Brown's crucial speech
Oh that was painful. Agony. It was squirmingly, screamingly, startlingly bad. It was dull. It was plodding. It was morose. "When he speaks to you it's like a mental block; I just zone out," said a woman on Newsnight's floating-voter panel the night before. "Cheer up!" the panel unanimously urged the Prime Minister. Cheer up? I nearly hanged myself from my hotel trouser press. In place of levity we had seriousness, hard work and a moral purpose. And New Rules. There were some nice lines, but mostly it was a list, not a speech: thud after thud of meaningless proclamations - we will be the party of law and order, we will be the party of the family, this will be the British century. Voters wanted a sense of direction. He gave them health checks, broadband connections and nursery places for Mancunian two-year-olds. Alice Miles The Times
Full article: Labour needs a wand to make Gordon Brown disappear 
The Mole: Why did Ruth Kelly jump?
Hard work as Brown plays to his strengths
He gave it his utmost and it was his best speech - as it needed to be, writes Polly Toynbee. Sending smart bombs down the Tory chimneys, their leader delighted the hall. But don't let's get carried away by the mood in a hall heaving with sighs of relief that his speech was no disaster. Brown is more surely saved by seismic rumbles and tumbles in Wall Street and London yesterday than by any mere speech. The hard truth is that for all the razzamatazz in airless party conference halls, few speeches ever change anything - only Neil Kinnock on the Liverpool militants, Margaret Thatcher's "the lady's not for turning" in the depths of her 1981 unpopularity and David Cameron's great strut last year that halted Brown's election dead in its tracks. By those standards, Brown's speech was no game-changer. Polly Toynbee The Guardian
Full article: Brown's speech: A strong red line
The Mole: seven out of 10 as Brown mixes personal and political
I think it must have been the 14th or 15th time I have heard Mr Brown make a variant of this same speech, whether as shadow chancellor, chancellor, or prime minister, writes Simon Heffer. Does it occur to him that after you have promised a better health service, schools that don't turn out functional illiterates at the age of 16, and toughness on crime (and, for all we know, toughness on the causes of crime), for the 14th or 15th time in as many years that some of your audience might just begin to suspect you haven't a clue how to achieve these ends? This was a speech addressed solely to the client state. Anyone middle class will have struggled for the hour's duration of this thoroughly uninspiring list of past so-called achievements to find anything in it for them. Simon Heffer Daily Telegraph
Full article: Gordon Brown's conference speech won Labour over, yet they're doomed if he stays
The US election and the economy
With just six weeks to go before the election, both candidates are trying to keep events in Washington (and in Manhattan) at something of a distance, compelled to respond to them but wary at the same time that they might find themselves on the wrong side of the next outburst of populist indignation against greedy bankers, says a Guardian leader. In a more simple world this election would be a straight contest between a free-market liberal Republican who took responsibility for the Bush administration's record and a welfarist Democrat who promised a new deal to get middle America's jobs, mortgages and savings into good order once again. In some ways, stripped down to essentials, that is what it actually is. But the election is also still about hope, experience, the real economy, national security and race. Leader The Guardian
Full article: Keeping distance from Wall Street
In praise of the financial meltdown
Another killing in Finland
The youth of Finland seems to be living on a short fuse, says Roger Boyes. Only ten months after the Jokela school shooting - eight dead that time - there is again blood in the corridors and classrooms of a college in this apparently placid and consensus-loving country. In small-town Finland - with nothing much to do except hang around in cliques forged in school, with the days shortening, with parents absent and the geographical distance between the homes of classmates unusually long - traditional friendship was slipping away and being replaced by social networking sites. Although all Finnish schools have psychiatrists, they are overworked. Teachers geared to ensuring exam results are failing to spot depression. And in a society with a hunting tradition, guns are readilly available. Roger Boyes The Times
Full article: It is time the Finns looked hard and close at their kids
In Brief
Yeovil’s young Socialist
Alastair Campbell. The man who used to decide who in the political playground everyone should pick on. One of the truly brilliant operators of the past 30 years, the man who worked the inside to win three general elections. And there he was, reduced to standing on the steps of Labour's conference centre handing out stickers calling for unity. Handing out stickers, as if he was secretary of Yeovil Young Socialists. With John Prescott, for goodness sake. Daniel Finkelstein The Times
Full article: Labour doesn't get it. It thinks the voters are wrong
New Labour: an elite defined by hate
Sarah steps up
In volunteering to make her short but poignant speech, Sarah Brown achieved the one thing Gordon Brown cannot do for himself - she made him appear normal. Those two words 'my husband', spoken with a mixture of nervousness and pride, did more to humanise the Prime Minister than his 57 relentless minutes of lecturing about fairness and equality. Amanda Platell Daily Mail
Full article: How she made Gordon at last seem normal
A nation of bad parents
Parents are lousy. Nursery is great. And that's why Gordon Brown thinks that children really ought to be in day care for 15 hours a week at the age of two. Thanks chum, for the vote of confidence. I simply can't wait to return the favour. Deborah Orr The Independent
Full article: Why does the Government think we're a nation of bad parents?
How to do health care
The NHS is relatively low-cost and effective. Germany spends 20 per cent more than we do, France 15 per cent more and the US double. The US has the poorest health and life expectancy of the four. These figures challenge the implicit assumption that higher expenditure is always a good thing. Nigel Crisp The Times
Full article: Don't let cancer controversy destroy the NHS
Gazza slides into despair
Our national sport treats its stars apallingly once they are past their sell-by dates. Gazza must be taken a long way away, to one of the hard-core Hazelden rehab units in the US, where other inmates won't have a clue who he is. He must spend at least a year there, learning to live without drink and football. On his return, he must be supported and found a decent job. And the FA should pay for all this. Janet Street-Porter The Independent
Full article: Gazza's slide into despair shames us all
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