TLIAW: For Want Of A Paragraph
- Thread starter Meadow
- Start date
As I say, it might be the chip on my shoulder, rather than Meadow's writing.
In the wake of the first media outburst, I was so hacked off that I informed my brother that I'd challenge him if he so much as ran for a bus in future.
Absolutely. Anybody who wants to be the leader of a political party and potentially Prime Minister should be able to answer that question above all others. If you can't, you have no business being the leader and less than that being PM.
Gordon Brown had addressed the Labour conference before. Countless times, in fact. Nine times as Chancellor of the Exchequer, once as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain of Northern Ireland. He had also addressed every crowd imaginable - from university to the House of Commons, his voice had been heard above jeers and cheers of every shape and size. His maiden speech in the House, now more twenty years in the past, had earned him acclaim as a thundering rhetorician in the great tradition of Scottish lay-preachers. He had brought low Prime Ministers, Chancellors, scandal-riddled ministers and God knows who else. When the clunking fist swung properly, it connected with an almighty crash. But it had been so long since Gordon had last had a proper swing at something.
Or someone.
'The fight of his political life' the press called it. 'Last chance saloon for Broon' wrote the wags. 'Brown's back to the wall' said the front page the Telegraph. Even his last remaining allies were forced to couch talk of 'Brown is at his best when trapped in a corner' in language like 'but has this political animal got one too many wounds to carry on?'
The wounds had been great. The chaos unfolding in America had done nothing for Brown's poll ratings, but his still-strong 'good in a crisis' rating had not gone down, while Cameron's had. But Gordon's problem was a different David entirely.
As Sarah reached the end of her remarks - in an unprecedented move, she was introducing her husband's speech - Brown looked at the monitors and, with an uncomfortable grunt, at the Sky News feed that seemed to consist solely of shots of David Miliband, sat 'inconspicuously' towards the back of the hall. He had a fixed grin, but his eyes were narrow, and occasionally darted around. Good. Let the little shit sweat.
A round of applause told him it was time to walk on stage. He didn't let the lack of any swell of warmth when he appeared get to him. A kiss on the cheek from the woman he loved was, at this moment, all he needed. Sarah leant forward, her lips brushing his ear as she gave a fleeting whisper.
"Go get 'em, tiger," she said sweetly, before striding off stage. Brown, despite himself, grinned.
The opening remarks went down well. Glancing only occasionally at his notes - the glass panels of the autocue came in very handy indeed - Gordon moved effortlessly from falling NHS waiting times to the safe defusal of the Northern Rock crisis. The country, his speech seemed to scream (perhaps too fervently), was in good hands.
There were four applause breaks before he reached the meat of his address. Highly personal, showing an attempt to be self-aware, and painstakingly constructed by Damian around all the 'my background and my school in Scotland' stuff that had played well last year. Well, if the truth played well, there was on harm in repeating it.
The attack on the Tories went down very well, but there was no Labour leader's speech in recorded history where it had not. Dave the Chameleon hadn't exactly 'gone viral', but it did allow for a cheap gag here that put Harriet into hysterics. A swift segue into the usual refrain of 'it's still the same old Tories', this time with 'he may look like a Sixth Former raising money for charity, but...' tacked on in front, completed the segment with a fun flourish.
They got to their feet when he praised The Nurses. The cynic in him told him to do so more often, but his father's voice always scolded such instincts out of his mind as quickly as they appeared. On this occasion, however, it set the stage perfectly for the centrepiece of his remarks: an event many had thought impossible.
Gordon Brown was going to apologise.
Sort of.
He admitted mistakes were made in the removal of the 10p tax band. He apologised that he had seemed out of touch, that he had appeared to be motivated by a desire to punish the poor, that he had been presented in the way he had. The applause was uncertain here - Brown couldn't understand why. A full-throated apology would always be inherently disingenuous, because he knew he had been right to take the decisions he had taken. If they were the wrong decisions, he wouldn't have taken them. Throughout his life, he had known that others struggled to understand this viewpoint - but he could, at least, accept he occasionally made mistakes in the detailed execution of his ideas.
He hoped he was not about to make another.
With a dignified smile - he repressed grins wherever possible - he turned to the banking crisis. The uncertainty in America was laying out a new, rocky road ahead for the world economy. The banking system needed a steady hand on the tiller, and it was imperative that the institutions and nations that controlled it were firmly and responsibly led, by people of clear purpose - and experience.
