back to article BBC nicely summarises Gordon Brown's legacy

As Blighty staggers today towards a possible LabLibDem alliance, or maybe an unholy ConservoDemocrat pact, the BBC has been busy putting together an in-depth analysis of Gordon Brown's legacy, as he prepares to to the right thing take the long walk into political oblivion. We have to say, it's one of the Beeb's better pieces …

COMMENTS

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  1. Ian Sheppard
    Thumb Up

    Can't fault them

    A pretty accurate summary!

  2. zenith
    Pint

    No mention....

    No mention of the massive debt, then?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      they

      couldn't afford to talk about it.

  3. FunctionalProgrammer
    Coat

    Web 2.0?

    So his legacy is digg/reddit/fb?

    Mine's the flame-retardant...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Short news day

    This is not a very interesting article! Sorry!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    If this was Big Brother ...

    ... then a blank page could truthfully be described as the list of his Best Bits.

    1. Huntsman
      Coat

      @AC's Big Brother comment

      I was going to say if it was Big Brother, we'd have at least seen some tits. But on reflection, this government has provided us with a great deal of tits. Big fleshy ones.

      They say once you've had rack there's no going back, but I don't think I'd like to see any of those lot return.

  6. D Rome

    LOL

    I managed to look and see this, but now they have 404'd it. but sums it up to a T, i would like to say good riddens but there is still a risk he will be there till september :0

    1. Martin
      FAIL

      Good riddens?

      Labour claim to be proud of what they did for education, but judging by the evidence....

  7. impossimole
    Flame

    Typical Brown bashing from the REG

    Leave the politics to the politicians

    1. JohnG

      Democracy

      "Leave the politics to the politicians" - this might apply in an extremist dictatorship like North Korea but not in democracy.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        democracy?

        Well this is the closest I have seen to our "democracy" working. I voted for no one, and no one won.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      move along nothing to see

      Yeah quite right, us politicians know what we are doing... we dont need no one making political comments or mischief ... get back to your insignificant life and leave the real work to us, just dont forget to pay your taxes to keep us in cigars and brandy

    3. MattD
      Thumb Down

      So your saying

      So your saying you don't do politics or perhaps if it was another politician it would be okay to have a crack.

  8. Scott 19
    Coat

    Missing

    They are missing one thing.

    DR 10,000,000,000,000

    I think thats the right amount of zeros for the national debt, a thousand billion then a trillion, anyone know what comes after a Trillion as i'm guess the Lib/Lab alliance will just keep borrowing. They remind me of my sister and her store cards she just keeps getting more and more saying she'll pay it all back by 2015, i have my doubts.

    1. 46Bit

      Re: Missing

      After trillion it's quadrillion then quintillion, etc etc. But yes, this whole drive to reduce the public debt will never actually happen as is needed under Labour - they'll get it down to what it was a few short years ago and say 'enoughs enough' without tackling it all. Personally I'm of the opinion that Britain MUST in future make sure that at least every second year it has a budget surplus come what may. That wouldn't atall be easy, but otherwise we're just starting a cycle of:

      Gov hires loads more workers (from managers to the actual useful staff) --> Deficit gets really high --> Gov fires most useful workers but keeps bureaucrats --> Deficit reduces --> Gov hires --> ...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Budget surplus

        A budget surplus is not a good thing, infact the world bank are trying to get a tax put on countrys who run one.

  9. Chris Miller

    As Enoch Powell observed:

    "All political lives end in failure". Gordon's career was unique in that it began in failure at Granita, continued to fail all the way through the middle with PFI as the Enron Chancellor and then ended in failure in the only leadership election he faced. If only there were a FAIL icon ...

    1. Ivan Slavkov
      FAIL

      Just read the mash

      Mash has the best summary of his legacy

      http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/-election-finally-produces-a-result-201005112717/

    2. bluesxman
      FAIL

      er?

      er?

  10. James O'Shea
    Coat

    Not so

    I didn't see any mention of low-flying Nokias. It can't possibly be complete or accurate without them.

    Perhaps El Reg will rectify the error with a nice Playmobil reconstruction? Please?

