The Ludicrous Idea of Cameron Resigning

Cameron is now the bookmaker's favourite to be unseated as party leader first. All I can say to this is "oh please".

What has Cameron actually done wrong? Well, he displayed poor judgement when he employed one Andy Coulson. Poor judgement, mind, because of what that man has allegedly done in the past, not because of anything he did in power. I mean, there's no evidence of Coulson invovling himself in... say... a dodgy dossier now, is there? And Cameron's lapse of judgement really is small fry compared to the sort of mistakes made by his predecessors in the role - Brown nearly bankrupted us while trying to prop up failed banks and his own spurious and false claim to have ended boom and bust; Blair dragged us into an illegal and largely unwinnable war so he could continue to act as the fluffer for the most idiotic president of recent times; Major sank the economy for a bit through his desperation to be part of the ERM. A bit of perspective here would be good, people. Cameron fucked up - but employing Coulson is really rather low on the list of fuck-ups when it comes to those who have inhabited Number 10.

And the other charges - that Cameron is too close to News International, for example, are true both of the most recent Labour Prime Ministers. And it is probably worth asking when this phone hacking took place - on Cameron's watch? Err, no, it appears it took place under Nu Labour, when both Brown and Blair where desperately courting the man who is now public enemy Number One - Rupert Murdoch.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing this because I support Cameron or the Tories - regular readers of this blog will know just how little I rate both the man and his party. But we really have lost the plot if we are going to demand the resignation of a PM because he employed the wrong person to talk to the press on his behalf. The whole thing reeks of hysteria and hyperbole. And the thing most likely to sink Cameron isn't the accusations - which, as things stand, are a mild squall in a very small thimble of tea - but his failure to stand up and just brush off the calls for him to go. Cameron needs to get a grip; so do those calling for him to go.

Glasman, Immigration and the BNP

Maurice Glasman, key expounder of "Blue Labour" and general ideologue for Ed Miliband, on immigration:

In an interview with this newspaper, he said: “We've got to reinterrogate our relationship with the EU on the movement of labour.

“The EU has gone from being a sort of pig farm subsidised bloc to the free movement of labour and capital.”

He added: “Britain is not an outpost of the UN. We have to put the people in this country first."

Asked if that meant stopping immigration virtually completely for a period, he said: “Yes. I would add that we should be more generous and friendly in receiving those [few] who are needed. To be more generous, we have to draw the line."

Oh, whoopie-fuck. Another poltical figure jumping on the anti-immigration bandwagon. And another figure with genuine political influence only seeing a problem with the monolithic, bureaucratic, profligate and largely unaccountable EU on account of its impact on immigration. Surely it isn't too much to hope that political thinkers in this country could have slightly more meaningful inspirations that a compendium of anti-immigration headlines from The Daily fucking Mail.

Of course, Ed Miliband has distanced himself from these largely toxic propositions. But this is the same Ed Miliband who has been waffling on about the "mistakes" that the Labour government (of which he was a part, natch) made in regard to immigration when in power at the same time as being the Ed Miliband who slavishly followed Gordon "British Jobs for British Workers" Brown. Difficult to imagine where Glasman might have got the idea that his anti-immigration views might have gone down with Miliband Minor, eh?

There is so much talk about whether Social Democracy or neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology in this country, and therefore whether Thatcher or Blair actually won the battle to dominate the consensus politics in this country. When I see yet another political figure slating immigration, I can't help but wonder whether the BNP have actually succeeded in dominating political discourse in this country, at least when it comes to immigration.

Update: Obnoxio the Clown agrees with me. Using language (and imagery) that makes my own look quite restrained.

Cameron, News International and Moral Authority

One of the more extraordinary claims I've heard since it was alleged that the News of the World have been hacking the phones of a missing schoolgirl and dead soldiers is that the ongoing scandal in some way robs Cameron of his moral authority. But seriously, folks, what moral authority? Cameron has always had all the moral authority of a slimline soft drink - he's not as bad for you as some of his rivals, but still not good in his own right. He was, and remains, an exercise in political triangulation - the last roll of the dice over half a decade ago by an increasingly desperate Tory party shell-shocked by three successive election defeats.

But if this scandal does destroy Cameron's moral authority, it does equal damage to the already tarnished reputations of his two immediate predecessors in Number 10. Blair and Brown courted Murdoch like the most desperate teenage boy at a teenage disco; they are key to propagating the myth that the backing of Murdoch means the difference between a win and a loss in a General Election. That hasn't, of course, stopped the perennially vengeful Brown sticking the boot in to the Murdoch empire as it continues to struggle. But that's the nature of the Brown and, since he has thankfully been relegated to where he belongs to the dustbin of history, rather tangential to the point. It is difficult to see any of the recent incumbents of No. 10 having any moral authority. And please don't tell me that Miliband Minor wouldn't have dropped his pants at the very first whiff of attention from the Murdoch empire prior to this scandal escalating.

