Clunking Off The Political Stage

Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister ans currently Labour MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in Scotland, will stand down as an MP at the next general election .... cue an outpouring of praise for a man who many believe has ruined Britain for a generation to come.

First comes the bullshit from those other members of the Westminster bubble, some of it from people who in reality must have loathed him: 

• PM David Cameron said: "Gordon has given a huge amount in terms of public service and his contribution in government and Parliament ....."
• His successor as leader of the Labour Party, the back stabber Mr Miliband said "Gordon has been a towering political figure for a generation" .... instrumental in Labours "investment in health and education and the minimum wage. He worked with other world leaders to stop the financial crisis becoming a great depression. And even recently he played a really important role in the Scottish referendum making sure there was a no vote". 
• Finally arch manipulator, Peter Mandelson said ..."no-one could take away" his achievements in office. "The balance of achievements will be very much in Gordon Brown's favour."

Then comes the BBC 'analysis' of his career ..... laughable in its dismissal of any failures in this left wing socialist hero (contrast that with the lukewarm analysis of the achievements of the real 'giant' of this political era, Margaret Thatcher, when she died).

• As 'Chancellor Mr Brown oversaw a decade of growth', 
• He made the Bank of England independent and 
• Played a key role in keeping the UK out of the Euro.

Reality:

He was a flat track bully as a politician, beating up those who were weaker, but backing away when faced by those with more balls such as Tony Blair. He was a fair weather Chancellor of the Exchequer ... good at spending money during a world wide boom, even the money we didn't have.

• When he took over as Prime Minister from Mr Blair it was only when he was guaranteed that there would be no contest in 2007 .... in fact he never seems to have competed in, let alone won any election where he was seriously facing opposition.  Even his Scottish Westminster seat of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath is a Labour safe seat, with a 20,000+ majority.
• As PM he chickened out of going to the country immediately, and it looked to everyone like his fear of defeat was the ruling factor. He had never taken on Tony Blair in a contest either, despite much personal antipathy between them, for much the same reasons.
• As Chancellor, by borrowing during a world wide boom, and even inventing the private Finance Initiative, to build it now, pay for it later, he has mortgaged the countries children, and even grand children's future. He has set up debts that we and they will still be paying for long after the shoddy assets he built (virtually all in the NHS, over which he, like many Labour politicians, obsessed), are gone. 
• His 'decade of growth', was a decade shared by every major nation in the world barring Japan. How hard is it to do that? Answer, not very hard. The hard part would have been to not bankrupt us during a boom .... the moral of the crickets and the ants comes to mind when thinking of his chancellorship.
• As Chancellor he stole money from the best run pensions industry in Europe .... it never recovered, and many of us not on an MP's golden pension, will suffer for this until the grave.
• As for 'keeping us out of the Euro', well he apparently decided to do it without bothering to tell Prime Minister Tony Blair (who favoured membership and thought it was the UK's "destiny" to join it), and for political reasons, not necessarily the economic ones at that time .... he always cited his 'five euro tests' as having not been met.  To be fair, he feared that any instability in the euro-zone could threaten his overall reputation for successful economic management, which by chance is what's happened. So he gained some credit by the accidents of the economic cycles, but as for his overall reputation for successful economic management? Well that's entirely another matter.

Saviour of the Union?

This Is Who Many Scots Blame For Their Woes

 
As an architect of Scottish Devolution, and the inevitable path it went down, to describe him as a key player who 'played a  really important role in the Scottish referendum' is a strange one .... he was a major signatory of the Scottish Claim of Right in 1988. To this document and its principles he remained ever true, and his late intervention in the referendum may have been motivated by the fear that he would considered as one of the key architects of the union's dissolution if the Scottish National Party won. Now when it finally happens in a few years time, people will have forgotten his part in the breakup of the country and its balkanisation and his hands will be much cleaner.

Browns Loyalties Never Doubted

He was never this colossus that the Left and the Labour party, will try to make him into ..... in fact it was his parties attitude to white English working class concerns, over his governments open door immigration policies, well illustrated by his run-in with a Mrs Gillian Duffy during the 2010 election campaign (he called her a bigot ... but worse was forced to grovel an apology which he patently didn't mean). Its the consequences of that immigration policy, which is in many ways the driver for the current UKIP rise, which combined with the eventual inevitable break up of the British Union, that will be his real legacies ....

But to end on a positive I'll say this.

He faithfully kept his oath to the Scottish Claim Of right ....

Labour Despise Working Class

Gordon Brown is fighting for his political legacy as well as his political life. He faces being a "no win" PM, a fate that he has feared, and is usually judged a failure by history, something that has paralysed his political thinking since he was gifted his job by Blair. He bottled calling the election then, when he most certainly would have won (albeit with a smaller majority), and has slowly lost chances ever since.

We have discussed the fact that he had been expected to lose the general election, but also that polls had suggested that he may have just squeezed past the post but then came the gaffe.

While 'meeting the public' in a safe labour seat, he bumped into a elderly woman who suggested that immigration was an issue along, with the students fees, and the economy. Brown appeared to answer the questions including stressing that he did understand voters' concerns about immigration. He always 'understands' their concerns but ignores them (I understand the aims of Islam but I don't support them).

