The Prime Minister - Gordon click

My brother-in-law always used to refer to Rabbi Lionel Blue as `Rabbi Lionel click' since, whenever he came on the radio to give his Thought for the Day, said brother-in-law would turn it off.

I was reminded of this this morning when listening to the Today programme on Radio 4. The key ten past eight slot was devoted to an interview of our blessed leader by the equally blessed John Humphrys, whose first question was, as I recall: `What are you going to tell the Labour Party in your conference speech?'

I cannot faithfully reproduce the Prime Minster's reply since I turned it off after not very long. You can go and check on Listen Again at the BBC website if you like, but what I remember is a long list of feel-good points with absolutely no description of how they were to be achieved or who would do the achieving:

Brown said:
"Improved health care;
better services;
safer streets;
less gun crime;
motherhood;
improved education;
jam today;
life in the fast lane;
apple pie;
social justice;
us and them;
opportunity;
money, money, money;
soak the rich"

or something like that- as I explained, I'm a little hazy.

This seems to represent a new low in politics-when a politician admits to planning to tell his colleagues a list of sound bites and nothing else. It's understood (bouffe, c'est normale, as my French colleagues would say) that politicians will treat the general public like this. In addition, one suspects that Brown treats his family in the same way ("breakfast, cornflakes, jam and toast, delivery, kiss, briefcase, official car, duty, bye" seems to cover much of it), but surely not his colleagues?

The infantilisation of the British public is a long-running project. How nice it is to hear that the Labour party are not being left out.