The best way in which Cameron can be differentiated from the others who have sought or inhabited his current address is not down to moral authority but rather his judgement in employing Coulson. Both Brown and Blair employed repellent individuals to do their dirty work on the media for them, but both of those figures were only really discredited during their bosses' tenure at the top. Coulson was clearly damaged goods when Cameron hired him before Call Me Dave ever crossed the threshold at the No. 10. Why hire such a person? Why take the risk of it all blowing up in your face like it has done for young HugAHusky?

But those who believe that this is a resigning issue for Cameron are a mix of hopelessly optimistic and hopelessly naive. Cameron has been in office for just over a year and this is the first real shit that has any hope of sticking to him. This is the equivalent of the Ecclestone affair for one Anthony Blair. Cameron will take a (deserved) kicking for this but when the dust has settled I think it will make fuck all difference. Cameron will go on and this whole affair will probably end up no more than a couple of pages in his no doubt tedious and self-indulgent memoirs (which I very much look forward to not reading).

Cameron leaves this debacle with no moral authority - in other words, much the same way as he was when he went into it. He made a bad and naive judgement call when it came to Andy Coulson - something he definitely won't hang for. I mean, the last PM bankrupted the country so he could look like a jowly, greying version of Superman, and the PM before that dragged us into an unwinnable war just so he could posture next to George W Bush. And this is a classic example of the bar being set so low for Cameron that it is next to impossible for him to do something so comprehensively wrong that he has to resign for it. The sad reality is that this sort of thing is now par for the course for a modern PM, not something out of the ordinary. Even sadder, the man now in Number 10 never had moral authority to lose. This is modern Britain - and modern politics.

The Dubious, Yet Still Useful, Advice of Tony Blair

Mehdi Hasan on why the Labour party shouldn't listen to Tony Blair:

1) On Blair's watch, Labour lost four million votes between 1997 and 2005. Lest we forget, in the 2005 general election, Blair was re-elected with a vote share of 35 per cent - that's less than the majority-less Cameron achieved in 2010. Blair won in 2005 because his opponent was Michael Howard.

Couple of points here. Firstly, Blair may have lost circa 4 million votes between 1997 and 2005, but he also gained around 2 million for Labour in 1997 and in doing so gave the Labour party a formidable majority that allowed it to stay in power even as voters began to desert Labour. Which leads me nicely to the second point - Blair didn't win in 1997 because he was up against Howard (who actually managed to make 2005 a competitive General Election in a way that Hague or IDS would never have been able to manage) but because of Britain's curious electoral system that is often very much biased towards the incumbent. Indeed, that's why Cameron - despite routing Labour in many respects - was unable to form a government in 2010 unaided.

2) When Blair left office in the summer of 2007, his personal poll ratings were falling - and so too were the Labour Party's. As the authors of the new book, Explaining Cameron's Coalition, argue, "Blair's ratings were falling from 1997 and that, even if Labour had not changed leader, it is likely that Blair's would have been as low as Brown's were by 2010."

So? This shows the inherent naive way of thinking of many Labour supporters. The choice was not simply between Blair and Brown, no matter how the post-Blair succession actually went. There could have been any number of other MPs to replace Blair when he resigned had Brown not stitched up that leadership contest like a second-rate Stalin. Blair and Brown would have been shit in 2010, fine. What about Alan Johnson? Or Jack Straw? Or maybe even David Miliband? There were other potential leaders out there who would have been more popular than both Blair and Brown.

3) Blair invaded Iraq. Regardless of whether you think it was right or wrong to topple Saddam Hussein, politically, the war was a massive misjudgement on Blair's part. It split his party and the country, cost him his political capital, wrecked his reputation and undermined any legacy he might have hoped to leave behind as a three-time election winner. As the former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell once put it, "Mary Tudor had Calais engraved on her heart. Blair will have Iraq engraved on his heart and there is no escaping it."

Well, this is true - even thought the phrasing makes me picture Blair trying to invade Iraq single-handedly. Blair's legacy will forever be tarnished by the pointless, illegal war in Iraq. His decision to climb into the arsehole of the least intelligent and capable President in living memory was such an error of judgement that it makes every other decision he ever made open to question. But the fact that he dropped the ball in such an lethal way when it came to Iraq can't change the fact that he is perhaps, in electoral terms anyway, the most successful Labour leader of all time. If memory serves, he's the only Labour leader to have fought General Elections and not lost at least one of them.

So Hasan is right, in a sense - Miliband Minor should be wary of the advice of one Anthony Blair. But he should also be wary of not taking that advice when it comes to electioneering. Blair won three successive General Elections on the trot and - as much as I openly despise the truculent shit - anyone wanting to win a General Election for themselves should at least think about why Blair managed to achieve what he achieved.

BREAKING NEWS: Blair and Brown didn't get along that well

I'm amazed that this constitutes news:

The Labour Party's two most senior figures have denied a "brutal" plot to destroy Tony Blair after the 2005 election, as a probe was launched into leaked documents.

The Daily Telegraph claims Ed Balls , as well as Labour leader Ed Miliband , began scheming to divide their party within weeks of the general election.

Really? How amazing. I mean, the Labour party civil war wasn't mentioned at all in the period after 2005 (or, indeed, before it). Everyone always thought that the relationship between Blair and Brown was hunky-dory, didn't they?

