George Brown really did look silly when he posed "with the troops" in Basra last week. When I first saw one of these ghastly publicity shots, it was of Tony Blair just after the Kosovo Campaign. Blair was in Iraq, looking earnestly as if he was giving a morale-boosting speech to the troops, but they were all behind him! Since Blair had arrived briefly at RAF Brüggen (from where the RAF were launching raids on the Serbs), and talked to no one, I realised that he was going places only for the photos. But who was he fooling? Certainly no one who had been at those places to be "visited" by Blair. And, I suspect, no one seeing the photos in the newspapers was fooled. Well perhaps people who read the Sun or the Daily Mail ...

And that brings me back to Broon. Blair managed to carry off the deception for a while as he was young(ish), good(ish) looking and used a winning(ish) smile. Broon manages none of these attributes and so we see through the deception to the rather cynical person beneath. Add to this the fact that it appears that he was in Basra to announce the withdrawal of 1,000 chaps and chappesses, 500 of whom were being withdrawn anyway and the silliness of Broon was pronounced.

Then it appears that he was out in Basra to draw attention from the rather unwelcome success that Dave was having at the Conservative conference in Blackpool, and Broon looks more and more like a spinning stuntman. How ghastly! And what an insult to the poor troops who are bored and terrified in varying measure for his political ends (he supported the Blair administration did he not?).

Sometimes, I despair ...

cb

Tags: prevarication