Bruised Brown’s dull speech fails to inspire

A month on from the “election that never was”, Gordon Brown finally got the chance to reassert his authority at the opening of Parliament. Unfortunately, his speech was 'stupefyingly dull'.

A month on from the disastrous "election that never was", Gordon Brown finally got the "chance to reassert his faltering authority" when the Queen opened parliament on Tuesday, says the Daily Mail. MPs usually relish the occasion, a chance to hear the Prime Minister set out his plans for the year ahead. But looking around the chamber as Brown delivered his speech, despair was "writ large on many a face", writes Andrew Gimson in The Daily Telegraph.

Announcing plans on education, health and housing reform, "for half an hour he was stupefyingly dull". Which is hardly surprising, given that we've "been here before", says the FT. Most of the legislative proposals revealed this week, such as plans to raise the minimum school leaving age to 18, were already announced in July. And even those proposals that were new were trivial. The law making it illegal to incite hatred against disabled people or those who have undergone sex changes "smacks of fiddling and micro-management", says The Daily Telegraph, rather than "visionary inspiration". Hardly the image Brown wanted to portray.

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