In the words of Paul Routledge, "these days, Gordon Brown could walk down your local High Street handing out fivers, and people would refuse them. But if Tony Blair had done the same thing with fake banknotes, they would have bitten his hand off".If you were seeking further indication that Gordon Brown's career no longer stands a chance, last week was typical. The onset of total hostility that he's getting come-what-may is at levels not seen since the annihilation of Steve McLaren. Even when Brown finally decided to think up practical policies to help ordinary struggling citizens, the usual papers lashed out.
And yet, for once, the Government's £1.1 billion package wasn't designed to build a Millennium Dome, to renew an arms deal, or to rescue a troubled bank and its shareholders. This time, money is going to be spent in aid of thousands of families facing the nightmare of home repossession. It will help them with mortgage repayments and extra social housing. Also, it contains measures to help -albeit marginally- first-time buyers. Analysing the flack the Government's run into on the issue, The Mirror's Paul Routledge has a point: "These days, Gordon Brown could walk down your local High Street handing out fivers, and people would refuse them. They just wouldn't believe they were real. But if Tony Blair had done the same thing with fake banknotes, they would have bitten his hand off".
So you get the Daily Mail's Ian Drury moaning that "millions of taxpayers' money is used to save reckless homeowners who have got into financial difficulties by overstretching themselves", even though he didn't seem to mind Tony Blair wasting £76bn worth of taxpayers' money on the Trident nuclear system or £1bn-a-year on the Iraq war. Not to mention that financial difficulties do not at all equate recklessness. Losing a job, for one thing, can completely mess up your mortgage repayments. But I guess a Daily Mail writer doesn't inhabit the same planet. And, still on the subject of recklessness, don't expect Drury or the Mail to remind you that, if anything, it's the happy-to-lend banks who have a few things to answer for. Did he mind taxpayers' money being wasted to right the heinous wrongs of Northern Rock's executives? Most pathetically, the Daily Mail got together a convenient crowd of people, anyone ranging from bankers to Sarah Beeney, dressed up as "experts", to argue the point against the Government's measures. However, they didn't bother to interview a single family facing repossessions.
This is probably why the Telegraph chose to kick up such a fuss about the marginal detail of the stamp duty cut ('useless', 'insignificant', 'overoptimistic', "doomed to fail"), while it glossed over the bulk of the £1.1 rescue plan. If you read between the lines, it's an implicit admission that the rest of the package is a decent attempt.
However, Brown did himself no favours the way he buckled to the big energy corporations. Last week's talks to persuade 'the Big Six' to accept measures in favour of families struggling with rising bills were thwarted by the utility companies and the outcome tamely accepted by the Government. A "disgrace", according to Unite.
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When the printers, the miners and the shipbuilders were being slung on the dole, did they shed a tear on Wall Street and in the City of London?
When the factories and the docks were closing, when entire working-class communities were being ravaged by mass unemployment, did they give a damn in the wine bars and restaurants of London?
When there were three million unemployed, and families were falling apart under the crushing burden of debt and disappointment, did the bankers care?
No, they did not - we were told, by Maggie Thatcher and her fans, that this was the survival of the fittest. We were told that all our wealth came from capitalism, and that it was red in tooth and claw, and that the weak and the lame had to be left by the roadside.
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