A YEAR ago, Denis MacShane wrote a eulogy of Gordon Brown, then at the apex of his popularity, wherein solar rays seemed to shine out of all parts of the Brown anatomy. But in his column (Yorkshire Post, June 21), a more chastened view of the Prime Minister was portrayed by the Right Honourable Member for Rotherham.

This had to be, considering the flaws Brown has revealed since autumn 2007 but MacShane still attempts, like a latter-day alchemist, to present the ex-Chancellor as a model of high principle, decisiveness and brilliance.

His ludicrous opinion that Brown was the world's finest finance minister will mystify most commentators apart from those Labour zealots whose brains are still addled by the spin of the Blair years. To say
he is the world's best demonstrates biased ignorance or fawning servility.

Even before the current hike in energy and food prices, UK disposable incomes per head, the true test of economic wellbeing, had astonishingly diminished by more than five per cent since 1997. So Brown fails miserably on that score. It is not aggregate national income which matters. That parameter, and the one that Labour continually boasts about, has admittedly risen but so, through mass immigration, has population.

If public services and infrastructure had blossomed to compensate for individual real income decline, Brown's consistent boasting of his economic prowess would be partially justified but here again results, in spite of an avalanche of spending, have failed depressingly in a morass of bureaucratic incompetence and systemic mismanagement.

We are now drowning in an ocean of personal and governmental debt which the hapless Alistair Darling is struggling desperately to allay.

Denis MacShane's contention that Brown's rejection of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty demonstrated the Premier's unbending will to defend Parliamentary democracy is similarly fraught with delusion. Going for a referendum would have opened another can of worms; Brown baulked at the task of persuading the electorate to accept the Treaty, knowing the ignominy of likely failure would have further accelerated the Labour Party into freefall.

Surely, MacShane can see the parallel here with his evasion and hesitation over the autumn election fiasco – the trigger point that revealed the true nature of Gordon Brown.


Our lovely Queen is cheap at the price

From: Ken Holmes, Cliffe Common, Selby, York.

PUTTING things into perspective, 69p per head to maintain our much loved Royal Family is a mere pittance (Yorkshire Post,
June 28).

If I had to choose between Her Majesty The Queen and a
Robert Mugabe to rule over us, the Queen wins hands down.

I fully appreciate the four acres that I am allowed to live on, without the fear of armed thugs arriving during the night to take it off me because of my nationality and colour of my skin. The sooner
the Mugabes of this world go into the other room the better, and long live our
lovely Queen.

From: Iain Morris, Caroline Street, Saltaire, Shipley, West Yorkshire.

OUR involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan may have taught us that the removal of any other tyrant may not be as simple as Mr Roger M Dobson suggests with the SAS taking out Mr Robert Mugabe. It may not be the end but the beginning of a new set of troubles where
our boys are sent to die
in conflict.


New buildings that are lacking the 'wow' factor

From: David S Cheesbrough, Northfield Lane, Horbury, Wakefield.

I RECENTLY received the supplement promoting the city of Wakefield (Yorkshire Post, June 24).

I have to say that in spite of the council's promotion, I am not confident that their plans for the future will result in the best quality buildings.

As an example, the New Market Hall has recently opened, but I have yet, unfortunately, to hear a positive response to the building. It does not, in my humble opinion, have a "wow" factor and it certainly will not survive the passage of time, whereas the old grammar school opposite has done.

It would be interesting to hear what other people have to say. I hope, for the sake of the market's tenants, that it does not become a "white elephant".

According to one of the councillors, the award-winning project just off Wood Street would set the benchmark for the rest of the city's
new projects.

Alas, I doubt that that will be the case. The New Trinity shopping centre looks like any other in other towns and cities, and perhaps it would have been better to invest the funds on improving the city centre. There is such a mixture of architectural styles around the bus station that in my opinion it looks incongruous.

The bus station is similar to that in Huddersfield and Dewsbury and yet with a little more funding we could have had a much better
quality build.

I bet that Harrogate Council would not have allowed such a structure in their town.