When I read this morning about Brown and his failed attempt to appear on Match of the Day I tried hard to feel the contempt for his cynical PR ploy that the newspapers suggested I feel. Instead I felt a strange kind of admiration for such blatant opportunism and the willingness of the PM and his PR team to grasp at anything to hitch a ride on the political zeitgeist of popular-cultural integration. As we all know, this is a technique pioneered by Blair and elevated by Cameron in his early years as leader of the Conservative party to a fine art. Despite the cynicism of parts of the media, it has been very successful in winning over the ordinary punter – something that both parties need to be doing to turn around a legacy of low turn-out in UK elections.

The fact is, I admire Brown in this case because, rather than seeing it as a desperate stunt, I believe that in politics the counter-intuitive often works. Sarah Brown’s stewardship of London Fashion Week was completely unexpected when it first took place a couple of years ago. But in the opinions of many it has turned her into Brown’s greatest asset. If Samantha had done the same thing, it would have made no impact at all on David Cameron’s reputation.  Although the Match of the Day attempt may not have worked, more broadly this approach is where Brown might have the edge over Cameron. Brown is perceived as impersonal and awkward, but what if Brown’s faltering style and capacity for PR blunders make him the perfect candidate to build a campaign around his ‘everyday life’? I wouldn’t be surprised if we see at some point during the campaign another Match of the Day style PR attempt for Brown suddenly strike the right chord and have a real impact on his hither-to un-glittering profile as a figure of public empathy.

Based on the counter-intuitive premise, it follows that Cameron’s excellence at using this technique in the past might make the public more cynical about any carefully choreographed PR moments he is planning in the next six weeks. The air-brushing accusations and the android connotations all make this ground trickier for him in the future and my feeling is that Cameron should be careful that he is not seen as trying to emulate his success of a few years ago when he was seen as a star-in-waiting rather than as the possible Prime Minister in a few weeks time. Cameron may well therefore be sensible to steer away from a very ‘lifestyle’ focused campaign and concentrate on winning over the doubters with a serious straight campaign that delivers some really meaty policies – and indeed recognises the public as having the intellectual metal to deal with these.

Posted by Administrator on behalf of Isabella Sharp

A report out today has calculated that the bankers’ bonus tax will raise around £2 billion more than initially thought.

While this begs a number of questions (who got the initial calculations THAT wrong? Why were the banks so focused on short-term gain that they didn’t delay their bonus payments? Why were the banks able to pay such high bonuses if they were really in such trouble? And so on…) the really big question is this: what will the government do with the money?

Will they put it into the general spending pot? Will they use it in a pre-election bribe budget? Or will they do the responsible thing and use it to start paying down our deficit?

This is something to watch for. It’s an indicator of whether the money markets and voters are able to believe Gordon Brown when he talks about making the right choices.

I didn’t watch Piers Morgan interview Gordon Brown last night. I had seen the clips, and the pre-briefing, and the rolling back from the ‘floods of tears’ at the beginning of the week to the ‘welling up’ on Thursday and decided that while I feel desperately sorry for the Brown family in many ways, it does not add anything to my understanding of him as Prime Minister to see him cry (or not).

I think we owe it to our politicians to accept that they are human like the rest of us. They feel pain, and loss, and happiness – and yes, hubris and over-confidence and pride as well. I don’t think we need to trot them out on camera every time they have a tough few weeks to cry on demand. Pity is a dangerous thing.

It’s a difficult line to draw though. Whatever our weird constitution says, we have ended up electing our Prime Minister. This election campaign is going to be Gordon Brown vs David Cameron. So at what stage do we say, no that’s private?

I think it’s right that we ask questions about what motivates our politicians, about what makes them tick. It goes to the heart of what sort of leader they are. Sometimes it can go too far – I really have no interest in forcing politicians to conduct every part of their private lives on TV.

But once again, this comes back to what kind of politicians we actually want. Do we want absolutely squeaky clean, dull, automatons with no understanding of humanity standing for election? I don’t. I want politicians who can acknowledge mistakes, who can empathise but not be overwhelmed, and who can fail or succeed like the rest of us.

The most important thing that politicians can give us is not their tears and emotion, but their judgement. And I don’t think that tears on demand are how they prove their fitness for office.

Gordon Brown’s deathbed conversion to the cause of electoral reform is surely one of the most cynical acts in modern British politics.

Don’t forget that Labour were elected in 1997 on a mandate to have a referendum on electoral reform, just as they were elected in 2005 on a mandate of a referendum on Lisbon.  What was one of the major stumbling blocks to holding a referendum on the Jenkins Report?  Why it was the steadfast opposition to reform of a certain Gordon Brown!  Could this be the same man who yesterday embraced the cause of reforming the electoral system?

Brown’s conversion to reform is an act of unprincipled political desperation.  He is looking to change the rules of the game because his team has fallen behind.  This is the last throw of the dice by a desperate Prime Minister.  It is not a serious case for political reform.

This is a classic Dizzy story…

The top story on the BBC politics page is “NHS IT scheme faces £600m cuts“. The second story is “Brown plans to… use technology to make public services more efficient”.

Have the Cabinet stopped talking to each other entirely? I know they’re not the best of friends, and it must be pretty rough being in the government at the moment but – one day, two stories, two entirely contradictory strategies?