    Mine's the Kevlar one with the thick padding, please.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A politcal story

    So I'll hijack it to point out that we are now seeing the true face of proportional representation. At the moment Clegg doesn't give a flying monkey's about the well being of the country, all he cares about is getting PR and he will swap his alliance at the drop of a pin to achieve this. The mere mention of him having talks with Labour caused the pound to devalue and the stock market to fall but he's oblivious to everything except his, and the lib-dems, only way of ever getting a say in Government. If PR is ever adopted every parliament from then on will be a hung one with the tail wagging the dog with thaemain problem being that there will be one dog but many tails.

    BTW, the BBC have been far too lenient with their summary of Gordon Brown, yet another example of their left wing bias

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      If the dog didn't have fleas you might have a point

      Give someone a majority and they'll go to war. A balanced parliament will be a pragmatic one. Imagine Bush trying to push around everyone and not just Blair. A balanced parliament will prevent knee jerk reactions, rash decisions. The only people to benefit from big changes are the money makers. Bad decision sell, good decision buy. No news is good news. Politics should be bland. Inclusive but bland.

      The markets are hovering over the 'buy' button. Same thing happened with the Europe bail out package. Big news big profit.

    2. Captain Underpants

      Yeah, because that's what happens in every other country with PR, isn't it?

      What in the name of God has you so convinced that simple majorities are any better? It just leads to the playground-level bickering that passes for politics in this country as it is. Personally, I find it astonishing that politicians on the election trail actually had the balls to suggest that co-operation of the kind required under a hung parliament would be a problem. I'm sure that nuanced and subtle approach works excellently in foreign diplomacy.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Captain Underpants

        As I've pointed out before, if it weren't for PR the Israeli/Arab problem might have been solved years ago. As it is the extreme orthodox religious parties with little popular support prostitute their vote to whoever will support their own political agenda.

        And as AC wrote shortly after you, would you like the BNP to have disproportionate influence over policy matters in return for support for their agenda?

        1. Graham Marsden
          FAIL

          @Chris W

          If you'd actually bother to do some research, you'd understand that the ATV+ or STV system being proposed for this country is *NOTHING* like the system in use in Israel.

          Still, why let the facts get in the way of a good rant?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @Graham Marsden

            Graham, please state your source for this definite proposal, because until someone in a position to actually action anything proposes it then it is about as much of a proposal as an election promise is a promise.

            Even with STV or ATV you can still end up with candidates who got a higher number of votes as the first choice losing in preference to one who got less votes, where's the fairness in that?

    3. The Islander
      Thumb Down

      Re: A Political Story 14:01

      Simple majorities may work in the playground, but a PR system allows more voices to be heard, surely not a bad feature of a tiny community that controls the proles? The compromises, bickering and shameful deeds go on but are often more visible because of the many spotlights trained upon them

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @The Islander

        These are the election results

        Cons 36%

        Labour 29%

        Lib-Dem 23%

        BNP 2%

        Others 10%

        Now assume that something absolutely needs to be passed by the conservatives, doesn't matter what it is but from time to time it happens, why not say no income tax after the first 250,000 GBP. Unpopular with the general public but whenever have politicans been bothered about that?.

        Now in a PR system each party gets a fair share that's a guarenteed 36% for and 29% against to start with even though it would benefit many Labour MPs. The Liberals join the Tories and the others are roughly split taking it to 65% for and 33% against.

        However, for this particular proposal a two thirds majority is needed, you get the BNP, who have been patiently waiting for such a decisive vote, controlling the outcome and they want compulsory sterilization of immigrants in exchange for their support.

        Maybe the Tories can live with that and sneak in a last minute amendment.

        So much for more voices being heard when it's the smallest that calls the shots.

        I'm not arguing that first past the post is ideal but it's far better than having a government controlled by extremists of any persuasion.

        1. Graham Marsden
          WTF?

          @Chris W

          Is that *really* the best argument against PR you can come up with? A vague, hypothetical situation loaded with hyperbole just to validate your argument that FPTP is "far better" than your misconceptions of how PR would operate in this country?

          Oh deary me.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Graham

            I thought it was blatantly obvious that it was an hypothetical case. However, it does happen, will happen and almost has happened with Clegg trying to play off both sides to further his own political agenda to the detriment of the country.

            You seem to have overlooked my comment that with STV a first choice candidate with more first round votes can lose out to one with less.

            One other thing about ?TV, once my preferred candidate has reached the required number of votes the transferred votes might go to someone I definitely would not want to be in parliament.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      What's wrong with PR..

      ..it would mean that there would be 12 BNP MPs (as they got 1.9% of the vote).