Of course, Miliband Minor (sort of) and Balls are on hand to deny the story:

Mr Miliband told Sky News: "I think what you are seeing is an overhyped version of ancient history.

"Frankly, the era of Blair and Brown is over. This generation of politicians is not going to repeat the mistakes of Blair and Brown."

Mr Balls told Sky News: "The fact that the first time I knew that they'd been taken was last night when they appeared in the Daily Telegraph I think shows that I didn't think this file, these documents were of great significance.

"The last time I saw them was when they were on my desk in the department before the general election.

"I don't know how they've been taken. I'm glad that's now being investigated.

"But the idea that these documents show that there was a plot or an attempt to remove Tony Blair is just not true.

"It's not justified either by the documents themselves, or by what was actually happening at the time."

The phrase "but they would say that, wouldn't they?" has seldom been more pertinent. Although I do like the fact that Miliband Minor stops short of fully denying the allegations. A brush-off is not the same as a denial...

Conservative Party chairman Michael Fallon MP said the leak showed Mr Balls could "not be trusted".

"First he denied this at the time, [but] now we know it's true," he said.

"It shows he's completely unsuited to be a serious figure in government. He simply couldn't be trusted, for example to plot against his current leader Ed Miliband."

Fuck-a-duck we've got an intellectual giant here. Ed Balls unfit to be a serious figure in government - who'd have thought it? And the fact that he can't be trusted is an absolute revelation.

Miliband Minor is right (a phrase I seldom, if ever, use) when he says that this is "ancient history". Honest to God, the Blair/Brown feud got boring while those fuckers were still running the country. It is beyond boring now. And anyone who needs evidence beyond that of their own eyes and ears that both of the Eds are wankers utterly unfit for high office is hopelessly naive.

Predicting the Opinion of Political History

This proved, somewhat unexpectedly, to be a very interesting documentary.

In a sense, I know very little about the Wilson/Heath years. I mean, I know the basic outline of what happened, if only because it provides some of the context for contemporary politics. But for me, the Wilson/Heath years (and the Callaghan administration) is part of the dour, drear post-war consensus era – that dull time when politics ground to a halt because the main parties pretty much agreed on everything. The programme did little to change my opinion of this era, but it did reframe it in a way that I hadn’t considered before through making it a duel between two of Britain’s least compelling Prime Ministers. It’s an interesting way of looking at politics between the mid-sixties and the mid-seventies.

And it did leave me wondering how the current political era will ultimately be viewed when similar documentaries are made in the future. I mean, in a sense it is easy to write the history of the Nu Labour years as it has two defining characteristics (ignoring the obvious ones like spin, mendacity and crushing incompetence). You can sum up the Nu Labour years by referencing the illegal and pointless war in Iraq at the same time as talking about the Blair-Brown rivalry. Unlike the Wilson/Heath years you don’t really need to mention whoever was in opposition. But what about the current era? How will the first year of the coalition be remembered?

I suspect that it will be remembered as the time when politics – or at least politicians and political commentators – went a little mad and forgot that the main party in government was the Tories rather than the Liberal Democrats. It will be about how the opposition party decided to fight Britain’s third party rather than the first party, and how the pointless chunterings of a second-rate politician like Vince Cable became front page news. And I rather suspect that historians will be incredulous as to the extent to which Nick Clegg became a Teflon coating for David Cameron. Above all, though, I think that this era could be framed around the question of why the Labour party allowed the Tories to coast to a real general election victory under the vacuous and utterly pointless Ed Miliband…

Labour's Royal Wedding Snub Bleatings

Here's a wonderful example of absolutely manufactured and completely unconvincing ersatz rage from the modern Labour Party:

St James's Palace has dismissed any suggestion of a "snub" towards Mr Blair and Mr Brown, but shadow justice minister Chris Bryant said he was unhappy with their exclusion.

"I really don't want to rain on anybody's parade because I really wish the happy couple a lovely day on Friday," he said. "I just think they've been let down by their advisers, or by Number 10, because I'm sure this list will have been passed through Number 10.

"I think the same same proprieties should have been followed as for Charles and Diana's wedding and that was that all former prime ministers should be invited."

Mr Bryant added: "I think it shows a bit of vindictiveness from Number 10."

First up, quite why anyone would care what Chris Byrant thinks is beyond me. But the whole tone of the protest from the Labour party follows a particular pattern. Firstly, find a perceived snub against the Labour party. Second, find a way - no matter how unlikely - that the Prime Minister or his team was somehow involved in that snub. Thirdly, use a tone of hurt indignation. Finally, studiously ignore any facts that might impact on your fabricated bit of pointless outrage.

For example, some Labourites have made much of the fact that Margaret Thatcher and John Major have been invited to the wedding, while Blair and Brown haven't. This handily ignores that fact that the rather frail Thatcher effectively retired from public life a long time ago, and was always unlikely to be able to accept an invite to the wedding. Plus, to snub a frail old lady right at the end of her life would have provoked far more general, and real, outrage from people than not inviting two wealthy men who are proactively pursuing lucrative careers for themselves. And on John Major - my understanding is that he is guardian to both William and his brother Harry. Seems a natural person to be invited to the wedding, then. Then there's the whole Knights of the Garter thingy, which is best summarised as Thatcher and Major are, Brown and Blair aren't.

