Gordon Brown's YouYube car crash...

[toxic avenger]

This is causing quite a stir in Britain. The Downing Street YouTube 'channel', on which Gordon Brown was meant to talk to the 'yoof' of the nation on an issue of the day, this week involved him basically announcing policy (today shelved by his own backbenchers) on the hoof about MPs' expenses and second homes, infuriating Nick Clegg and David Cameron, and showing contempt for Parliament. What's also being talked about is his horrible attempts at smiling and gesticulating to make him look 'yoof'. It's pretty embarrassing. The comments on the YouTube page have been disabled, surprise surprise. His own backbencher, Gordon Prentice, spoke of how he was cringing the whole way through it. It is suspected that there won't be any more of these done in a hurry. It is becoming increasingly clear, as political commentators are beginning to say aloud, that Brown is screwed.

Judge for yourselves...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBXj5l6ShpA&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - MPs expenses[/ame]

EDIT - clearly screwed up the spelling in the thread title, could a Mod do the honours? Thanks...

[Bobert]

He's clearly taking his media coaching from Snoop Dog's guy.

[Christine Murray]

so many spelling mistakes (tut)

[McDave]

Looks like he took grimacing lessons from Hughie Green.

[midlander12]

My broadband's so bad it wouldn't play but I managed to fast-forward it without sound - hilarious, real Mr Bean territory.

[toxic avenger]

It's bad. This from the Telegraph:

The turmoil of the past week, following the damage to the Prime Minister over the emails smearing senior Tories, has produced “meltdown” in the parliamentary party according to one minister. Even Mr Brown’s usually loyal Cabinet colleagues are losing patience.
One minister close to Mr Brown told The Daily Telegraph: “We can still turn this round, but Gordon is not listening. He is lashing out and reacting to headlines. It’s all so reminiscent of the last months of John Major.
“If we don’t get our act together — and that means Gordon needs some better advice — we could go down to a defeat every bit as big as, if not bigger than, the Tories in 1997.”
Another Cabinet minister said: “Gordon is looking for someone to blame for the Gurkhas but he refused to see that we were in trouble and did not see it coming. Instead we had the spectacle of the Prime Minister, insisting at the dispatch box at 12.15, that the deal was the right one, only to be defied by dozens of our MPs only hours later.
“I am afraid we are giving the impression that we have lost control of our own side. We have to get a grip, give him better advice, otherwise there will be more talk of leadership challenges, which is the last thing we want.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ministers.html

[Tommy Tayto]

Yo. That mofo can represent, fo' shizzle!

[Catalpa]

Do not adjust your screens Folks

- he always looks like that!

More Shreck than Mr Bean IMO.

[toxic avenger]

The BBC's Nick Robinson:

Gordon Brown shows every sign of having lost the respect, the fear and habit of loyalty from his party which are the foundations of prime ministerial authority. Yesterday, they delivered an unprecedented victory for an opposition motion, even after a direct appeal from the prime minister and concessions from the home secretary.
On Monday, they forced him to abandon the key plank of his proposal to reform MPs' expenses - the daily allowance in place of the much-criticised second homes allowance.
What's more, the head of the independent inquiry into expenses, Sir Christopher Kelly, refused a prime ministerial request to speed up his work and refused to be bound by Mr Brown's ideas; in the Commons yesterday, MPs laughed derisively as a jet-lagged prime minister moved to leave the chamber after question time, apparently forgetting that he had a statement to deliver.

What's more, another foreign leader - the Polish prime minister - embarrassed Gordon Brown on a visit, as had the Czech president before him. Donald Tusk pointed to his own country's fiscal rectitude, making the contrast with Britain all too obvious.

BBC - Nick Robinson's Newslog

[5intheface]

It's the political equivelant of that embarassing Uncle doing some 'cool' dancing at your cousin's wedding. Politicians have not yet grasped that the internet is a completely different media.