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GOVERNMENT - THIS TIME IT'S SERIOUS

I get the feeling that the 'Serious Man' (thinks) he is here to stay, AND HE'S TURNING UP the s e r i o u s n e s s.

'All the talents' have been dug up again.

But J Gordon still bumbles his unscripted words - not unlike Dubya, and the nails are still chewed. He met Nick Robinsons beautifully phrased jibe about the 'question, to which the answer is Mandelson' with the usual tractor-output figures, when he might have asked what question yields: 'Nick Robinson'. Brown by name, Brown by nature. The light at the end of the tunnel, reflects of a solid wall.

Crudass sidelined? Wait for the revenge of the left.
My Labour left-wing colleagues are furious. I thought there would be blodd on the floor after my party gets anihilated at the next election. Bring it forward 6-12 months.

Best news the media have ever had.

"The Prime Minister should be much more inconclusive"?

Meaningful typo?

ADDITIONAL TO #1

Brown is further characterised by that grin-that isn't (and a rare one of genuine Machiavellian delight, such as when the 10p announcement was made). And today, he was heard to 'insert' the new mantra-word 'fair' in a way as crass and incongruous as the gauche deployment of that non-grin.
There is not enough maturity and competence in J Gordon Brown to put a country in his keeping. He is more suited to the pulpit, where falsehood also reigns king, but no-one is harmed thereby.

3. At 8:53pm on 03 Oct 2008, adamlivingstone
"The Prime Minister should be much more inconclusive"?

LOL. It's great value. Sort of a broadcast (well, online) version of The Grauniad.

Newsmite?

Who knows which pol will next fall victim to the asst. caption competishon. I have heard, for instance, Mr. Mandelson referred to as an 'Asset to the Government'.

'It's the cuts, I tell you... the cuts!... A sub, a sub, my kingdom (well, a slice of £3.5B) for a sub!

Why does the expression 'A few Jokers short of a deck' spring to mind in this context?

While, to be fair, the same holds true elsewhere. Why is it that, with 30M able-bodied adults to choose from in the UK, we seem to be subjected to the same, limited selection, from the same stagnant pool time after time.

Looking at the punditry being cranked out on this, especially, Oh, Lord, Mr. Mandelson, I am struck by the disconnect between 'in-Village' and the real world, with talk already of 'giving chances,' 'has grudging respect of peers,' etc.

No matter how you try to intellectualise it all, the possible brainpower of aspirant leaders is not much good if no one fancies following them. Tricky finding the calibre required of course, as I am minded of the notion that the right person for the job would not be in their right mind to apply, much less accept it, these days.

I have a vision of a plucky khaki crew on the Western political front. At the head our Dear Leader crying 'Charge... I am the one to sort this out!' as... if... when he emerges from the bunker to stick his head over the parapet, reluctantly followed by a few who really have no choice not to and are all out of options. With a few chatterati cheerleaders back in a chateau a wee bit further behind the lines, penning some more cheering them on.

Meanwhile the rest of us in the trench are just hunkering down, hoping we can hang on until there's a vote.

HANG ON UNTIL THERE'S A VOTE (#6)

And then? As Frank Spencer was wont to say: "Now - what have I got?"

What have WE, the voters, got (to vote for)?
A set of party candidates, pre-chosen by parties for the sort of attributes we see, writ large, in the higher party-echelons: abject loyalty to risible, failed-causes; 'my leader crass-or-crazy', 'never mind the relevance, feel the bribe', etc.

What about that 'independent' candidate?
"A WASTED VOTE" the cry goes up - and it is, almost without exception, true. The independent candidate might embody more integrity than all of Westminster put together - not difficult - but they will not be returned. Further, if by some miracle they arrive in those unhallowed halls, the Westminster tide will just roll over them. How long any person of integrity can survive in that fetid atmosphere, one is left wondering.

None of the above (!) is new. Any administration of virtue would do its utmost to bring 'ever greater integrity' to the business of applied democracy; CHANGE would arrive in bucket-loads; REAL CHANGE.

Whenever I challenge 'my' MP (the one I got lumbered with) on fundamentals like this, I get the 'ballot box remedy' answer; thus confirming the citadel nature of Westminster governance. The honourable member (I use 'member' advisedly) is 'in' and not about to show an iota of honour any time soon. His ultimate sanction is the superior 'huff of contempt' for me - a mere vote.

And THAT is what 'we have got'.

Sadly, I concur.

I actually tried to persuade my local lot that NOTA (None of the Above) should have been on my ballot, so my turning up yet finding the choices still wanting did not get referred to as 'spoiled', like I wasn't make a very valid statement indeed.

