大象传媒

Brown to be "forensically interrogated" on Iraq? I wonder if the "best brains" can muster some more obvious questions, such as:

1. Having, as Chancellor, now released in excess of 拢5.3 billion, through the Special Reserve, for Iraq, has it ever occurred to you that you have helped pay for a murderous and costly war?

2. Given widespread opinion on the illegality of the war, from notable people like Hans Blix, aren't you, alongside Tony Blair, directly complicit in that supreme international crime?

3. By what moral standard should someone who refused to speak out about the Iraq catastrophe and loss of over 650,000 human beings be deemed fit to hold senior public office?

Sometimes I find it frightening to think of how these "best brains" can be so consistently oblivious to the gross crimes against humanity being committed by Blair, Brown and their cohorts. That those media "brains" are churning out such fawning swansong/coronation reportage while so many lie dead, and 4 million Iraqi refugees languish in misery, is nothing short of a moral crime in itself.

John

I just switched off Newsnight. Same old lies from a politician who cannot give a decent or honest answer. Same old... same old. I hoped for so much more from Gordon Brown. I will not vote for him. Thirty years of labour support means nothing now. Go hang.

1. When is somone going to ask Brown if he is going to pay back the billions he has stolen from pension funds.
2. Will someone ask him why he is throwing away thousand of billions of pounds on PFI deals.
3. When is he going to take away the legislation which means further education for the rich, not the poor.

If all you wished to do with your in-dpth interview was to give Gordon Brown a chance to say what a nice man he was and how good for the country he would be, then you have done a great job. In any other respect your great 'brains' were an abject failure. I expect a far higher standard of questioning than this. It was like, as someone once said, 'being savaged by a poodle', or , in this case. three poodles.

Why wasn't the Lothian question addressed when challenging about university fees in Scotland? Mr Brown was correct, the decision regarding fees has been devolved and the Scottish people vote for the party that offers the best choice.
How on earth do the English make that choice? If we vote for a party who offer free education they can be outvoted by Scottish MPs on purely party political grounds. Would the Scotts be happy for English MPs to vote against their choice? I think not. The fact that European students don't pay in Scotland but English students do, seems totally vindictive.
Avoiding this issue will lead to a bigger split in the Union. The BNP will gain votes and they will allow total devolution for Scotland but without the necessary cash.

one bone of contention I have with the successtor to the "lap dog"s job.
Get our troops out of IRAQ before election if you wish to remain as prime minister.
TONY"s legacy ....your reversal of that decision...is just.
War in defence .. acceptable
War for OIL/MONEY .. totally unacceptable.
Come on GORDON (british scot) do the right thing....whatever happens after troop withdrawal your glory/legacy.

peace and love
compton of CHERIN

A very good programme. Gordon Brown was slighly evasive over Iraq but he did say that he is putting measures in place to make sure intelligence information can't be manipulated again for political purposes. We must all hope that his measures do work.

The idea of having Gordon Brown as PM is very appealing - it's so pleasant to have a change from Tony Blair. Brown seems a more interesting and more thoughtful character.

I don't think he was asked about a potential postal strike. That could be bad for him on his first few days in office.

Yes in an ideal world he would have resigned over Iraq. The war would still have gone ahead, but possibly his resignation might have been enough to prevent the British involvement.

Politicians are like nappies. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.

I couldn't agree more with comment number five; what happened to Newsnight's normal rigerous debating and analysis? why wasn't Paxman in attendance to question GB? I was really disappointed with this Newsnight interview. As far as Brown is concerned, he reminds me of the snake on Kipling's Jungle Book - there's something I simply do not trust about this man. And he states that the PM job hasn't always been of interest to him - rubbish. The 大象传媒 has really missed (perhpas on purpose) a good opportunity to question GB. Blue Peter's presenters could have done better.

Quized by a quartet of leading political journalists with serious questions! Gordon Brown made the right movements with his mouth but the substance was ducked each & every time. For example.. the Q... how money for the Labour party had been given over "Cash for Honours" et al debacle... he slipped this one by stating, paraphased as,"Not me Gov" & nothing has been found that's illegal YET!.
So how come Mr Brown your party treasurer Jack Dromey went on National Television to say he knew nothing about the millions given to the Party! So allegedly there were 2 accounts ..GB knew zilch about what monies funded the 2005 election?..
pure fiction!And can we really believe he knew nothing about the Iraq dodgy dossier... only taking the blame for flawed intelligence...unbelievable!

