Doing the Honourable Thing

A quote from Kelvin MacKenzie:

“Gordon should take a bottle of brandy and a gun, go to a quiet room, have a drink, then blow his brains out. “

Admirable sentiments, but I fear Kelvin hasn’t thought that one through properly. Such is Gordon Brown’s competence that if tried to shoot himself, he would miss. In truth, Gordon is a local politician with delusions of adequacy who has been promoted way above his station. I fear much the same applies to the rest of the current cabinet. In Gordon’s favour, he has had a couple of years in the job, and that experience alone lifts him above those in his own party who plot to succeed him - though there is still very little between the hopeless and inept array of nonentities and numpties that make up the current government.

A change of governing party or parties is long overdue.

World owes US a debt - Gordon Brown

It's funny how Gordon Brown is trying to distance himself from the credit crunch. Apparently, it all started in America, or so he claims. The fact that other countries blame Britain just as much is something to be glossed over.

Brown was not always so keen to distance himself from Bush's policies. Not that very long ago he was going around telling everybody who would listen that the whole world owes the US a debt. That was, of course, back in the days when people were still listening to Gordon. In fact, I've just chanced upon an old BBC article along those lines:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6920877.stm

So you see, the world used to owe the US a debt. Now the US and the UK owe the rest of the world, and here in the UK it will take decades to pay that off.

Smeargate

There is something very rotten in the heart of Gordon Brown's Downing Street. The more I see of the man, the more I believe it is Gordon Brown himself who has the rotten heart. More obsessed with spin than Blair's government was, he is reportedly most upset that cartoonists portray him as overweight. His first thought at all times is not "how can I best run the country", or even "how can I best portray my party in a positive light", but "what can I do to put one over on the Tories today". Brown looks - to my mind at least - to have condoned this sort of approach. It is nasty stuff, and a government should be above all of this. Even Michael Howard did not stoop to such tactics in his frequently unpleasant 2005 election campaign.

Politics is a brutal game at times, but playing the man rather than the ball is not acceptable. Gordon has built up a spite-ridden regime reliant on smears, lies and instant rapid rebuttals. This isn't about running the country, but about trying to kick the Tories. It is immature student politics. Gordon MUST come out of hiding and make a statement. No ifs, no buts, he is accountable this time and risks further damage to his already battered reputation with every hour he delays.

Where are you, Gordon?

Are You Running Out of Ideas?

Are you a world leader who has failed on the domestic stage? Have your regulatory regimes failed, your policies been exposed and your record been ridiculed? Are you running out of other people's money, or ideas about what to do next about your failing economy? Then why not try hosting a new and improved G20 Meeting!

Yes, that's right! You too can mince around the world stage, where you haven't yet fluffed your lines, and your trousers have yet to fall down. You too can look important, and talk about how awful things are, and give the appearance that you know what you are doing (even if you don't), along with the ministers of up to 19 other countries. Yes, this once-in-a-strifetime opportunity allows you to sit at a big table with foreign bigwigs, and talk cobblers and argue the toss until the chavs are thoroughly convinced you are doing something. You can even pretend to your own national media that you are leading the world, even though foreign newspapers won't waste a single line on you. Yes, all this and much, much more!

Try new formula G20 today. A great substitute for not knowing what else to do.

Is Brown Bonkers?

It looks like I was ahead of public opinion, then. Since my last post about Brown needing to apologise, the narrative has moved on from Bankers, and people have been calling for Brown to apologise himself. Ministers first hinted at regrets, then Brown finally came out with a non-apology, while making it clear he had nothing to apologise for.

The trouble is, even if he were to apologise, and he hasn't come anywhere near, he still needs to admit to himself and to the rest of us that he bears some of the responsibility for this mess. I don't think he will ever do that now, because with every interview or public appearance his statements and proclamations get more ludicrous, more detached from reality, and more deluded. He even seems to believe he is entirely innocent for the bubble in the UK.

Has Brown lost all sense of reality? I realise that Guido Fawkes has been suggesting this for some time, but it is becoming rather obvious nowadays that Gordon Brown is increasingly detached from events. Does he honestly believe he's some sort of Churchillian figure, striding around the world stage, solving a problem the Americans caused and that only he can put right? Or is this just Gordon's inept attempt at spin?

Brown Should Apologise Too

Of late, much has been made in the media of apologies by bankers who were partly responsible for this crisis. While the bankers, and the FSA were largely culpable for this whole mess, it seems that the politicians who encouraged it all are still trying to pretend it was nothing to do with them. Rather than apologise, the former chancellor is still trying to pin the blame on others, and especially American bankers.

Part of the process of recovery from this mess involves admitting that mistakes were made, recognising what those were, and promising not to repeat them. So far, we have heard nothing from the government on that front. I for one am not prepared to give the cretins who instructed the BoE to ignore house price inflation another chance, because clearly they haven't learned from their mistakes. What's more, their efforts during this financial crisis seem only to be targetted at making the situation worse, ie encouraging people to blow their savings or take out more unaffordable debt. That is not an option for most of us as we increasingly fear for our jobs, and in some cases - targetting savers - government policy appears little more than nasty and spiteful.

Consequently, I've now stopped listening to anything the government has to say. I don't necessarily believe the Tories or Lib Dems will be great, but they'll be better than the vindictive pension thieves and savings wreckers who are presently determined to drive us all into the ground. A simple apology from Brown, recognising his part in encouraging the massive unsustainable debt bubble in this country, and assurances that he will do all in his power to encourage the savings culture, would go some way towards opening my mind again. Sadly, I cannot see the present pig-headed and narcissistic Labour party going down that road.

Lib Dems' Odd Literature

The Lib Dems are distributing some very odd leaflets in Geoff Hoon's Constituency. Their literature displays a large bar graph showing the following election results for Ashfield:

Lab 16,735
Lib Dem 12,773
Con 5,406

All over the leaflets are plastered phrases like "The Conservatives can't win in Ashfield", "The Tories cannot win here!", and "Everyone knows the Conservatives cannot win in a constituency like Ashfield". They seem to be implying that only the Lib Dems can unseat Geoff Hoon.

Funny, that. Here are the last election results for Geoff Hoon's seat in 2005:

Lab 20,433
Con 10,220
Lib Dem 5,829

The Lib Dems' bar graphs are actually showing local election votes from a number of council seats across the area which were contested in 2007, yet at no point on the leaflet do they mention this. They always come a very distant third in the parliamentary election for Ashfield.

Of course, if the Tories "Cannot win here", what chance do the Lib Dems have, given that they barely scrape half as many votes? Perhaps most importantly, they might split the anti-Hoon vote if enough people take their misleading literature at face value, just as Geoff Hoon's own vote is collapsing...