Monday, June 07, 2010

Gordon Brown: Petty Wanker

Via Mr Eugenides, I've come across Brown's final abuse of power before he was deservedly forced from left office: reducing the Prime Minister's salary so it affects... David Cameron:
Gordon Brown's failure to turn up for the State Opening of Parliament may well have been because he couldn't look David Cameron in the face. Mandrake hears that one of Brown's final acts in the Downing Street bunker was quietly to organise a pay cut for his successor which he must have known would leave him out of pocket to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

On Brown's orders, the Prime Minister's remuneration package was cut from £194,000 to £150,000, but this was done with such stealth that no formal announcement was ever made.
This perfectly sums up Gordon Brown - petty, nasty and hypocritical to the last.

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8 Comments:

At 9:47 am , Anonymous Implausible Denial said...

Sadly, it's not actually true...

http://wp.me/pSbo4-3v

 
At 11:09 am , Blogger The Nameless Libertarian said...

Even if it isn't true (and the evidence on your blog isn't the conclusive proof that you seem to think it is), I think it speaks volumes about how people perceive Gordon Brown's personality that so many people believed it so quickly.

 
At 12:58 pm , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Implausible Denial - thanks, some people need to stop spreading shite and your info trumps this pricks utter tripe.

 
At 2:19 pm , Blogger The Nameless Libertarian said...

Anonymous,

The story was printed on the website of a leading newspaper. Despite his assertions, Implausible Denial has not comprehensively refuted the story. So why don't you go fuck yourself, you utter dickhead?

TNL

 
At 5:26 am , Anonymous Implausible Denial said...

Charming.

If you'd gone to the link in my post, you'd have read Cameron's spokesman himself refute it!

Downing Street briefing 07/06/10

 
At 10:30 am , Blogger The Nameless Libertarian said...

FFS, I went to your blog, I read your post and the link, that's how I know what you said and what your "case" is. The evidence you present is not the comprehensive denial of the story you make it out to be.

And, as I said before, even if you could provide comprehensive proof that the story is not true (which, once again, you have not done) this sort of thing is highly believable because of the atrocious behaviour of the ever misanthropic Brown.

TNL

 
At 1:02 pm , Anonymous Implausible Denial said...

Of course it's not highly believable! If this had actually happened, do you think one hack in the Telegraph would have been the only one to spot it!! Brown was a piss-poor autocratic Prime Minister, but even he can't just change a ministerial salary without legislation!

As explained here, ministers' salaries are subject to the Senior Salaries Review Board, and governed by the Ministerial and Salaries Act of 1975 as amended by Orders, the draft of which must be passed by a resolution of both houses of Parliament. As this table shows, the last such Order was in 2008.

The idea a Prime Minister could do this in secret just before an election is absolutely laughable. Just because you believe he would do it if he could, doesn't make the original article any more valid as "news".

 
At 1:43 pm , Blogger The Nameless Libertarian said...

Oh, Good Lord!

First up, this is highly believable because Brown is a misanthropic, bitter and twisted man with a tribal hatred for the Tories. Even if it isn't true (and you've yet to convince me of that) then it is still highly believable simply because of Brown's nature.

Secondly, the fact that legislation is required in order to change a ministerial salary doesn't mean that Brown didn't start the process of reducing the PM's salary during his last days in Downing Street. In doing so, he'd put Cameron in an impossible position - either Cameron has to go through with the order and formalise it legally, or he could, as one of his first acts, reverse a pay cut for himself, which would be a PR disaster.

Thirdly, you assume that this took place just before the election - why? It doesn't say so in the original article. Brown could have done this after the election, when he was hanging around Downing Street like a noxious smell despite his loss at the polls.

And as for the original article - it is published on the website of a national newspaper - one that will be very wary of printing anything that could be legally actionable if false (and this sort of rumour is the type of thing that an angry politician would sue over). Given this, a journalist for a national media organisation with sources close to the corridors of power is far more credible to me than an blogger with a chip on his shoulder about a particular story.

But if it really bothers you that much, then I suggest you write to the Telegraph and demand a retraction. You never know, it might even happen. But you'll certainly get more joy doing that than you will from continuing to waste my time.

TNL

 

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