Two-faced is an adjective that can be applied readily to New Labour. And the smear-the-wives of Conservative senior politicians Downing Street plan has its counterpart in the talking-up of Sarah Brown as decency, sensitivity and charming intelligence personified. She, it is hoped, will be the counterweight to Brown's bogey-eating, improperly-dressed, slighlty smelly public persona and the unsavoury details of his private behaviour and character that drift about the media.
She has been thinned-down, dressed up a bit and put in public view introducing 'My husband' at the last Labour Conference, entertaining visiting wives, upping her charity work profile, refusing to eat her dinner in Strasbourg (what did she think might be on offer in Strasbourg of all places; there was no need for such rudeness, a word before hand would have produced an alternative dish).
Sturdily she canvasses in Glenrothes, pictured shaking hands with the silver-haired pensioners on their council house doorsteps while her minders are out of picture threatening to kill any reporter who asks her a question about the by-election.
Sarah Brown's usefulness as a guarantor that Gordon Brown is normal and even likeable underlines the awareness in the Downing Street propaganda machine that equal and opposite propaganda effects can be obtained against opponents by the use of black spin. Except that Sarah Brown has stepped into the arena, a willing collaborator in what her husband does. She is a wholly political figure. An actor, not the intended victim of Brown's closest advisors.
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2 comments:
An actor, perhaps a beard.
Yes,Brown covers both sides of the street. Remember when she was used to introduce him at the last Labour Conference, and he claimed credit for not involving his family in politics?
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