Monday 1 June 2009

What is Gordon Brown's 'Presbyterian Conscience'?



I've just managed to read Fraser Nelson's Your Sunday evening Fisk where he analyses Gordon Brown's performance on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday morning.

His first point was "To be honest, what I've seen offends my Presbyterian conscience." and asks if this is the first recorded use of the phrase and what do the Presbyterians think about it.

In reply to his first question all I can say is I've never heard it before although I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.  In recent months I find it very difficult to watch Gordon Brown on television and nearly as hard to listen to him, but I do my best because information is essential for any debate.

Having been brought up in a presbyterian household myself, I found it very distasteful for the PM to bring religion into his propaganda.  His definition of his 'presbyterian conscience' is certainly not similar to mine and he implies, by omission, that anyone without a presbyterian conscience would not be offended.  That in itself is offensive to me.

Fraser's 3rd point and says it more eloquently:
Well I've got to tell you, I was brought up in a household where integrity and telling the truth and doing everything honestly was what really mattered.” It’s strange how Brown’s utter lack of any backstory – he’s been a machine politician since his teenage days – means he has to cling on to utterly unremarkable events to try and humanise himself. Most people were brought up in households where lying were frowned upon, and it’s strange that Brown thinks his upbringing was somehow remarkable.

15 comments:

CrazyDaisy said...

Morning Madame,

Hope you're on the mend, I agree with your comment about bringing Relgion into politics, it has no place whatsoever.

The PM was on GMTV at 7.10 this morning and he received a good thwacking by young Ben, which made Andrew Marr's show yesterday look positively amateur!

He once again brought up religion in the guise of "What his old dad/father would have thought about the behaviour at Westmidden", he had no answers to the questions being asked, a lame and shameful performance as Draper's wife looked on without comment and out of camera shot.

Dead man walking springs to mind and gripping on to power with his fingernails, can't wait for Alex Salmond, the SNP and The Scottish Electorate to prise it out of his dead hand in the next year or sooner!

He is a disgrace to the office he holds and should call a GE immediately.

Soar Alba

Crazy D

Anonymous said...

He was pathetic on the Today programme too, CD. Evan Davis got the better of him. He warbled and changed the subject and so Evan spoke though him. He wouldn't answer the questions we want answered though, and ended up sounding weak and stupid.

Like you SR, I've never heard of this Presbyterian conscience. Is that the same as the moral conscience or is this another one he's got tucked away for Sundays?

I agree too that most people are brought up in households where telling the truth and doing things honestly mattered.

Good Lord, how does he think the rest of us were brought up?

LOL... the Word Recognition is "binall". How appropriate for a thread about Gordon and the Lovely Labour Party.

subrosa said...

Morning Sir, yes thank you much better today :) Auch I missed GMTV this morning, was watching Sky News for my sins.

We really need an election this year though CD, get rid of these thieves and this PM who is making the UK a laughing stock throughout the world.

Plus labour are pushing through so much legislation without debate, it's frightening.

Beautifully sunny here and nearly 30 degrees in the sitooterie already!

subrosa said...

Tris, seems like I was watching/listening to the wrong programme this morning.

Brown will possibly fall back on his farming ancestry if all else fails.

Super WV Tris :)

Vronsky said...

Brown is pathetically trying trying to swim towards the lifejacket the media threw into the water for him some time ago. I'm a Christian (so I must be right about everything) and a Presbyterian (so I must be really, really right about everything) and I have a moral compass that tells me what's right and what's wrong (because Presbyterian Christians have cornered the market in these ethical GPS systems).

God, what despicably mournful shite.

It's all so heavily out of touch with the times, so hilariously and tragically distant from reality. As soon as someone announces that they take their morality from religion, smart folks move in a swift and orderly fashion towards the exits, hoping to get there before the dickhead presses the trigger on his explosive waistcoat.

But Brown still pushes this doublethink: religious freaks are terrorists, out to kill us in our beds. Except of course religious freaks like me and Blair. We're the good guys - we kill other people in their beds. Johnny Bloody Foreigner, lives a long way from here, isn't Presbyterian, might as well be dead, the bastard, so it's OK.

It's the Presbyterian doctrine of The Elect.

subrosa said...

Vronsky what a stunning assessment of the man. I thank you.

I remember many years ago being given a copy of the Elect erm dogma. That's when I realised what it really was. Between that, the New World Order and Common Purpose is there any opportunity left for the good people in this country?

Merkin said...

Let us hope The Fisting Clunker is sufficiently Calvinist to realise he is predestined to get shfted in the Euro elections.

That is, unless the postal vote fraud campaign steps up a gear.

subrosa said...

This postal voting business really worries me Merkin. Surely there must be a way to have independent checks?

Anonymous said...

If all else fails Subrosa, I'm sure there's a branch of the Brown family that was in forces, or possibly that were on little fishing boats or possibly even that opened up the interior of Africa.

Doubtless, if needed for the spin machine, they will be invented, no what am I saying, I mean, of course, remembered and trotted out....

subrosa said...

Well tris, that's about the only three areas of vocation that he hasn't mentioned as yet.

I suppose there's still time ...

Henry North London 2.0 said...

Mine was a trained Presbyterian conscience and knew but the one duty--to hunt and harry its slave upon all pretexts and on all occasions, particularly when there was no sense nor reason in it.
- Autobiography of Mark Twain


Just like Mark Twain Gordon McBroon the harbinger of doom is a right storyteller.

subrosa said...

Henry, what a superb quotation. Now I remember that from school and that was long before you attended.

He is the harbinger of doom it's true. I doubt he really wants to be of course, his aim is/was to be the saviour of the world.

Henry North London 2.0 said...

My pleasure.

I have had a busy day and crossed the river twice

Westminster this morning, Highgate this afternoon
Streatham Stockwell, Chelsea, Battersea and Hatfield this evening

And I even managed five blog posts too....

Such fun

subrosa said...

Oh Henry you're putting me to shame. All that jaunting around the English capital plus having the mental and physical energy to blog too. Yer a clever lad so you are and very well done indeed.

Henry North London 2.0 said...

Why thanks for the compliment

Lets see how it pans out tomorrow

I have a house to tidy....

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