Clown's to the left of me, jokers to the right ...

... here I am, stuck in the middle of a political talent show.

This Tuesday saw the pinnacle moment of the year for the Labour Party at a conference in Brighton, UK. Gordon BrownGordon Brown addressed his party's bread & butter supporters with all the conviction that I have asking for a mortgage as a first time buyer at the bank.

It did not start well.

It was so painful to watch that I cringed in a way that you do when you are watching your child's nativity and happen to notice the poor 4 year old child who has wet themselves on stage reciting Silent Night.

Brown began to roll-off Labour's achievements over their last 10 years of government. I was indeed surprised how many I had missed or overlooked. Gordon, who has clearly had a crash course in body language over the past two weeks, used an arm to the left/arm to the right method to emphasize each crowning policy or legislative marvel that he had helped to implement. His problem was that to make the biggest impact he had decided to memorize all of this and not refer to his notes at any point.

This led to classic Brown. The arms increased in speed. The policies were being reeled off at an ever increasing velocity. Minimum wage, lower unemployment, funding for the NHS, school investment it went on and on. As we increased the smile disappeared and the slack-jaw/bulldog look reappeared. Three possible reasons for this in my opinion. Fear of forgetting which piece of political genius came next, disbelief at the gibberish that he was serving up to his own party, or the sudden realization that he was quickly producing a fairly convincing, if not slightly inflated impression of Barry Gibb and Staying Alive.

And this led me to think how fickle and lacking in substance that British politics has become. The emphasis and importance put on one speech to a party conference 8 months prior to an election is seen as imperative to a candidates chances of success. The Sun printed the next day that "Labour's Lost It", confirming there switch in allegiance to the Tories.

Evidently, concrete and well-thought out policy suggestions coupled with an innovative and creative mandate are a thing of the past. Perhaps we should have had Simon CowellSimon Cowell and Piers MorganPiers Morgan up there offering their opinion and suggestion on how the public should vote?

So, the question goes out to the British electorate, on the basis of Brighton, has Gordon got talent?