Democracy Inaction.

FOCAL POINT

Hi Junkk.

The more I ponder (prompted also by a comment from JJ) the more I feel NOTA is the weak point in the Westminster Citadel wall.

Let's look at objections. First to spring to mind is: it would entice otherwise orderly voters to divert to NOTA, thereby creating even weaker endorsement of government.
(This is, of course, twisted political 'logic'.)
What else? I'm stumped.

In reality, I reckon it is unassailable in terms of voting integrity (democracy).

Good for you in tackling your usual suspects.
I think a concerted push on this is called for.
I am off to poke round cyberspace - see if anything is moving.

Do miracles happen?

A week ago I was complaining that Gordon Brown had no vision. Indeed, I – along almost everyone else - thought he was totally indecisive, and indeed was completely lost amidst the morass of his government failures. His cabinet was made up of grey yes-men; small men who were chosen as his friends and who had not a single original thought between them. We were all counting down the days to his final departure.

Yesterday a miracle happened; a miraculous conversion which has not been seen since Saul entered on the road to Damascus. He, or some angel of mercy, has at last had a vision. His government now is going somewhere. What is more, with remarkably few changes, his cabinet is now full of big-hitters who nicely balance each other. He can reasonably make the claim that it is one of the best in the world to face-up to the current global crises. Peter Mandelson represents the most obvious iconic new presence; but he is mainly symbolic of a revolutionary conversion of our Prime Minister. Much as Cameron has now assumed the mantle of Margaret Thatcher, Brown is now the true heir of Blair!

The question is how did this conversion happen? Previously Brown was the most dedicated Blair atheist, and moreover literally hated Mandelson. Beyond that, the style of this new government would have been anathema to him.

We perhaps need to look elsewhere. The fingerprints all over the changes are surely those of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson. What has been created is New Labour revived! Indeed, it is reported that Blair had ‘persuaded’ Mandelson to take the job.

So why should Brown have acceded? Let us speculate. Everyone else does!

Brown might be a terrible strategist, and an even worse manager, but he is not stupid. It must have been clear to him that all was lost. If his cabinet didn’t force him out the electorate would at the next election. He was destined to go down in history as the worst PM ever; and – after the way he forced Blair out – a usurper at that. Desperate measures called for desperate solutions. Even a pact with the devil, or even beyond that with Tony Blair, which might save him would be preferable. Brown no longer had anything to lose!

On the other side of the equation, his own potential usurpers in the cabinet saw Brown do enough at their conference – in the context of the global crisis – to block their challenge until the next election; at which point the Labour Party would have been destroyed – and with it their careers. For them too, desperate measures called for desperate solutions. They would have to stay their ambitions in order to at least preserve the Labour Party.

Whatever the reasons, and these are just speculations on my part, the result has been the New Labour which might just pull a rabbit out of the hate; especially where Cameron has prematurely admitted to his Thatcherite inheritance.

We now have a cabinet which will be united. There can be no leadership challenges until after the next election, The new ‘leader’, Mandelson cannot mount a challenge from the Lords; and, in any case, I believe his greatest ambition is to be the eminence-grise – a role to which he is eminently suited. It is at last a well balanced team; with the right people in more or less the right roles – and with real big-hitters to front it to the electorate. Above all, it has – in Mandelson – the best and brightest strategist available; the almost ecstatic reception he received from his civil servants showed just how highly they rated him, and they place intelligence and competence above all other virtues.

If Mandelson, and perhaps behind the scenes Tony Blair as well, are allowed to develop the new strategies then Labour may – against all the odds of last week – may survive.

The one caveat is whether Gordon Brown can live with this inspired compromise. One thinks of the story of the frog who is persuaded to carry a scorpion across a stream only to be stung to death. As they drown the frog asks why, and the scorpion answers that he can’t help it; it is in his nature. What is in Gordon’s nature?

AESOP SHALL COUNT HIMSELF ACCURSED HE WERE NOT HERE

You paint an all-too-believable picture mercerdavids. And in so doing, you answer your own question: What is Gordon's nature?

Gordon is a very incomplete person, with the same desperate need to be affirmed as more-than-he-feels-he-is, that Tony suffered from, before him. Tony was lucky, he had the Devil's greatest gift: charisma. Gordon only has empty, aching need. In Tony's case, the lesser devils he drew to him, were actually in love with his terrible aura, poor J Gordon Brown has no such aura, only the transient power of his positon. The minor demons are not drawn to him, they have come with cold purpose . . .

Gordon would appear to have bought into all the fables in one go. I hope he sold his soul at the top of the market - unlike our gold.

