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Globetrotting Gordon heads off to save the world (again)
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor24 Mar 2009
GORDON BROWN kicked off a globetrotting tour ahead of the G20 summit today amid a stark warning from his own party that he risks ignoring the concerns of voters at home.
As the Prime Minister set off for a five-day trip to drum up support for his global economic plans, former Cabinet minister Stephen Byers said the summit could appear irrelevant to the British public struggling with recession.
The senior Blairite called for the Government's VAT cut to be withdrawn and the money spent on taking millions of low-paid workers out of tax altogether.
His remarks came as the Tories attacked Mr Brown for "hobnobbing" abroad while the UK suffered from recession.
After chairing the Cabinet and meeting banking chiefs this morning, Mr Brown set off on a multi-country tour ahead of next month's G20 summit in London.
He was set to make a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, before going to New York and South America.
Downing Street was buoyed by the massive toxic asset plan unveiled by the Obama administration last night.
"It shows the world coming together to meet a common challenge," a senior source told the Evening Standard. But Mr Byers suggested that the G20 summit was doomed to fail because Mr Brown was trying to tackle too many issues at once.
In an article for the website of the Progress think tank, he said the event would be "make or break time" for the Prime Minister.
He warned that with the Budget it would be decisive to Labour's hopes of re-election. "The difficulty that is now emerging in relation to the G20 is that it is simply too ambitious," he said.
Mr Byers suggested that tackling tax havens and changing global regulation were not priorities for Britain at present.
"The question has to be asked whether the time to consider these important issues is now," he said.
The former Trade and Industry Secretary became the first senior Labour politician to back Tory and Liberal Democrat calls for the 2.5 per cent VAT cut to be reversed.
He said the cut was not benefiting the economy or Labour and added that the £8billion should instead be spent on raising personal allowances for the poorest.
Darren Murphy, a former Downing Street adviser to Tony Blair and Alan Milburn, former health secretary, also claimed that a lack of radical public service reform posed more of a threat to Labour than Mr Brown's global economic ambitions.
He said: "The public will look at the G20 summit and say to themselves, 'that's what politicians' lives are about - meeting and talking'.
"Then they will go back to their own lives as patients and parents, neighbours and carers and wonder just how relevant is the G20 after all".
Shadow foreign minister Keith Simpson said: "At a time when Britain is deep in recession with more than two million people unemployed, Gordon Brown is once again jetting off out of the country to try to save the world."
Mr Byers said that "the political danger" for Mr Brown at the summit was that "we end up with a set of high-minded declarations and vague re-assurances that appear largely irrelevant to the concerns of the average voter".
Reader views (32)
Who signs off on all these ridiculous expensive trips which add to nothing except Crash's carbon footprint? No one in the UK believes a word he says, he's disappointed time and again .... why bother trying his luck elsewhere while he's got a job to do at home, and very badly at that?
- Marianne, SW France, 25/03/2009 09:45
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I'm just counting the days till next May and this gang of wasters and scoundrels are drummed out of office. Until then we just have to put up with deluded nonsense such as the G20.
- David, Doha Qatar, 25/03/2009 09:07
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I hope he stays away! Pound sterling is already up 1% today!!
- Georgie, Islington, London, 24/03/2009 16:13
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supergord, give him a phonebox and in the space of an hour,or two he will have got his knickers in a twist and his m&s boxers will be worn on the outside of his saville row suit and the world will be further plunged into global chaos.
is it a bird, is it a plane, no just supergord, oh lumy.
- M.O'Brien, london.uk, 24/03/2009 16:10
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No, he not super man, just batty man.
Please allow him to jump off of the equivalent of the Empire State Building. I am sure he can manage without a parachute.
- Hilary, Germany, 24/03/2009 14:55
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*Cringe!* I know we get a lot of Sarko propaganda on the news here, but GB REALLY doesn't come across on the French news the way he thinks! Thank God England beat France in the rugby to help even things up . . .
- Roz, Chamonix, France, 24/03/2009 14:52
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Can't we revoke his passport once he's left the country.
- Chris, Woking. UK, 24/03/2009 14:11
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I thought he "Brown the egoist",just so you know whom i am talking about i heard was "getting on with the business of Government"
Does he now see himself as an adversary of James Bond characters who wish to rule the world?
Anyhow,probably better if he stays away,matters cannot get any worse.
- Harvey Lawrence, London, 24/03/2009 13:50
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It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. Clown Brown on another jolly, when he should be in the UK sorting out his mess. On second thoughts, maybe it is better for us if he is out of the country, he couldn't sort it out antway.
- Dee Jay, Fleet Hampshire, 24/03/2009 13:15
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has there ever been such a hated, unelected "leader"... does this man not realise EVERYBODY wants him to go?
- David, SOUTHAMPTON, 24/03/2009 12:50
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This man will do anything to get out of PMQs. Would have rather embarassing for him this week; but Ms Harman does read the answers to the planted questions better than him. Come to think of it anyone but him is better.
- Brian Gare, Norfolk Gorleston, 24/03/2009 12:49
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Just like his predecessor this waste of space spend more time worrying about the rest of the world when the United Kingdom is falling down around his ears. Voters will not forget this trust me on that.