Then there's the fact that the Royal Household probably have a veto over who No. 10 wants to be invited to this bloody wedding. If they wanted Blair and Brown to be there, then they could have made it happen. I almost suspect that they didn't, and who can blame them? One dragged this country into a brutal, unnecessary war that has made it more vulnerable to terrorism, while the other did his level best to bankrupt the fucking country. I can understand why the future king might not want those two at his wedding...

And to close of this post, I'd just like to note how far the Labour party has drifted from its socialist roots if now it can have its MPs bemoaning the exclusion of its wealthy former Prime Ministers from an occasion of privileged extravagance at a time of national austerity. At times like this, I do wonder "what would Nye Bevan have said?" It would be memorable, but not positive...

PTSD in Political Parties

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is pretty well recognised in humans; I think it also happens in political parties. In fact, I think it is one of the reasons why the dominant political discourse in our country is so anondyne. In the past 20 years, both of the dominant political parties in this country have had PTSD.

For Labour, it hit them in 1992 when Neil Kinnock managed to snatch defeat from the very jaws of victory. The party had already changed – it had moved to the centre from the alarmingly leftist Labour party of 1983. But it still hadn’t won – despite facing a tired government led by a weak-willed PM. At that point, the party changed. The desire to win became everything. And that led to the gutting of any real ideology. It led to the election of Tony Blair as party leader. The rest is now, mercifully, history.

For the Tories, it probably hit about the time they decided to concur with what just about everyone else was telling them – that IDS was an utter disaster as a leader. Their PTSD took a little longer to fully manifest itself, though. Of course, that manifestation is embodied in the incumbent Prime Minister – a man who dragged the Tory party to the centre ground and away from any controversial opinions or positions whatsoever. He gutted the Tory party just as surely as Blair did for Labour.

And herein lies the problem – both Cameron and Blair have gone on to get the top job in British politics, whereas many of their predecessors as party leaders did not come close. And that is what tends to silence the ideological critics in both of their parties – it is pretty difficult to argue with success. So we can trace the impact of debilitating events such as the 1992 General Election defeat for the Labour party and the failure of the IDS leadership for the Tories through to the eventual return to success – but at the price of shedding much of the ideology that made the different parties distinct in the first place. Success – but at what price?

Don’t get me wrong, an election defeat is a clear indicator for a political party that something needs to change, and the answer is seldom a superficial change like a new leader. This is a lesson that the Labour party – post-2010 – has still yet to learn. Yet the extent to which a party changes is the crucial issue; recent politics gives us two examples of political parties who sold their souls for a chance for electoral glory. They gave into the panic of PTSD, and lost their way as a result.

So what hope do we have that parties can start to take defeats – a natural part of any engagement in a democratic political process – as a reason for change, but not a mad dash from ideological commitments to the centre ground? Well, Blair is utterly discredited and a strong candidate for the dubious title of Worst Prime Minister in Living Memory (along with his successor as PM). And while Blair – for all of his flaws – did win a stunning victory in 1997, Cameron is only in power through a coalition with the Lib Dems. Labour gained 145 seats in 1997, the Tories 97 in 2010. The law of diminishing returns seems to be rearing its head for those party leaders who choose success over political commitments.

So my point is this – any defeat is difficult for a party to take. Any failure to be returned to power or to win an election is potentially traumatic. But the key thing is how parties deal with that trauma. Gutting yourself in order to win next time or the time after that is undeniably one option, but there are others – the options that allow a party to both win and lose at the next election, but to do so with dignity.

Ed Miliband and the Problem with Policy Wonks

Johann Hari has an interesting post up talking about Ed Miliband’s communication problems. I’d agree that Ed Miliband certainly has a communication problem: when I hear him speak, I feel like I am being lectured by an indignant potato. But Hari’s point is a little more sophisticated than that. He argues that Miliband’s language is the problem. Put simply, the language Miliband uses is that of a policy wonk.

Which is true. Miliband doesn’t seem to get that a big part of being a leader is being able to capture people’s imagination. You need to communicate in such a way as to make your point in a simply, clear and coherent way. And you also need to make people believe that you are on their side. Sounding like a pedantic politico is not going to do that.

See, for all of his evil, that was Blair’s genius. Particularly as Leader of the Opposition, he was able to sketch Nu Labour’s largely empty vision using simple, catchy phrases. “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” resonates in a way that nothing Miliband has said thus far resonates. It may have been utter bollocks, but people remembered it. Whereas I honestly cannot remember a single thing Miliband has said. Sure, there is the danger of drifting into spin, but a little bit of spin is essential to modern politics. It is only if it becomes the dominant component of your politics that you have a problem.