This man is full of spin,fibs bliars style & sound bites.. not looking forward to this mans PMship!

I was very dissapointed with the interview. As usual he was let off the hook. I look back to how the 大象传媒 interviewed Tories when they were in power and the difference is staggering. It was like him being interviewd by supporters as the probably are. He was not pressed on anything and they allowed him to ride over them. When Brown had said all he wanted to about something he looked away from the questioner as much as to say 'thats all' and they let him get away with it.

Well I thought it best to wait until the morning before I made a comment here.

I really can't believe how this man - et al - get away with what they are doing.

For instance, recently a local man in my area was sent to jail for growing a few Cannabis plants. Tony Blair - et al - lead the British people into a war that has so far killed <> 650,000 civilians and they get away with an apology..."sorry we wouldn't let that happen again".

Has everybody in the UK gone CRAZY!! I mean stark, staring, MAD? Get these criminals behind bars where they belong!

I will finish with a quote that I think is relevant:

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in
England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after
all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is
always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a
democracy, or a Fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any
country."

Hermann Goering

An interesting interview!

But how could you hear Gordon Brown say a single European currency could be good without asking him how he would control inflation were he to adopt the euro?

Inflation could be controlled without changing the Bank Rate as occurred when we had a Prices and Incomes policy. But I gather this is taboo nowadays!

23rd June 2007

Hey Gordon,

If you're so good at economics why did you sell all the gold. And did I hear a quip about a single world currency in that interview? You scare me with your New World Order speeches. You're not getting my vote

The 大象传媒 had a Golden opportunity to ask the Question:-
What is the total PFI/PPI debt both Nationally and Locally, what is the annual payments, how long for?
But didn't take the opportunity, or was this an out of bounds subject?

Did every one at newsnight bow when gordon entered the studio or what!
This was billed as a big show but turned into a 大象传媒 love-in, my fingers were down my throat.

Peter Barron....reading the foregoing posts I believe the concensus is obvious...IT DIDN'T FOOL MANY VIEWERS!
GB was given an easy ride dressed -up to appear( Frost like)a serious probing debate.

I was completely revolted by this panel of questions to Gordon Brown. Inaccurate/misleading answers by Brown were never followed up. Each panellist had his own list of questions and never seemed to listen or care about the answers to other's questions. It was a complete love-fest and nothing else. Asked about Iraq, Brown said that it was provoked by S Hussein's failure to comply with United Nation's resolutions: no mention by the questioners that Hussein did agree to comply at the very last minute and that the invasion was launched WITHOUT the mandate of the United Nations (and no mention that the one country, far more than Iraq which has brazenly flaunted more UN resolutions than any other country, Israel, has never been threatened with invasion etc) and against the advice of the UN weapons inspectors. Brown said that the invasion was the right decision -- no response from the panellists, asking how the 650,000 deaths and total infrastucture destruction, let alone the lack of justification for the invasion (the bogus 鈥淚ntelligence鈥� regarding WMD etc) can be called a good decision. In fact there is no reason why any independent country in the Middle East should not have its own nuclear deterrent, given that there is one aggressive, rogue nation there which has consistently attacked its neighbors and which possesses atomic weapons. No follow-up on the question concerning Scotland鈥檚 ability to offer free university tuition to Scots --- because the UK parliament awards Scotland 拢1700 per capita more than is set aside for an English citizen. Why would the English want their taxes allocated to killing and destroying another country rather than better education for themselves? The panellists concentrated their tax questions on just one: they wanted to be reassured that the top band of income tax would not be increased. Viewers would have preferred some hard questions concerning the MANY stealth taxes which have hurt the working class and middle class far more, some reassurance that the main family home (purchased with money that has already been taxed as well as VAT on top of that to any maintenance and improvements) can be passed to their children.

