Waiting For Gordo 2005: Gordon Brown Speaks – And Sings
Dear Prudence, always saving for a rainy day,
Dear Prudence, always worried what the Bank will say.
The pound is up, but trade’s in red.
Our industry has gone to bed.
Dear Prudence, always saving for come what may.
Dear Prudence, try to keep house prices high,
Dear Prudence, making sure consumers buy.
Inflation’s low, but keep things tight,
Put public spending out of sight,
Dear Prudence, let’s hide it in the PFI.
Money sound sound sound
Money sound sound sound sound sound sound
Heavy pound.
Dear Prudence, try and save on petty cash.
Dear Prudence, put your money in a stash.
Just play it safe, don’t take a risk.
Pretend to keep a rigid fisc
Al policy
Dear Prudence, please don’t let our markets crash.
LACKEY (Brown intonation): Prudence with a purpose. Prudence with a porpoise. Prudence with a prepuce. Prudence on the precipice, moving forward to a new progressive consensus. Endogenous growth. Erogenous growth. Monogamous growth with a strong commitment to the family. A neo-classical model with no cap on aspiration. Prudence with no boom, Prudence with no bust. A flexible labour market summed up best in poetry. A patriotic vision under the banner of a new pro-European realism. Prudence with a porker. Prudence with a poser. Training pilots rooted in their communities but stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains. Prosperity and justice advance together with lone-parent families, starved for decades but now being rebuilt. Prudence with a poster, Prudence with a pasta, Patience with a pruner, entrenching our hard-won stability. Strategies from Warwick. Every unemployed man and woman no matter their birth, race, sex or background an ambassador for business creation. Not hesitating to tell the British people the truth. This year will be harder than last year. On the other hand it will be easier than next year. Prudence with a panda, Portia with a pistol. Coming not to tell you what we have done but to tell you how much more we have to do. Unfinished.
It was harder to caricature Brown’s speaking style than Blair’s, and I had to borrow a zinger from Enver Hoxha. But most of the speech is composed from words actually used by Gordon Brown.