But will Miliband accept that he has a communication problem? And if he does, will he be able change? I doubt it. And this is a big problem Labour has got. Its current leadership class are all former policy wonks parachuted into safe seats (even if, in the case of Ed Balls, they’ve done a great deal to change that) and promoted beyond their abilities and level of experience. They are leaders; they don’t even appear to be effective managers. Sure, there’s a place for the likes of Miliband and, I suppose, Balls. But it isn’t at the head of the party, and it certainly isn’t spelling out the vision of that party. They need a new Nye Bevan; unfortunately, their current leadership class has the charisma of Clement Attlee without the humility.

And this is Labour’s tragedy, really. At a time when there is a need to spell out a socialist alternative to the Coalition’s policies, they’ve got Ed Miliband – a nervy policy wonk who sounds like he is constantly constipated. And that may yet prove to be the very thing that gives Cameron a second term in office.

Jamie Oliver - The Smoking Gun?

Regular readers will know that I am not a fan of Jamie Oliver. In fact, I think that fat-tongued prick is an utter arsehole who shouldn't be allowed near a TV camera - let alone being given blanket coverage by the media when he chooses to say something.

Yet many disagree. Because, for a celebrity chef, Oliver seems to have a genuinely philanthropic streak. Not for Oliver the Gordon Ramsay approach to career management - traveling the world slagging off failing restaurant owners is not for the often tearful and misunderstood Oliver. No, he wants to change things and, unlike so many others in our society, actually does something about it other than flap his (fat) lips a bit.

So we come to the latest Oliver project - his Dream School. Aside from sounding a little bit like an unmade sequel to A Nightmare On Elm Street, the concept of a Dream School sounds like a lot like the chance for various celebrities to play at being teachers. Then again, the education system is in the need of urgent, radical reform. So why not let Jamie and his posse undertake it?

The answer is in this paragraph - see if you can spot what it is:

He assembled an impressive staff room: the drama teacher was Simon Callow, politics was taught by Alastair Campbell, art by Rolf Harris, history by David Starkey, maths by Alvin Hall and sport by Daley Thompson; other figures such as Cherie Blair, Tinchy Stryder, Andrew Motion and Rankin also pitched in with lessons. The teachers were advised by award-winning secondary headmaster John D'Abbro.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I cheated. I highlighted the relevant section. But I'm sorry - the concept of Alastair Campbell teaching politics is surely the death knell for any school. Alastair Campbell is what many would rightly call a terrible cunt: he is the Machiavellian administrator who allowed Tony Blair to achieve power, go into a damaging nonsensical war and then propped up Blair in power just as most people realised how ghastly Blair was/is. He's a crucial henchman to an abhorrent PM. He did so much to destroy political discourse in this country. In fact, I can't talk anymore about Campbell without resorting to very creative swearing, so I'll hand you over to Michael Howard:

And that man - Alastair Cunting Campbell - is the politics teacher at Jamie's Dream School. It's a bit like making Sarah Palin your teacher for evolution - a dumb fucking idea.

Of course, Oliver needs to find some celebrities in order to attract attention to his project. Choosing Mr Smith at Tooting Bec Comp wouldn't have quite the same impact as choosing the man who facilitated the British involvement in Iraq. But then again, there are other political figures - far less tainted political figures - who could have done just as well. Why not use one of those? Why not use someone less compromised than Campbell? After all, that covers off pretty much political figure barring Tony Blair.

Because that's too difficult. And that's the problem with Oliver - the Smoking Gun or final proof of his idiocy, if you will. He wants to do the right thing, but he is so naive and so unthinking that he will pretty much say anything and engage with anyone in order to achieve whatever philanthropic intentions he might have. To misquote a famous saying, the road to Alastair Campbell is paved with good intentions...

Ed Miliband's Credibility Gap

One of Miliband Minor’s biggest problems is in how he comes across. In order to be an effective party leader, you have to look like a credible (future) Prime Minister. Unfortunately the leader of the Labour party looks like Mr Potato Head trying to be stern. Which, in all honesty, is not ideal in a potential PM.

Other party leaders have managed this effortlessly. Despite being an odious cretin, Blair’s natural sense of self-worth meant he always appeared to be comfortable in his own skin and therefore, at least on some levels, was a very credible candidate for the highest office in this land. Cameron has a similar vibe; while being the very definition of lightweight when it comes to policy, he has a certain gravitas that made him look like a credible candidate for Prime Minister even before he walked over the threshold into Number 10 this summer.

Other party leaders may have had this gravitas at some point in their careers, only to completely lose it. Thatcher would be the best example of this. In 1987 she not only looked credible as Prime Minister, she also came across as an absolute natural in the role. She appeared confident, controlled and demanded respect. By 1990, she had completely lost the plot and looked like a mad old woman who was a liability both to her party and to the country. She had it, she lost it.

Of course, the success of a party leader at looking Prime Ministerial is dependent to some extent on who they are facing. Hence in 1992 Major looked the most Prime Ministerial; by 1997, this was no longer the case. What changed? Well, the 1992-1997 parliament was bruising for Major, but that was not the main cause of the change in the way he appeared. Put simply, in 1997 he was up against Tony Blair at the height of his smarmy charm. In 1992, he was up against Neil Kinnock – a man (like Michael Howard in many respects) who was an extremely capable politician in many ways, but never ever really looked or sounded like someone you would want to put in charge of the country.