I was completely revolted by this panel of questions to Gordon Brown. Inaccurate/misleading answers by Brown were never followed up. Each panellist had his own list of questions and never seemed to listen or care about the answers to other's questions. It was a complete love-fest and nothing else. Asked about Iraq, Brown said that it was provoked by S Hussein's failure to comply with United Nation's resolutions: no mention by the questioners that Hussein did agree to comply at the very last minute and that the invasion was launched WITHOUT the mandate of the United Nations (and no mention that the one country, far more than Iraq which has brazenly flaunted more UN resolutions than any other country, Israel, has never been threatened with invasion etc) and against the advice of the UN weapons inspectors. Brown said that the invasion was the right decision -- no response from the panellists, asking how the 650,000 deaths and total infrastucture destruction, let alone the lack of justification for the invasion (the bogus 鈥淚ntelligence鈥� regarding WMD etc) can be called a good decision. In fact there is no reason why any independent country in the Middle East should not have its own nuclear deterrent, given that there is one aggressive, rogue nation there which has consistently attacked its neighbors and which possesses atomic weapons. No follow-up on the question concerning Scotland鈥檚 ability to offer free university tuition to Scots --- because the UK parliament awards Scotland 拢1700 per capita more than is set aside for an English citizen. Why would the English want their taxes allocated to killing and destroying another country rather than better education for themselves? The panellists concentrated their tax questions on just one: they wanted to be reassured that the top band of income tax would not be increased. Viewers would have preferred some hard questions concerning the MANY stealth taxes which have hurt the working class and middle class far more, some reassurance that the main family home (purchased with money that has already been taxed as well as VAT on top of that to any maintenance and improvements) can be passed to their children.

What a charade!

As for 'forensically interrogated' and 'a compelling watch' ...... words simply fail me. The promise of an inquisitorial approach by the holders of the 大象传媒's 'sharpest minds' was, in the word of one D. Cameron - delusional.

Then again, perhaps they did better during rehearsals, but the dodgy bits were edited out so as to prevent eyebrows being raised prior to the pre-ordained 'agreement reached' announcement at the EU Summit.

All the 'fierce' exchanges reported to have taken place between Blair and Brown in the recent past were as contrived as this Brown interview and the results from Brussels, as predicted, serve to show that the Blair/Brown 'red lines' were as ever, red herrings.
Brown will now feel that he can confidently proclaim that a referendum on Europe is not necessary: this, despite the fact that Blair has yet again agreed to concede - against the Country's wishes - a transferrence of power in no fewer than forty plus other National matters.

I was completely revolted by this panel of questions to Gordon Brown. Inaccurate/misleading answers by Brown were never followed up. Each panellist had his own list of questions and never seemed to listen or care about the answers to other's questions. It was a complete love-fest and nothing else. Asked about Iraq, Brown said that it was provoked by S Hussein's failure to comply with United Nation's resolutions: no mention by the questioners that Hussein did agree to comply at the very last minute and that the invasion was launched WITHOUT the mandate of the United Nations (and no mention that the one country, far more than Iraq which has brazenly flaunted more UN resolutions than any other country, Israel, has never been threatened with invasion etc) and against the advice of the UN weapons inspectors. Brown said that the invasion was the right decision -- no response from the panellists, asking how the 650,000 deaths and total infrastucture destruction, let alone the lack of justification for the invasion (the bogus 鈥淚ntelligence鈥� regarding WMD etc) can be called a good decision. In fact there is no reason why any independent country in the Middle East should not have its own nuclear deterrent, given that there is one aggressive, rogue nation there which has consistently attacked its neighbors and which possesses atomic weapons. No follow-up on the question concerning Scotland鈥檚 ability to offer free university tuition to Scots --- because the UK parliament awards Scotland 拢1700 per capita more than is set aside for an English citizen. Why would the English want their taxes allocated to killing and destroying another country rather than better education for themselves? The panellists concentrated their tax questions on just one: they wanted to be reassured that the top band of income tax would not be increased. Viewers would have preferred some hard questions concerning the MANY stealth taxes which have hurt the working class and middle class far more, some reassurance that the main family home (purchased with money that has already been taxed as well as VAT on top of that to any maintenance and improvements) can be passed to their children.

Anyone praising GB should take a wait-and-see time to do so.

Since he is a politician, it is too early for me to owe him my praises.

I have enough of their rhetorics. At the moment I can prefer TB to GB whose actions are yet to be realized.

It is God alone who knows what is coming with GB.

The daft thing is that my postman says there was NO MENTION of the 2.5 percent on the ballot paper. IE The question was.........YES or NO TO A STRIKE

Does this mean the Union has "conned" us all?