      I pitty the 12 consitituencies that have a BNP MP forced on them but that's democracy (according to the LibDems anyway)

      So..what's wrong with PR.....work it out for yourselves.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        Not *that* proportional

        Don't think anyone will be forcing BNP MPs on any constituency anytime soon.

        The three main proposals, in ascending order of proportionality, are:

        - Alternative Vote (AV) - retains the 'constituency MP' but, instead of Xs on ballot papers, voters get to rank their preferences 1,2,3 etc. If one candidate gets over 50% of first choices then it's game over. Otherwise, the last placed candidate is eliminated and those ballots naming him/her as first choice are recounted, this time looking at the second choice. This repeats until one candidate gets over the magic 50%. So, unless BNP can get a *lot* of first and second choice votes, it's unlikely they'll get in

        - AV Plus - proposed by the Roy Jenkins review way back in 1998. Same as AV, but the 'plus' is a second vote for party, with top-up candidates drawn from party lists. This would probably add one or two BNP MPs from a party list, but they wouldn't be aligned to any particular constituency.

        - Single Transferable Vote (STV) - this would likely do away with the current constituencies as they stand and use much larger super-constituencies (maybe aligned to county or city boundaries?), with candidates returned from party lists based on the share of the vote in the super-constituency. In this case you might have a constituency the size of, say, Nottinghamshire, with 20 Con, 18 Lab, 16 LibDem, and maybe one BNP

        Whatever your opinions about the BNP, surely those people who do vote for them have the right to have their vote fairly accounted for. If that means BNP MPs, so be it.

        No Paris gag, I'm afraid.

  12. Dazed and Confused
    FAIL

    plenty of legacy

    He wrecked the pension system for all private (ie non state) pension schemes in the country.

    He abolished boom and bust - look he told me so, so it must be right.

    He claimed he was responsible for the massive growth in banking profits during his time as chancellor (ie minister for banking) and so can not claim he wasn't also responsible for the crash.

    His lasting legacy though is the £3,000 of debt that he has saddled every man, woman and child in this country with.

    Hard to choose whether him or Blair were worse for the country, but at least Blair has largely gone.

    1. 46Bit

      Re: plenty of legacy

      He did abolish Boom & Bust - it's bust forever now.

    2. Jimmy Floyd
      Boffin

      Not £3,000

      Unless (in the style of Murray Walker) I'm very much mistaken, I think you'll find that you've missed a decimal point there.

      It's £30k worth of debt each.

      Vote Labour? I couldn't afford to...

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Not £3,000, not £30k but £90,000 each household.

        Jimmy Floyd, it is catastrophically more worse than is ever admitted less everyone realise that debt is invented to enslave the masses in just the same way as money is created out of thin air...... http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/a-nation-in-denial-and-deeper-in-debt/story-e6frg6zo-1225864237874

        Which is what Labour have been hiding?

    3. No, I will not fix your computer
      Grenade

      Debt...

      The national debt as a percentage of GDP was around 45% when the tories were turfed out, this was reduced by labour to around 35% the global economic crisis has sent this rocketing to about 60%

      I'm sure you're right when you blame Brown for the global economic crisis, no doubt he caused Greece to become bancrupt too and the collapse of the sub prime market in the states, no doubt he also shat in your vegetable patch (rather than next doors cat).

      By all means restrict your understanding and research to the Sun and Daily Mail, but don't expect everybody else to.

  13. AndrueC Silver badge
    Joke

    What goes around comes around

    It's just like the 1970s all over again.

    All we need now is some half-mad woman with steely determination (see what I did there?) and things will be following a well worn path. I even noticed the other day that our Elm trees are under fresh attack from a new disease. Let's just hope that shoulder pads and crazy hair styles aren't going to make a come back.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    LOL #2

    Nice one.

  15. yossarianuk
    FAIL

    One legacy he will be remember for..

    Thanks to that fat scottish Nixon lookalike I could now face 5 years in jail for possessing a certain herb.

    I can 100% blame Brown for this, Blair was against re-classification (as were most scientific advisers and anyone with half a brain), but bigoted Brown went full steam ahead with reclassification.

    Is the country better off ? No

    Is it harder to score ? No - and the quality seems to have increased

    Has the price gone up ? No

    Has it sorted the gang problem ? No

    Did it make the government more popular ? Look at the election results.