It is possible to pull the wool over the eyes of many and appear Prime Ministerial when in fact you aren’t. This is what Brown managed in the years leading up to 2007. Of course, he managed to do this by staying out of the political limelight as much as possible and certainly not letting the Great British public know what he was really like under any circumstances. That strategy simply isn’t open to a Leader of the Opposition – their role is arguably one of the most high-profile in British politics and hiding away won’t work. Just ask IDS.

And that is the problem Ed Miliband has. He can’t hide away and hope for the best; he has to engage with the public. He’s up against a Prime Minister who is managing to remain detached from the more unpopular policies of his government at the same time as exuding a certain quiet confidence in his new role. And there doesn’t appear to be any danger of Miliband suddenly gaining gravitas in the near future. He is likely to remain an extremely awkward figure who struggles to communicate effectively.

Of course, you can argue that it shouldn’t matter how politicians come across – that the choice of who leads this country should be down to policies and ideas. And to some extent you’d be right. But the problem is that so much of modern politics is down to appearance and the project image of politicians. And that’s why Miliband Minor is struggling, and is likely to fail. Quite simply, he doesn’t look like a Prime Minister in waiting.

Gordon Brown's Book - A Failure

So, having checked the figures in my local bookshop, it appears that the “Right” “Honourable” Gordon Brown has managed to sell just 13 copies of his book in its first week of release. That’s less than two a day.

Of course, it would be wrong to compare the sales of his book with a high-profile release of, say, a popular fiction title (or, to put it another way, a book that people in large numbers might actually want to read). So let’s compare like with like – let’s compare the first week of sales for Brown’s book with that of another former Labour Prime Minister – Tony Blair. How did Blair get on? Well, he sold nearly 400.

Are there any mitigating factors that might explain Brown only managing about 3% of the sales of Blair? Well, we are in the run-up to Christmas, but that should work in Brown’s favour. After all, his book could be a bought as a gift as well as for the individual purchaser to read. Yet that just hasn’t happened. Once again, Blair has outperformed Brown.

The reasons are simple, as far as I can see. Even as someone who would rather cut out my own eyes and fry them than read either one of those books, I can clearly see that Blair’s self-aggrandising nonsense would be preferable to Brown’s pathetic excuse making. Ultimately, Blair won three elections and ruled this country for ten years. Brown won none and was in power for under three years. And he hasn’t even chosen to give the insider account of his time in power – instead, he’s trying to paint himself as the man who saved the world once again – even though we know he was just a pathetic shit who made sure that the economic crisis hurt each and every person in this country through his ineptitude.

And why does it matter? Because we paid Gordon Brown an MP’s salary to stay at home and write this fucking thing. Even when taking months of unauthorised paid leave from his job, Brown is no capable of turning out a book that people might actually want to buy. What a waste of space – both him and his book.

After his book was released to widespread indifference at best, there were attempts by some to move Blair's book into the true crime section of book shops. It was a mildly amusing idea, stopped only by the sheer number of the tomes currently gathering dust on the shelves of the nation's bookstores.

But I have a question - if Blair's book would be better shelved in the true crime section then where would be the best destination for Brown's forthcoming self-serving pile of shite masquerading as a book?

Self-Justification and Political Memoirs

There are many reasons why a politician would write their memoirs - to record a genuinely historical moment in history (like, say, Churchill), to set the record straight (like Nixon tried, and spectacularly failed, to do), to gossip to a much wider audience (Mandelson) and to make a shit load of cash (hello, Bill Clinton). However, with the publication of Bush's book (a tome apparently not written on chew-proof paper with waterproof crayons, much to the astonishment of most) a new form of political memoir has been truly been enshrined - the whiny pile of self-justificatory tripe.

Bush has been defending waterboarding - how he fought for freedom by getting others to torture suspects. It is, of course, entirely justifiable in Bush's worldview - but then again, Bush only sees the world in terms of absolute good and absolute evil. He misses the shades of grey that define existence for most. Yet the very fact that he is having to justify and explain his actions shows how he and his idiotic War on Terror have been tainted since the days when he had a genuine chance to unite pretty much the whole world behind him in an assault on globalised terror.

Bush seems to be claiming that lives were saved by waterboarding. Aside from the fact that this doesn't make it right (torture often works - many nations choose not to do it anyway because they are aspiring to be civilised), waterboarding may have prevented certain terrorist attacks. The operative word there being "may". But how many others have become radicalised because of the stories of US waterboarding of terror suspects? Actions as controversial as water-boarding have consequences, both good and bad. Bush says water-boarding saves lives - I say it will also cost lives in the future - if it hasn't already.

Bush is not alone in publishing this sort of memoir, though. Blair's own book seems to have a large theme running throughout it that basically seems to be saying "Don't judge me because of the Iraq War!" Like Bush, he seems to be fighting for a place in history that doesn't come with the tag of "warmonger" - something that, for neither man, is going to be very easy.

