Like Matt, I was genuinely impressed by the defrosted Gordon Brown on display at the Google conference. However – and churlish though it may be – I’d like to point out that his Einstein joke (where he swaps places with his chauffeur) is a Brownie. The genesis of this fake and oft-repeated tale is here.
You may think the PM’s claim to have seen a banner saying “worldwide campaign against globalisation” is real because he used it in Jan08, Jul07, Mar07, Jan07 and Nov06 and (first) in a Newsweek article in Sep06. My guess is that he spotted this slogan not in a demo, but in an Apr00 article by William Keegan here. But it’s a good gag, and I applaud the sentiment.
Brown is never dazzling like Blair, but at the end of this I did think he will last those two more years after all.
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