    Can I face more jail time for carrying a herb than a knife ? Yes

    Hey maybe if he was watching the economy rather than giving a f*ck about what people want to smoke in their spare time the country wouldn't be so much in fail right now.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      or maybe if he smoked some of it himself?

      I reckon we should make it mandatory for all politicians!

      Wouldn't life be sooo much better...

      1. blackworx
        Thumb Up

        I suppose

        If the house of commons spent its time eating Wotsits and giggling at South Park reruns they'd at least be out of harm's way. Or rather their harm would be out of our way. Whichever.

      2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: or maybe if he smoked some of it himself?

        "I reckon we should make it mandatory for all politicians!" .... Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 11th May 2010 15:56 GMT

        The Honourable Members of the House and Asylum go very strangely quiet whenever anyone mentions random drugs testing [Stop and Swab Confrontations] of figures paid for from the public purse and especially those with their sticky little fingers always in the Public Purse, which you must have noticed is never Full and always just above Empty and needing Filling.

        With Widespread Random Stop and Search Powers everywhere else, with no Real Reason for Suspicion other than ones apparent Non Occupation or Big Easy Cool or Loud Arrogant Manner, is it probably a Prime Location for Addicts and Pushers of Substance Abuse for its Seriously Deluded Self Serving Rhetoric ...... Sweet and Sticky Candy Floss Spun in a Weird Cabinet Machine.

        And remember to never forget ..... Only Fools play by Rules and Regulations dreamt up and implemented by Fools on Others. And Beware the SMARTer Players whom you will never See Coming to Spirit Everything away.

        Which does make one wonder where all the trillions of money has gone, which has just been recently invented and quantitatively eased into Bankers accounts and which was supposed to be keeping sinking ships afloat rather than feathering Cuckoos Nests and supporting Ivory Towers?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    how do one tell this is a genuie web page capture and no a make up one!

    Type your comment here — plain text only, no HTML

  17. disgruntled yank

    well,

    "All we need now is some half-mad woman with steely determination (see what I did there?) and things will be following a well worn path."

    How sane is the Moderatrix? Dealing with the Register readership might well take a toll.

  18. JB
    Thumb Up

    Overseas user

    So that's what the UK BBC news site looks like - since they decided to use IP geolocation we ex-pats haven's had a choice as to whether to see the familiar UK home page or the 'international' page with a couple of UK stories bolted on.

  19. RW
    Coat

    @ disgruntled yank

    Our Divine Moderatrix is fully sane. She is the epitome of sanity, the standard by which all others are measured. I will not, however, rush to her defense, as she is fully capable of defending herself against all comers.

    Dealing with Register readership has acted as a vaccine.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    I've Seen This Write-up Before....

    I gotta admit that as a Yank, I'm not especially up on the goings on of things on in the political front in those "other" countries, so I always appreciate it when some "respected source" like the BBC can fill me in on what I'm missing, but I gotta say I was shocked. Don't you guys have plagiarism laws? This report is WORD FOR WORD from that illustrious tome, "The Collected Wisdom of George W. Bush". Have you no pride? Or were they perhaps separated at birth? Makes one wonder...

  21. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Let's not be Meally Mouthed about the Worst Pretender Leader and Prime Minister in the Modern Era

    Gordon Brown's Legacy? ...... The Destruction of the Myth and Wayward Experiment of Ignorant Working Man's Power wrapped up in the Charade of an Intelligent Political Party empowered to Change Events to Server their Ignorance.

  22. pctechxp
    Joke

    Don't cry for me Kirkcaldy

    The truth is I'll never leave you.......again

    Shame he couldn't take the whole lot with him, that means Blair 2.0 (Cameron) and Blair 2.5 (Clegg)

  23. tranzophobia
    Thumb Down

    @Chris W

    Just a quick word about the bias of the BBC to the left. Their main politcal editor Nick Robinson is the ex chairman of the Young Conservatives and pretty much makes his views pretty obvious in a lot of this blogs etc....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @tranzphobia

      You need to learn about sarcasm?

      I think everybody else understood.

  24. Jacqui Smith's DVD Collection!
    FAIL

    Spain

    So Mr Haines, how is Spain?

  25. Ned Fowden

    missing the point

    democracy doesn't work, just like communism ... politicians serve none but themselves in the ultimate end and the electorate are as insane as a bag of smashed crabs

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