Gordon Brown: And The Point Is?

Surely this news comes as a surprise to precisely no-one:

The UK government has become "utterly dysfunctional"

Absolutely. The UK government now resembles someone with dissociative identity disorder with massively self-destructive tendencies. It has arguably become the dictionary definition of dysfunctional. And this fact seems to almost be tacitly accepted by its own members.

But it is further confirmation of the complete lack of planning that went into the Brown administration that still startles me:

"When Gordon Brown became prime minister, no clear direction ever emerged from him"

Absolutely. Despite Gordon Brown not calling a General Election so he could spell out his vision.

Of course, there is no shortage of things within the Gordon Brown administration that could be classed as "unforgivable", but surely the failure to come up with any plans before Brown entered Number 10 must rank highly among them. From 1997 - for 10 years - Brown knew he was almost certain to become PM. Hell, it was a safe bet from 1994. Yet at no point during that period did he work out why he wanted to be PM, other than the fact that he felt he should. He never came up with any policies or ideas about what he wanted to achieve; none whatsoever. Few Prime Ministers before Brown have ever had quite so long to prepare for office; yet Brown almost seems to have been caught unawares by the idea that he should have a plan of what he wanted to do with the nation when he became PM.

This would have been shown up prior to Brown becoming PM had the Labour party bothered with a leadership contest after Blair departed; Brown's complete lack of an agenda or even any ideas would have been brought into the spotlight, and maybe his party would have denied him his coronation as Prime Minister. Perhaps this, then, is the true positive legacy of the Brown years; he shows both the importance of having a plan when you become PM (Cameron, take heed) and also how important it is that parties have real leadership contests before they make someone PM. Maybe that's the point of the Brown premiership.

I'd hope so, because as it stands, Prime Minister Brown is totally fucking pointless.