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| Baying Gordon Brown | Baying Mechanical Elephant |
It was Sunday lunchtime when we got a call from Liza insisting we join her in Piccadilly to see French street theatre company Royal de Luxe and their Sultan’s Elephant show, so seeing as it was good weather we jumped onto the bike and headed into town to join her. It turned out to be definitely worth the effort as the creativity of the show was breathtakingly original and should Royal de Luxe tour in your neighbourhood I recommend you go and see them for yourself.
The news this weekend was dominated by political mechanical elephant Gordon Brown who having spent the last couple of weeks in political hiding is now emboldened to make his pitch for party leadership in the wake of Labour’s poor performance at the local elections. I find him a most disingenuous man who represents everything about musty old Labour that I dislike but the MSM is pushing him as Blair’s replacement enthusiastically in a manner I find disturbingly stage-managed with emotional arguments seemingly holding greater sway than a concrete and rational manifesto of intent. Maybe this is just the way that we do politics in the UK post death of a princess but I never noticed the transformation?
Its possible he can unite a frightened Labour party behind him but the media and the MPs seem to have forgotten that this is not the man who was elected by the people of Britain and placing him as prime minister is little short of coup d’etat. It occurred to me today that should he take up leader of the nation within the next few months we could be looking at one thousand days of Brown before the next election. Biblical reference anyone? Who says the anti-Christ can’t be an overweight middle-aged Scotsman, we are after all an equal opportunities employer.
Linkage :
“The Business” on Brown’s nightmare Britain
Boris Johnson on Brown-power.
Full Monty Brown rant at The Devil’s Kitchen. (Parental warning)
Angelina Jolie heaps praise on Brown.
There is however a slither of a silver-lining to this brown cloud in that after a thousand days of Brown I think we can be sure of a landslide Conservative victory.
Wolfie,
Your analysis is correct. I don’t know Brown very well but he seems to have a certain ‘international’ standing specially among celebrities (not only Angelina). However, he may be a sloppy poltician when the time will come for him to take office and lead the country. We had a precedent here in Canada in the person of the former short-lived liberal prime minister Paul Martin. Martin was the finance minister to three successful liberal mandates leaded by Jean Chrétien and achieved 10 budget surpluses. He was the darling of the international financial elite who would throw praise at him whenever possible. For the last third mandate of Chrétien, Martin became impatient to take office and Chrétien was really reluctant to go. They played the same game as Balir and Brown until Martin organized Chrétien’s ouster from office. Martin revealed himself to be a very unsecure poitician, not able to make his mind on important decisions, surrounded himself with stupid strong men to advice him, was elected with a thin majority while Canadians had nor eason to be unhappy with the liberals and finally had to give in to the conservatives who were elected by Canadians with another thin majority.
Not to be cynical, I think there is a reason why leaders like Blair and Chrétien would not give in for their Brown/Martin, they may have sensed the weakness and the lack of talent in these future statesman. It is not that I think Blair is actually a good leader but the best thing is to let the party choose the person who will lead for the next elections rather than presenting someone as the ‘heir to the throne’. I don’t feel confortable with this ’succession’ process.
Thank you Sophia for the Chrétien/Martin example, its a perfect match in the political sense and I’m sure things will play out here to exactly the same script. Brown is a stalwart of the traditional left and has been at odds with Blair’s centrist politics, which is what enamours him to the old guard of the party.
In spite of his good press Brown has been a terrible Chancellor of the Exchequer who has relied on taking the credit for other people’s work and a considerable amount of spin. A term at the helm will reveal him for what he truly is, I’m sure of that.
I’m concerned about Britain, Italy and Europe. I’m not well informed on recent elections, but the Italian elections have been very troubling for me as an American. We Americans love and respect you all, your efforts in the war on terror and your sacrifices.
We pray for your future.