate in Barrow-in-Furness, Sadiq Khan, Transport Minister; Gareth Thomas, International Development Minister; Mike O'Brien, Health Minister; Maria Eagle, Equalities Minister; Paul Goggins, Northern Ireland Minister; Dan Norris, Waste and Recycling Minister; Alan Campbell, Crime Reduction Minister, David Kidney, Environment Minister, Claire Ward, Justice Minister; Ian Lucas, Business Minister; Helen Jones and Mark Tami, both government whips.
I am sure that I have seen this story before, or at least something similar to it. If my memory serves then back in 2005 certain newspapers were claiming that Labour candidates were snubbing Tony Blair on their campaign literature in favour of Gordon Brown. How things change.
Having said that it does pay to put this story in context. The Sun is hardly known for being a pro-Labour newspaper. In fact it has come out for the Tories at the next General Election, following which David Cameron's lead in the polls started to slip. Nothing like objective reporting to start the day with.
They add that in a clear sign that sitting MPs and new Commons hopefuls believe the Prime Minister is a liability, 86 per cent have no written mention of his name. The bigwigs in the group whose literature was included in the survey includes former-Cabinet minister and Olympics supremo Tessa Jowell, Mr Brown's former spokesman at Number 10, John Woodcock who is Labour's candidate in Barrow-in-Furness, Sadiq Khan, Transport Minister; Gareth Thomas, International Development Minister; Mike O'Brien, Health Minister; Maria Eagle, Equalities Minister; Paul Goggins, Northern Ireland Minister; Dan Norris, Waste and Recycling Minister; Alan Campbell, Crime Reduction Minister, David Kidney, Environment Minister, Claire Ward, Justice Minister; Ian Lucas, Business Minister; Helen Jones and Mark Tami, both government whips.
I am sure that I have seen this story before, or at least something similar to it. If my memory serves then back in 2005 certain newspapers were claiming that Labour candidates were snubbing Tony Blair on their campaign literature in favour of Gordon Brown. How things change.
Having said that it does pay to put this story in context. The Sun is hardly known for being a pro-Labour newspaper. In fact it has come out for the Tories at the next General Election, following which David Cameron's lead in the polls started to slip. Nothing like objective reporting to start the day with.