Anyway as he walked away from the encounter, he was heard on microphone to call the woman a 'bigot' .... she was white, working class, and had always voted labour. In fact the core of what Labour should be fighting for, but she was dismissed as 'bigoted'.

Brown has since 'apologised', and grovelled that "I am a penitent sinner", and later just spun the event "I thought she was talking about expelling all university students from here who were foreigners. I misunderstood it."

There is nothing he can say or do to hide the fact that under current Labour ideology these days, white elderly and working class, is to be 'bigoted'. This why the BNP are predicted to make headway in Labour heartlands such as Barking and Dagenham.

Brown will not be the Prime Minister after this election ........ as the Conservative leader said of the row, 'Gordon Brown's "bigoted woman" comment speaks for itself'.

Gordon Browns Body Lies A Moldering In A Political Grave

When you have a vote, sometimes the results are a nightmare, and thats what Gordon Brown is finding.

He has apparently been hung out like dead meat by his party, for anyone to take pot shots at, as no one in the party will sack him, for fear that one of them has to take the predicted election defeat in his place.

So he won a stay of execution (again), but will suffer 'death by a thousand cuts' over the next few months instead.

Gordon's Knot Unravels

Sometime ago I suggested that Gordon Brown was

a) Not the right man for the job, and
b) Be lucky to make it to the next election as leader, before being comprehensively rejected by the English (if not the British).

Well it appears that we may be near that end game, with his popularity at an all time low, and his government in turmoil with Ministers leaving, and others deciding to leave him in office to take the inevitable wipe-out next June (in many instances it would seem stupid to take over the leadership now, so better to look "loyal" and earn a few "Brownie points" - sorry about that pun).

It's possible he will survive this crisis, after all its not the first, as his Premiership has floundered for over 12 months, and he may even not get beaten out of sight in a the next general election.

After all, a weeks along time in politics, but I for one wouldn't put £5 on either event, and nor would many others .....

However a note of warning to the Conservatives, the old swingometer, shows that the Tories need a swing of at least 11.5 percentage points, in order to get a 'working majority' (this because they have been so poorly supported in the last few elections), so a 'hung Parliament' is the most likely election result.

New Labour struggles

One of the minor pleasures of politics, is the chance to watch a human being crumble under the pressure of power, its a guilty, secret sort of pleasure, a "Schadenfreude" as the Germans put it.

UK Premier Gordon Brown, spent over a decade 'waiting' for his destiny, he didn't have the courage to 'seize' it, he just waited to be handed it, pretty much as he done since his school days, when he he was made a 'Prefect' or something by the Headmaster.

He has held this overwhelming belief that he was 'destined' for greatness, but this belief is based upon little practical evidence that he has any ability above average. He didn't make millions like Michael Heseltine (his nearest modern Tory political equivalent), and he has never held any position of power in industry, in fact he has done nothing to show he has the spark of greatness, he was even handed the premiership unopposed by Tony Blair.

So it is with some pleasure that we can watch the modern usage of the term 'Hubris' (described as one who demonstrates exaggerated 'self pride, arrogance, or self-confidence' (overbearing pride), often resulting in a fatal retribution) in action on Mr Brown.

• Firstly, he has visibly aged about a decade in the last few months, and
• Secondly the British public soundly dislike him, and are taking great pleasure in kicking his premiership and government of pygmies to death, at every opportunity.

The latest humiliation heaped upon him was in the local and the London Mayoral elections, where as I suggested an earlier post, his party was drubbed in both.

Firstly, "Boris Johnson" won the London mayoral elections quite easily ....
Secondly, despite a low starting base (since their last drubbing under Brown), they managed to contrive the worst local election results for over forty years. Brown is now trying his fourth "relaunch or re-brand" of the year.

Once again he is in "listening mode", of course he does this every time, and then ignores what he hears. He really thinks we are all idiots when he says this ...

He has listened then ignored the UK on

• The EU treaty, where over 80% wanted a referendum - Gordon said no we couldn't.
• Immigration, where most non ethnics want Non EU immigration halted completely - Gordon says 'It's great to have millions of illiterates from the third world to do our office cleaning'
• Taxes - after a decade of stealth taxes, the UK has reached an end of its willingness to fund Gordon's pet projects (The NHS and Tax Credits) both of which have bled billions of pounds for little gain - Gordon says lets pump in another few billion by cancelling tax breaks for the poor! (They can claim welfare benefits instead - New Labour apparently prefers welfare clients to the working poor as they are more malleable).
• The economy, where Gordon claimed to be a financially prudent Chancellor, but under whom Pension funds collapsed, Taxes have reached a record high (since the last Labour government), Public debt is monumental (and still largely hidden under PFI arrangements), and where we are now in a slow down with no reserves (compared with Europe where they saved, not spent, money during the decade of good times)
• Finally Gordon blames the 'bad world conditions' for our current economic woes, but claimed credit for the economy he inherited and the decade of "benign world economic conditions".

So if you are listening Gordon .... "RESIGN!"

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