- Edriordan, wisbech, 24/03/2009 12:37
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Margy. London.
He's not lost the plot. He's just grabbing everything while he can before he is kicked out.
- Asw, HK, 24/03/2009 12:27
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Showing his green credentials there is Mr Brown; perhaps we would be better off if he walked and that way we would never see him again!
- Kensington, London, 24/03/2009 12:03
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Does he have anything to say that other global leaders want to hear? He cannot get a consensus for the G20 meeting in London, the German & French Presidents, have openly disagreed with his 'strategy' The man is in danger of exposing himself to the world for the unqualified fool he really is!
- Kevin Sullivan, Roehampton, London., 24/03/2009 12:01
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The best thing Brown could do would be to go and not come back. Is there no sense of shame to this man? He has caused massive problems with his social and economic policies and is now trying to re educate the rest of the world.
- Michael, London, 24/03/2009 11:55
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Does he keep the airmiles?
- Dennis, Macclesfield, 24/03/2009 11:45
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Well he's too good for us, please can somebody else take him!
- Frank, Home Counties, England., 24/03/2009 11:40
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He's finally lost the plot! Doesn't he realise the rest of the world is ignoring him and just getting on as best they can? He should sort out his problems at home (like other world leaders) before Lady M sends him off on another PR trip.
Why should the rest of the world listen to a man who in 13 years has managed to completely trash a once proud and decent country.
- Margy, LOndon, 24/03/2009 11:34
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Lets face it, He has not much longer, to enjoy a few free trips, at our expense, Then we can foot the bill of the next idiot to go travelling. On the pretext of putting all that was wrong, right again.
And so it will forevermore continue.
- Stuart Murdoch, surrey, 24/03/2009 11:25
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This is an outrageous waste of tax payers' money. If Brown thinks this "circus" will boost his ratings he is clearly deluded. The only means by which he could boost his popularity ratings and avert total bankruptcy would be if he were to resign and allow us to elect an honest competent government.
- R.F., Yorks, UK, 24/03/2009 11:24
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It's his Macavity act once again: keeping out of the firing line. Why doesn't he just stay abroad - say in Timbuktu?
- Tom Williams, Oxford UK, 24/03/2009 11:19
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Like the vast majority of British people I couldn't care less if our unelected prime minister parted the red sea or walked on water; I just wish for the day that we can roll him out of office.
- Thomas, London, 24/03/2009 11:04
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Is there no end to Brown's vainglorious grandstanding?
- Paul, London, 24/03/2009 10:55
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Why oh why does Brown give the impression that he is on top of everything? We kniow that he coukldnt even see what was coming. Going around visiting he tries to give the air of showing everyone he has the solution. He should stay home and work out the poor future thast awaits us all financially.
- John Hamilton, st.ives Cornwall, 24/03/2009 10:45
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If GB had left the UK when NuLabour first gained power and had never returned we wouldnt be facing anything like the dire mess we are in now.
The longer he stays away and stops "doing something" the better off we all are.
- Jon L, Uk, 24/03/2009 10:37
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MacAvity "the cat" Brown does his escape trick again and has found a spurious reason for ducking tomorrow's Prime Ministers Questions.
I wonder, as people in the UK struggle, how many UK votes will be garnered from Brown's jaunt to South America??
Did the man say South America??
- Bingham Macnamara, lymington, hampshire, 24/03/2009 10:19
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WE have been here before. AKA Tony Blair he started doing "world tours" when his situation looked bleakas PM. Therefore Brown is also now looking to seek an international job AFTER HE GETS KICKED OUT OF OFFICE (OR BEFORE) President of the IMF !!!!!!
- Chris O' Mahoney, Bonnes France, 24/03/2009 10:17
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McMitty is simply doing a Callaghan by going fly-about when he should be here (remember Sunny Jim, he of the beaming smile and "Crisis...what crisis" just months before he was booted out of Number 10 and into political oblivion?).
No surprise there,then.
- Ted, London, 24/03/2009 10:11
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Here he goes again "Global Gordon" self proclaimed saviour of the world off on another tax payer funded trip to attempt to boost his own popularity, which incidentally is at best -20 rating in all of the main 5 political pollsters!
The man has no chance of persuading anyone to follow his plan, he was for 10 years the "Architect of the house of economic misery" that we all now live in.
This is officially the start of the "Brown Out" campaign feel free to join, just email the words "Brown Out" to all your friends and ask them to pass on.
- Wayne, Herts, Uk, 24/03/2009 10:08
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So the vain, lame duck is trying to divert attention away from our problems which he, for the most part, has helped to cause.
He isn't capable of the strategic thinking necessary to ease us out of this mess. Instead he just loads up a series of ill-thought out policies which are never followed through properly and achieve absolutely nothing. Except of course to cost us, the taxpayers, more and more.
What is this all for - to try and bolster the lame duck's reputation.
Is it working? NO, we aren't fooled Gordon.
- Sarah, Portsmouth, UK, 24/03/2009 10:08
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Given what he and his party have done here, we should save the world from Gordon Brown.
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, Hants, 24/03/2009 09:42
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