Archive for the ‘Westminster’ tag
The Embarrassing Decline of the Liberal Democrats
Do I still have permission to shine David’s shoes?
There’s a new verb in town.
“To Clegg, get Clegged or to do a Clegg” is to make a faustian and utterly destructive pact with a more powerful force. “After he got busted for spying on his mates he was totally clegged when the headmaster didn’t make him a prefect”.
Poor Nick Clegg. There’s nothing like realizing you bought a bill of goods after agreeing to the most awful Faustian pact in British political history. He seemed smug and happy with his own parking space outside Number 10 but he was fooling himself. Really all he was doing was keeping the conference table water glasses full as his Tory overseers slashed and burned the British public sector he had vowed only a few short months ago to protect, when suddenly the truth comes crashing in.
He’d been taken for a huge ride, and was thoroughly “Clegged”. To make matters worse, he could have avoided getting on the bus, or could have got off at any time (which of course is part of the definition of Clegging). He went into business with a Conservative party that saw him as willing mark from the get-go. He shouldn’t have been surprised when they went after his AV caper with a vengeance. It was fair game. Read the rest of this entry »
Gordon Brown Is Back!
scotland the brave
It was British Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson who coined the term “A week is a long time in politics”, and while Gordon Brown’s astonishing turnaround as British Prime Minister has taken a little longer than that, it has been truly remarkable.
When the British public turn on their leaders, they do it with a viciousness that’s positively medieval. A year ago, Gordon Brown was political poison. In the great tradition of British politics, his Labour Party was openly plotting his demise in the tea rooms and bars of Westminster. His demise was expected in a matter of weeks, and his stoic Scottish demanour combined with an almost uncanny lack of political savvy conspired to hasten it.
But then something happened. Gordon found his mojo. Starting with an unexpectedly stirring keynote speech at the Labour Party Conference in September, Brown began to take on his critics in the best way a leader can, by being exactly that – a leader. The speech was a dignified mea culpa of his mistakes and failings, combined with a cogent vision for the future, and it stopped the bleeding.
The speech was followed by another masterstroke. Amid the flailing response by Hank Paulson, the Bush Administration and Congress to the galloping credit crisis and precipitous market collapse, it was Gordon Brown’s plan to buy stakes in the UK banks that, overnight, calmed the waters. First, the Euro-zone and then, unwillingly, the US, followed the Brown plan, and the immediate panic dissipated, virtually overnight. Brown’s status as British political whipping boy was replaced by a standard grudging acceptance by the grudging Brits that he did, well, okay. Read the rest of this entry »
