SEARCHING FOR THE NEW SPECIAL ONE … IN CREWE

BY-ELECTION IS EXACTLY LIKE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL

With the Champions League final and the Crewe and Nantwich by-election falling on the same week, expect the Sunday newspapers to be full of convoluted analogies between the two.

Here are the possible scenarios… 

  

Chelsea wins, Labour wins: Labour, like Chelsea, came back with a hard-fought victory after a ragged season. The new manager has been criticised – but when he needed to be he was there for his team … and his team produced for him. The favourites had flash and pomp going in, but will now be wondering which direction they are heading in.

 

Chelsea wins, Tories win: The new man on the blue team hasn’t been in his job long, but what a wonderful start he has had. The weekend’s results are a firm validation, and it can’t be to long before he wins the Premiership.

 

Man U wins, Labour wins: The reds have done it again, the Scotsmen led his team to victory …

 

Man U wins, Tories win: After a season in which he has been criticised from all quarters, and has constantly faced questions about his job, the weekend’s result was terrible timing for the manager. The class showed. One team this season had a man in charge that the fans and the players wanted, trusted and respected. The other team was a lead by a man with undoubted talents, but no popularity and no charisma. A win this weekend could have changed everything, but a loss is very bad news indeed. It can’t be too long before the manager is looking for another job.

  

Brown needs to hold Crewe and Nantwich. It is the only plausible thing which can give him back some much needed momentum – unless you think YouTube and reality TV might help (see below).

 

BROWN REACHES OUT TO LONELYGIRL15

‘DOWN WITH THE KIDS’ PM LAUNCHES YOUTUBE DIALOGUE

Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister-cum-reality TV hopeful, wants people to engage politically with him on the social networking site YouTube.

In an attempt to prop up his sagging poll ratings – still getting worse – Brown is trying to look like he’s carefully listening to the woes of the everyman. And perhaps realising that real-life is a bit of sinking ship, and whoring yourself online leaves less of a mark on your Presbyterian pride, Brown has turned to YouTube.

“I intend to answer your questions,” he said.

In case you were thinking of what you might ask, he has some suggestions…

“Questions you have about how globalisation is working, what’s happening to climate change, how we can build the houses we need, how we can get the jobs we need for the future, how we can do better with the health services and how we can do better with all the different public services that government provide.”

It’s look like you’re busy with a few already, Gord! It’s reassuring that with a list of problems that daunting to deal with, Brown still has the time to check his YouTube homepage for the latest lonelyPM15 videos. Perhaps the credit crunch is not as bad as we think.

When Brown is sifting through the drivel he gets sent as a result of this appeal, perhaps he will find a video from one of his friends in the high towers of reality television.  Say, a crazed marketing woman with an expensive suit and a penchant for eating babies.

‘Gordy baby! When the hell is your show going to air? I absolutely loved you in the Titanic! Your policies are to die for!”

Brown surely doesn’t hope that we’ve already forgotten that he’s being lined up to star in an Apprentice-style TV show called ‘Junior PM’, a show that will make him “more popular than Alan Sugar,” the gruff cockney geezer who captured the ruddy ‘eart of the nation in his show, The Apprentice.

No flash, just Gordon – not a prescription for winning TV. Even with Tessa Jowell and Darling taking the place of Mary and Nick, the willing assistants.

By-election or not, if Gordon Brown keeps up the so far disastrous PR offensive he launched after Labour lost the London mayoral seat, he is in trouble. A loss in Crewe and Nantwich – looking more and more likely every second – would bring an air of depressed inevitability to the Labour party – a solemn moment of mourning between public displays of unity, followed by the emergence of the vultures, and the collective destruction of Gordon Brown’s rotting carcass by power-hungry rivals. In contrast, if he wins Crewe and Nantwich (or, more accurately, holds it)  it will be interpreteted as only a temporary reprieve.  But win it he must.