Has Gordon Brown saved his skin?
As the PM stood up to deliver what had to be the speech of his life he must have known from an early stage that he had the hall in his lap, they laughed at his jokes, they sighed at his woe and they cheered when he attacked the Tories. Job done Mr Brown?
Well, not quite.
There was no real mention of how he intended to turn the economy around, no meaningful help for those struggling to pay the bills and no mention of how he expected to reduce the budget deficit for 2009 - a deficit which is expected to reach £100 billion!
In all honesty this was probably the speech which the Labour traditionalists wanted to hear and it will probably give him the best chance he has ever had of seeing through his whole term, but will it convince the voters. The next few days are crucial for Gordon Brown as we are sure to see a whole raft of opinion polls hitting the news wires.
It will be interesting to see if he has managed to unmask the 'real' Conservative Party as he puts it, whether he has actually got the public back on his side and whether he will still be Labour leader at the end of 2008. A good day for Gordon, but one swallow does not make a summer!
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