"This," Gordon began, the silence in the room growing to a crescendo, "is no time..."
Brown's vision was not up to much. But from the moment he'd come on stage, he had marked out where David Miliband was sat. He visibly turned to face him now.
"...for a novice."
Making eye contact with the PM from seventy metres away, David Miliband swore under his breath. His palms, already sweating, began to shake. The grandstanding bastard. The press and the party would eat him alive for using such a major speech to face down his internal rivals. But no sooner had David given himself this meagre reassurance, Brown moved flawlessly into a scathing attack that turned the focus of his 'novice' remark squarely onto David Cameron. This was a rallying cry against the Tories. Any resemblance to former Labour foreign secretaries, careers living or dead, was entirely coincidental.
The speech finished soon afterwards, with bluster and a couple of excitable slip-ups - but none were enough to reduce the impact of Brown's killer phrase, judging by the looks David was getting from those around him. They put him in mind of an unenlightened response to lepers.
David stormed out through a standing ovation for the waving PM - creating the perfect image for the nightly news. Purnell was nowhere to be seen, but David's phone was already vibrating constantly. He didn't need to look at it to know it would be filling up with 'sorry, going to have to back out' messages. His face red and his stomach churning, he strode with purpose toward the lifts, determined to lock himself in his room and try to avoid having a good cry.
"Mr Miliband!" he heard from his left. A journo? No, thank goodness. Someone running a stall, brightly walking towards him. David gave a wave and tried to walk off.
"Mr Miliband, wait, you couldn't do us a picture, could you?"
Pausing, and still trying not to punch a hole in the wall, David turned and put on a horrific grin.
"I'm a bit busy, but..."
"It'll only take a second. Just cop hold of this," the stallholder, wearing a red and green apron, said. David frowned.
"Er, who are you, exactly?"
"Labour Organic," the smiling and brisk woman said as - alarmingly - photographers gathered. And where there were photographers, there were always...
Shit.
"Is this the end of the road, Mr Miliband?" shouted the first journalist as the out-of-breath press pack jostled for position.
"Are you a novice, Mr Miliband?" Nick Robinson chimed in.
"Lord Falconer has just said he thinks it's 'time to end this silly non-contest', David, any comment?" Kay Burley asked.
As Miliband scowled and the cameras flashed, the most abiding image of Labour's 2008 conference came into being: a tired, red-faced man in a suit, fiercely squeezing a banana as he looked daggers at the world.
Ah, yes. That killer line. You've been re-reading Rawnsley closely, I see. 
It was a good speech OTL, and AFAIK the "novice" line was intended for the same recipients as ITTL. With the banana photo-op, Dave seems to have reached the end of the line. Is it the end of the line for this TLIAW, as well? I don't see what he could possibly do now to get rid of Gordon now without someone dying.
This has been cracking. You have a knack for making real people seem... real.
It was a good speech OTL, and AFAIK the "novice" line was intended for the same recipients as ITTL. With the banana photo-op, Dave seems to have reached the end of the line. Is it the end of the line for this TLIAW, as well? I don't see what he could possibly do now to get rid of Gordon now without someone dying.
This has been cracking. You have a knack for making real people seem... real.
Thande
Donor
Cometh the banana...
Brown's speechwriters made a clever move there. They could have pushed it even further as both of them are called David (something which I always thought would've made PMQs weird if t'other Miliband had won the 2010 leadership contest) but that might be pushing it too far: they were doing well for Brown not to mess it up and explicitly say the name in the first place based on his usual track record. (Yes, I know Brown has done some good speeches, but usually only when there was nothing at stake and the media weren't paying attention to them, which might not be unconnected).
Brown's speechwriters made a clever move there. They could have pushed it even further as both of them are called David (something which I always thought would've made PMQs weird if t'other Miliband had won the 2010 leadership contest) but that might be pushing it too far: they were doing well for Brown not to mess it up and explicitly say the name in the first place based on his usual track record. (Yes, I know Brown has done some good speeches, but usually only when there was nothing at stake and the media weren't paying attention to them, which might not be unconnected).
Why do I have the refrain of What's Going On? running through my head right now, just like it did when Bananaman was asked what his plan would be if he were in charge...?
That is just too perfect, isn't it?
It's hard to see how DM can make a comeback from this now. Brown seems to have torpedoed his campaign very effectively. I doubt it will do anything much for Labour Party unity though.
