Two of Gordon Brown’s cabinet colleagues have offered some excellent advice for the party and therefore, one can assume, for the party leader. Gordon Brown, not renowned for listening, should take heed, because in spite of where the advice came from it is both critical and relevant. In fact, if I didn’t know better, it would imply that the party is trying to reconnect with the British public, even though it is likely to be too little, to late. In fact, because of where the advice came from, I suspect it may be more about the speech writers wanting to make political headlines, rather than a new political style or commitment.

David Miliband was quoted as saying, “We’ve also got to be honest…this is a political point rather than a policy one,” he said, “We’ve been good about talking the language of priorities but how good have we been about setting and sticking to them?”

Very true David, but you could have added that when you put policies in place, you should also include a way in which the priorities can be measured, with timesscales, so that the public can measure how good you are at achieving your objectives. Of course, honest politics also means keeping to your word, such as the issue that sticks in the craw of most voters, and that is the failure of the Labour government to provide us with a referendum on the EU Constitution as promised in their manifesto.

What is interesting however, was that in spite of this statement by Miliband, just a few hours later, in an interview with Jon Snow of Channel 4 news, he kept responding to questions by re-stating what the Labour party policies were, he repeated the same statement, 5 times! On each ocassion, he ignored the original question.

Hazel Blear said “We’re not going to win the next election by reading lists of achievement. They mean nothing. Nor will we win by denouncing the Tories record in government, because memories are fading and people have moved on.”

Spot on Hazel, the British public is tired of the same old rhetoric, of self-gratulation, of the Labour party carefully selecting which ‘achievements’ to tell us about, whilst carefully avoiding the many, many failures. And, after 11 years in government, the constant harping on about what happened under the previous conservative government. It is not relevant, but perhaps you should share your views with Gordon Brwn, whi in a later television interview kept telling us how much worse it was under the “Tory” government, made worse by his use of selective and in some cases, downright false statistics, what have become known as “Brownies”.

We are also tired of the prime minister at PMQ, side-stepping difficult questions by attacking the record of the opposition or LibDems, we want answers to the questions, not a game of ping pong that has no relevance to the original subject matter.

Gordon Brown has an opportunity at the Labour Party conference to re-launch himself, but I don’t think he will. If I were to predict what would happen, it will be the Labour party moving to familiar ground, old Labour if you like. A move to the left with Gordon Brown trying to secure his core voters with promises of freebies, paid for by me and you!