Do Brown’s survival chances look better?

Sorry about the site going down in the middle of the speech. We’ve been overwhelmed by traffic with so many wanting to follow the discussion.

I found interesting the way he name-checked almost every single cabinet member – that’s a Brown innovation. He very rarely recognises that there is anybody else within his government.

Overall I felt there was a surprising lack of passion. I was expecting much more than that.

There was also the good joke about now not being the time for a novice. Was that a swipe at Cameron or Miliband?

Will it have made a difference? Well for the short time – yes. But how will it look next week when the Tories have started to pick it at and, of course, Cameron has made his big speech.

There will undoubtedly be a polling boost if only because of the scale of the coverage tonight. Will that be sustained?

Sorry about the multiple postings. I was desperately trying to get a new thread up and made a number of attempts.

Mike Smithson

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