Brown's forthcoming book won't be about the Iraq War - he's not fighting the tag of "warmonger". Rather, he's trying to avoid the caption next to his picture in any history book reading "incompetent cunt". He's going to be banging on about how the recession wasn't his fault, but any signs of recovery (however slim) were entirely down to him. His book gives every indication of being a wretched last gasp of a desperate man who has not quite come to terms with the fact that he utterly fucked up in the job he fought for across his adult life. It is Brown's last-ditch attempt to avoid being tagged as a failure for the rest of time (or at least until his abortion of an administration is forgotten - which, given the levels of the debt he left us with, will be quite some time). Like Bush and Blair, he's seemingly destined to fail.

Of course, the books of all three men will make lots of money (even if some of it will be grudgingly given to charity by some of the authors) and keep the authors in the public eye. But the tone of these books seems to be about the last ditch attempt to carve out a place in the history books. None of these men deserve anything more than consignment to the dustbin of history as incompetent, immoral failures. So if you do waste your time and money by buying and then reading their books, just keep in mind that these tomes are nothing more than the final, desperate ramblings of compromised men.

Keeping Promises, Managing Expectations

Here’s an interesting article about Obama and his current woes. It stresses that he has actually achieved a lot of his agenda, but is struggling in the polls regardless. And the article hints at the reason for this – when he was elected, he promised the earth and now it comes to delivering, what he has to offer isn’t quite the change people believed in. He failed to manage expectations, and is suffering as a result.

This has always been the charge leveled against populist politicians – they offer a better tomorrow, but when they are elected and tomorrow become today, there’s something lacking in the reality they create. So what has happened recently is politicians have become vague on what they promise. Gone are the concrete policies, presumably in the hope that the electorate won’t be disappointed when either the policies don’t appear, or when those policies do appear and actually turn out to be a bit shit. Instead, politicians try to get our votes through spouting platitudes.

It isn’t just Obama and his claims to represent “Change” and “Hope” – although Lord knows those concepts should have been interrogated more thoroughly before he was handed the keys to the White House. It is also seen in Cameron’s call for change – a meaningless concept without extrapolation. And it was in the rhetoric that dragged Blair into Downing Street – just what does “education, education, education” actually mean? That it was his priority – but his priority to do what? Fuck up first? Fuck up the most? Likewise, “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” is meaningless without the “how” – how are you going to be tough on crime and its causes? Furthermore, whenever a politician talks about a big concept like, say, fairness, it is apparently without any inkling that such a concept is relative, and how it will be defined will vary from community to community and, indeed, from individual to individual.

So these empty strap lines and meaningless assertions are meant to make you want to vote for a politician without them actually having to tell you what they will do. But rather than managing the expectations of the electorate, it heightens them. Obama represents change – which the vast majority of people would probably interpret as change for the better. When he delivers the American status quo with just a little bit more state tinkering in some areas (like health care), people are disappointed. Very disappointed. Because that isn’t change. Likewise, Blair’s crime pledge – it sounds like he is going to sort out crime once and for all. When it becomes clear that what he actually plans to do is give various malcontents a meaningless trophy like an ASBO, of course people are fucked off. Particularly when they become the victims of crime themselves.

Saying nothing beyond empty buzzwords is not enough to stop the massive disappointment in politicians when they fail to deliver anything more than the same politics with different personalities presiding over it. The only way in which politicians can effectively manage the expectations of the electorate is to be more honest about what they can, and can’t, do. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: the most honest politician – the sort of one that you should trust and consider voting for – will be the one who says “nope, sorry, can’t help you with that”. But whenever a politician waddles on to the political stage spouting meaningless platitudes about hope and change, you should be very suspicious about what they mean by those phrases – if, indeed, they actually mean anything at all.

Blair, Protest, and the BNP

Tony Blair doing his own little version of Godwin's Law*:

But Mr Blair, prime minister from 1997 to 2007, said: "I'm concerned that I don't want to put people through a lot of hassle at this Wednesday's signing."

He added that he had heard the British National Party "had wanted to get involved in the action".

Excellent stuff. A near textbook attempt to taint those who might protest against Blair for whatever the reason (being a profiligate war-mongering son of a bitch who allowed someone he thought was incompetent to succeed him would be my personal reasons for protesting) through an fake association with the knuckle-dragging Neo-Nazi louts of the BNP. This is just one small step above screaming "Nazis!" at his opponents and then running away.

Still, Blair is at least being consistent - even in retirement he is still spinning away and continuing to argue against the legitimate protests of those who might not agree with him. It's nice to have these occasional little reminders of why Blair was such a corrosive and damaging influence on British politics.

UPDATE:

And now he's cancelled it. Well, I guess the protestors have won this little battle. And Blair has reminded us of something else - he's a fucking coward.

*Before anyone says anything, yes, I know Godwin's Law actually relates to da interwebs - this is why I'm calling it a version of Godwin's Law.

Blair Welcomed in Dublin

Got to love the Irish:



Just a shame they didn't hit their target.

Pay Gordon to work for free

Gordo’s doing charity work. And he’s keen to highlight that he’s doing it for free:

“Each of these positions are pro bono and Mr Brown will not accept any remuneration. He will continue to write on global issues, as he has been doing recently with articles on the desperate plight of those in Pakistan and Niger."