9. At 11:32am on 04 Oct 2008, barriesingleton wrote:

Wow, go away for a wee while and and look what happens. A couple of provocative, thoughtful posts that really deserve contemplation. But I must skip back a couple for now.

Barrie, having pondered what you wrote this AM I must say that you are right.

Whilst perversely satisfying to solemnly tell those who would lead that they are not up to the job, it hardly serves my, or my kids' futures well to smugly bail out. The void must, and will be filled.

Thing is, I am stumped as to what I am able to effect in getting it filled with anything, or anyone I could deem worthy.

How to do this bears consideration.

As a positive, proactive soul, I hate to write this now, but my first thoughts are turning, sadly, to simply ensuring that whatever I, and others do do, the 'victors' do not see fit to claim a small percentage of a a woeful turnout as ' a 'mandate from the people'.

It isn't. They shouldn't. And I am damned if I am going to let anyone speak for me when I have not given them my proxy to do so.

So, poke away, my friend. If the flight is true and the point sharp, there is many an overfilled, and heated, balloon in dire need of pricking.

THE DEMOLITION OF A CITADEL

Hi Junkk. Your words both poetic and heartening. I am hardening to the belief that 'none of the above' amounts to a sort-of birthright that comes with the (purported) birth of democracy, and should be held self evident.

I see there are a couple of activist websites on the NOTA theme, but the value of its unassailability (even by Ed Balls and Hazel - Good Ship Lollypop - Blears) is not trumpeted by them, to my ear.

Blair made a crack in the Citadel when he prohibited the use of 'NOTA' at elections (Jan 05) and the thin end of our wedge, that is the challenge: "Show us what is unconducive to democracy about NOTA" will fit nicely in there. Then we just keep 'banging on' (as Blair's alter-ego used to say).

STARTS WITH ONE SMALL CRACK.

This re-shuffle demonstrates that Brown is no less a " private political prisoner " than he was before his conference speech.

13. At 9:58pm on 04 Oct 2008, barriesingleton

Barrie, Thank you for the kind words, but I wish I shared more of the 'heartening' bit.

I hesitated to write again, as it is a bit 'off topic', but would humbly suggest to the programme makers and any others who might stumble across these pages that a frank analysis (if that is possible any more without agenda and spin and ratings creeping in with those asking, and answering, relevant questions) of such disenfranchisement from the electoral process.

Those who post here are really quite few. Those who read, I suspect not that many more, and even those who watch not a great % of the total voting population. And we are the ones interested... and who care enough to contribute (or complain - in business a customer who does that is considered gold dust. In government or its satellites such folk seem deemed to be the AntiChrist).

I have often alluded, darkly, to my vote being a personal weapon of change.

But I am not so sure. While I am pretty sure those I might wield it at now see it is a tool of little use, at least on a personal level; hence all the energy that is now taken away from convincing the individual and moved to mass efforts via mass media and populism (though the topic of this post which has inspired this exchange would suggest an odd plan at work indeed).

Across the board, from local to national, I barely know what my elected representatives do or say, especially on specifics. And certainly not enough, once in several years (they move so much in that time as well), to pin my support or disapproval on them in any meaningful way. Hence, at best, the voting intention is more 'averaged out' en bloc, which lets the wanting survive, whilst perhaps making it trickier for the real, effective, 'can do' champions to thrive. I only 'know' of those who get themselves in the paper in front of a Post Office or somesuch.

And if it is (my perception at least) that, when it comes to matters of high import, all but the most principled will vote with their Party, as instructed by their Whips, what value my proxy then? I am giving, via this person, carte blanche 'approval' to a party and often the whim of a Leader I might totally disagree with.

I had not appreciated Mr. Blair had 'addressed' NOTA before, in this way, and if in this manner it shows how much he feared what it represents.

However it seems typical of the day that he devoted energy and machinations to a ban, rather than seeing the problem and working on solutions to address it.

Maybe there can come some who are more proactive and positive. Do it well, and they might yet get my vote. If it matters to them.

Apologies... para 2 should have read:


'...would humbly suggest to the programme makers and any others who might stumble across these pages that a frank analysis... of such disenfranchisement from the electoral process might be a worthy topic.'

DRIVING ON THE WRONG SIDE (#15)

I am depressed. Your exposition is clear and rational - hence it will have zero impact.
What works is unwarranted charisma, devious oratory (using weasel words of a hired weasel) - and the vacuous sound bite.

My title refers to Victoria Tennant saying calmly, to a shrieking Steve Martin (in 'L A Story') as she drives down the left-hand side of an LA road, scattering oncoming traffic: "I don't think they can hear you!"