Brown’s hour-long speech may have been saved by his six-second “no time for a novice” line. He managed to smile as he said it, with a glint of menace that the cameras picked up quite well. And as for the rest of the speech – I’ve spoken to a few Labour delegates and have to report that Brown went down well.
It was a wavelength thing: his claims about his triumphs and Tory failing struck us CoffeeHousers as absurd. But they strike chords with the faith-based community in the hall who actually believe this stuff. So when he promises to legislate to end child poverty – as if that will achieve a single thing – a good chunk of the Labour Party audience will think it’s an inspired idea.
He had some new attack lines on Cameron, which went down well.
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