The narrative is as obvious as it is tedious; good ol’ Gordon is doing charity work for free, while evil Tony charges for his post Prime Ministerial work. What a shit, eh? Just as well Gordon is around to be genuinely charitable.

Except, that’s not quite the case when you think about it. Sure, Gordon may be doing his charity work for free, but it’s not like he doesn’t have a healthy income. After all, he is still an MP, although not that you would know it given his criminal lack of attendance and therefore neglect of his constituents since he lost the election. So Gordon may be doing charity work, but he’s doing it at the taxpayer’s expense while ignoring the job he was actually elected to do. So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t praise him too much, or think that he’s in some way better than Blair – who, while be may be raking it in now, at least isn’t an MP anymore.

That’s Gordon Brown – even as he works for free he still expects you to pay for it.

The "Successes" of Tony Blair

As Blair once again prances around in the limelight like a two year old looking for attention, those old rose-tinted glasses have come on for some. For there are those in the Labour movement, probably still in shock that they were booted from office earlier in the year, who look to Blair and remember that he managed to do one thing that his successor (and many of his predecessors) failed to do - he could win elections. Three of them, in fact. Making him - for some - the most successful Labour leader of all time.

But let's interrogate this idea a little more. How successful was Blair actually? He won three election victories, sure - the first one against a Conservative party more hideously unpopular than it had ever been before in its history, the second against a Conservative party broken by the electoral drubbing they got in '97, and the third one was a much less convincing victory against a Conservative party only just starting to recover. Furthermore, the local election results of the final Blair years don't show a popular leader at the peak of his powers; they show quite the opposite. Had Blair fought the 2010 General Election, he'd have lost.

So yeah, three election victories - impressive, but not as impressive as it might first appear. I suppose Blair looks good compared to other Labour leaders and their electoral performances. Take Kinnock - fought 2, lost 2. Foot - fought 1, lost 1. Callaghan - fought 1, lost 1. With this in mind, the norm for a Labour leader is Brown rather than Blair; of course he looks good by comparison. In fact, since World War Two, only two other Labour leaders have been able to win general elections (compared to seven for the Tories); Attlee and Wilson. Yet Wilson actually did better than Blair, if winning elections is the key qualification for success as a Labour leader. He won in 1964, 1966 and managed to scrape into government in both of the elections in 1974. By this logic, Wilson should be the example the Labour party should follow, not Blair.

Furthermore, those in the Labour party wishing to venerate Blair for winning elections should remember precisely how he did it. It wasn't through being a crusading politician, winning people to his cause through brilliant oratory and ideological commitment. No, he won power by stripping his party of any real ideology and instead selling a bland empty shell of a party to a country that just wanted the Tories out. Blair made Labour non-threatening for some, but in doing so he also made it practically worthless.

So, yeah, wear your rose-tinted glasses and praise Blair 'til you're blue in the face. But his only real success was replacing a moribund Tory government with an empty facsimile of the Labour party. Which is hardly the blueprint for a brave new Labour party now, is it? Honest to God, winning elections is not the be all and end all of politics - particularly not if a grinning homunculus has to sell the soul of your party in order to achieve it.

Modern British Politics: Gossip

So, what have we found out about politics today?

1. Tony Blair didn't get on with Gordon Brown: No, really? Blair and Brown didn't like each other? Fuck-a-duck that is news, isn't it? Except it actually isn't. Because we've known about this for the best part of the decade - Blair's confirmation of his difficult relationship with Brown proves nothing other than what we already knew.

And it isn't just about the lack of novelty - there's another reason why it is largely irrelevant for the future - neither Blair nor Brown represent the future of politics in our country. Neither of them will ever be Prime Minister - or even a high-powered elected politician - again. This is just watching a soap opera that has gone well past its prime.

2. Hague's adviser quits: So, someone has been forced from a job because of sly, often borderline homophobic, innuendo. And, as a result of that we've learned of the personal tragedy of the miscarriages that have befallen the Hagues. I can entirely understand why they wanted to keep this private, and I cannot understand why this needed to come into the public sphere. Except that it is a desperate attempt to end what I can see is just groundless speculation abut Hague's private life. Of course they didn't want to reveal this; of course, under the duress of prattling tongues, they had to.

And in the meantime, our politicians get away with continuing to do and say next to nothing about our future as a nation. They get away with having no ambition, no plan and no ideological commitment whatsoever because at the first sign of some titillating, controversial or in any way gossipy, the media works themselves up into a furore about it and we, the consumers, blindly accept it.

So the next time you wonder why Cameron, or Clegg, or whoever gets to be Labour leader, is so shallow, PR-obsessed and light-weight, remember days like these. When all we seem to want form our politicians is to be entertained, like vacuous viewers of the world's slowest, dullest, but most long-running, soap opera. If we want the calibre of our politicians to change, we need to change it. We need to redress the balance between personal and private, and we need to remember that the only meaningful litmus test for our politicians is what they do in power, rather than with their colleagues or in their private lives.

Because this is the truth - the politicians we get we deserve.