Gordon Brown, consulting the public and other matters

The great nose picker has decided to announce a legislative programme in the Commons rather than wait for the Queens Speech in October/November and has placed great store on "consulting the people". Do you think he will allow us to fulfil our "aspirations" over a referendum on the EU Treaty and allow us to be consulted via a referendum?

I was just listening to Gordon Brown rabbiting on to John Humphreys on the Today programme about how much he wants to listen to the British public. Apparently all that happened under Tony Blair is in the past and that we are now in a new age and have started all over again. Sounds as though calling Gordon Brown Stalinist may be a little out, this is year zero, Pol Pot may be closer to the mark.

Apparently Gordon wants to make houses more affordable, not just for first time buyers but also those who want to move houses. Maybe the clunking fist shouldn't have raised stamp duty by so much, that has reduced the supply of houses as well as reduced mobility of labour; of course it has also increased government revenues.

Good grief, John Humphreys has actually raised the 600,000 immigrants question regarding housing demand but Gordon Brown has totally ignored it and John Humphreys has not really tried to make him answer it, I don't think his heart is in it. Gordon Brown has as usual tried to avoid answering any difficult questions but his style of just talking over the interviewer and talking without pausing is already irritating me and will irritate many others soon I am sure. Gordon Brown has another problem when being interviewed; when Tony Blair was being disingenuous there was no difference in tone or speed of his speech (probably because he could manage to persuade himself that he was telling the truth because he was a pretty straight guy). When Gordon Brown starts to move onto areas that he doesn't want to answer honestly, he starts to suffer from pauses appearing in his speech patterns and then moves onto talking in endless sentences without pauses or noticeable pauses for breathing. His last answer this morning went on so long that the original question about the invasion of Iraq increasing terrorist activity in Britain became long forgotten.