Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The weight of expectation

It is hard to imagine the pressure Gordon Brown must be feeling as he prepares for his speech. The media today have ramped this up. The Sun states: “This must be a landmark address. It must stamp his authority as leader of this nation and reassure terrified voters they are in safe hands.” The Times dub it: “the speech of his life”. There is already a link to the speech on the website, but currently it is circular taking the visitor back to the Conference home page, but the hint is in the title 'Fair Chance and Fair Rules'. This suggests it will be aimed at the core Labour members, supporters and voters. But it will not be judged by the objectives set by Brown or his strategists but by expectations of journalists, the audience members they choose to fit their narrative and by the audience themselves whose expectations will be influenced by the media. Would anyone else really want to be PM?

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