Brothers in Brighton give the Chancellor a chilly reception

THEY looked like death and Gordon Brown failed to warm them up. The members of the TUC, which has shrunk to a shadow of its former self, cannot even fill a hall for the most successful Chancellor of the Exchequer since Kenneth Clarke.

Mr Brown came before the TUC in the capacity of a globe-trotting external lecturer, generously sparing half an hour to tell these poor benighted provincials what life is like in the outside world.

The delegates did not want to hear about the outside world, and they certainly did not wish to listen to Mr Brown, with his tactless insistence that “China already produces 30 per cent of the world’s television sets, 50 per cent of cameras, 70 per cent of photocopiers, even 90 per cent of children’s toys”.

It would be hard to think of an occasion when a major politician has been received in such a lukewarm spirit. The delegates were too demoralised to boo Mr Brown but too honest to cheer him. A Labour Chancellor was addressing them, but a sense of impotence pervaded the Labour movement.

Mr Brown belongs to the one remaining union of real signifi cance in the Labour Party, known as the T & G, which stands for Tony and Gordon, though Mr Brown generally refers to it as the “Tony and I”.

Yesterday morning he told delegates about “the causes that Tony and I share with you”, which include “ fairness to all in the workplace”, where “nobody should see their health and safety put recklessly at risk”.

Mr Brown’s audience was unmoved. Could this be because delegates realised that while Mr Brown was purporting to share their pain he was actually getting worked up about his own predicament?

For if anyone considers himself deprived of “fairness in the workplace” it is Mr Brown. In a just world, where people stood by undertakings made over dinner in Islington, Tony Blair would long ago have stood down and allowed Mr Brown to become Prime Minister, instead of risking Mr Brown’s health and safety by forcing him to carry on in the menial post of Chancellor.

Soon after Mr Brown addressed the TUC in Brighton, word went round that he had said “more interesting” things in an interview for the lunchtime television news. Yet again, the Government had shown its contempt, not just for the trade unions, but for print journalism.

One sometimes has the impression that these ministers think they can speak directly to the general public. This is a very dangerous development, and this column will join forces with anyone in Brighton who is willing to oppose it. REUTERS