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.

(Really Rather Long) Quote of the Day

Matthew Norman powerfully dismissing Gordon Brown's vengeful anti-NI appearance in the Commons:

And still he cannot see his complicity. "This is an issue about the abuse of political power..." he said of Murdoch's news-gathering tactics. Well, duh!, you might say. But oddly enough it isn't, or not as he meant it. At its core, it is an issue of the abuse of political power not by Murdoch, but by Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, David Cameron and every other elected quisling who supped with the devil not with a long spoon but from the devil's own satanic hands. "I came to the conclusion," Mr Brown went on of his urge for a judicial inquiry, "that the evidence was becoming so overwhelming about the underhand tactics of News International to trawl through people's lives, particularly the lives of people who were completely defenceless." Sweet Lord Jesus, isn't the point of a Labour prime minister to defend the defenceless? "I'm genuinely shocked to find that this happened," added the Captain Renault of Kirkcaldy. "If I – with all the protection and defences that a chancellor or prime minister has – can be so vulnerable to unscrupulous and unlawful tactics, what about the ordinary citizen?"

Frankly, it's a struggle to continue parsing this statement, because it feels like bullying a simpleton for being a simpleton. So it's worth recalling that Gordon Brown was the most fearsome juggernaut of a machine politician Britain has ever known – and here he is courting sympathy as the impotent victim whose "senior officials" overruled his request for an inquiry. The senior official to whom he refers, if subconsciously, is the ringer for Davros ("My vision is impaired," as his daleks often croaked, "I cannot see") who flew in on Sunday to smile at the cameras as he squired Mrs Brooks to dinner in Mayfair.

Makes the point perfectly, as far as I am concerned. Gordon was at the heart of government for 13 years, including a stint as a Prime Minister with a healthy majority. At any point he could have taken on News International; he could have tried to stop them at any time. It would have been a brutal battle and he would not have emerged unscathed. But had he taken on that fight, perhaps he would have made a real positive difference in Britain. However, his bleating at the moment is simply the angry revenge of a jilted man who cannot come to terms with the fact that News International stitched him up at a party conference by withdrawing support for him just after his big speech. He had his chance to take on News International in his 13 years at the top of government in this country. He didn't take it. So right now he'd be best off shutting the fuck up because all this sort of speech does is highlight what an inveterate coward he is since he did not, despite being on of the most important politicians in this country, take on News International when they came to fuck around with his family. Brown remains what he has always been - a spineless little weed of a man.

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.

David Miliband: Still Shit, Just Like His Brother

Of course I watched the Miliband Minor bashing of this past week with an amused smile - as someone who cannot stomach the little turd, it was a beautiful thing to see (well, read about). But what does bother me is the fact that his equally vapid and unlikable brother's unused victory speech has surfaced. It isn't so much the content of the speech, which could be spouted by just about any senior figure in any of the main parties with only the personal touches changed. Rather, it is stuff like this:

He and his wife Louise Shackleton clambered into their car just before 7pm to get home. As he was driven through the late September evening he is said by friends to have recited his undelivered speech in its entirety. In the privacy of the two-hour journey back to Primrose Hill, only his wife heard the address that had been meant for the thousands in the conference hall - but clearly for the country too.

The whole paragraph seems designed to create sympathy for Miliband Major, and almost to fabricate that feeling of "oh, but what if David had been elected rather than Ed?" There almost seems to be this sense in which the Labour party missed out on a great leader when the unions the Labour party chose Miliband Minor over his marginally more famous brother.

What bollocks. What absolute shite. The people who swallow this sort of line are wearing rose-tinted glasses so thick that they are effectively blind to the reality of what is really rather recent history. David Miliband isn't a great lost Labour leader; he's the spineless, geeky fuck who did nothing about torture being used as part of the War on Terror and who preferred to spend his time posing with a fucking banana than deposing the totally destructive and utterly repellent Gordon Brown.

David Miliband is not a great lost Labour leader, nor is he a great lost potential Prime Minister. He's a policy wonk promoted far beyond his level of ability and charisma. Had Labour elected him, they would be facing the same problems as they are with that chinless wonder of a brother of his. It is difficult to know who the right choice was for Labour leader last year, but I'm pretty sure that the right choice didn't have the surname of Miliband.

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...

Prime Minister David Davis

I love a good counter-factual. I even love a lactlustre one, like this effort. And there can be no doubt that recent politics will generate more than a few “what if?” scenarios. What if Miliband Major had been elected Labour leader and therefore Prime Minister in 2009? What if Brown had been challenged properly rather than just being crowned as Prime Minister? What if the Labour party had scored a few more seats at the last election, and been more open to meaningful negotiation with the Lib Dems?

Inevitably, a lot of these scenarios focus on Labour – after all, they did spend over a decade in power. But I’ve got an alternative counter-factual. What if David Davis had won the Tory leadership contest in 2005?

If is an entirely realistic scenario. He was the front-runner for ages, and he clearly bested Cameron in their TV debate. In fact, all it might have taken to make Davis Tory leader is a decent speech to the party conference. It was that hurdle he failed to clear, and it was at that point that he ceased to be the presumptive leader.

Had he won, I think he would have made a formidable leader of the opposition. He wouldn’t have started with the aspiration of ending the Punch and Judy side to modern politics – from the outset, he would have relished it. Furthermore, his commitment to civil liberties would have enabled him to put clear blue water between his party and the Labour government very early on. And as leader of the opposition, he probably wouldn’t have gone ahead with that faintly pointless stunt of resigning his seat in the Commons (although quite how his impatience and desire for a fight would have been sated throughout his time as opposition leader is an open question).

Furthermore, his relatively humble background would have enabled him to avoid all the tedious charges of poshness that have dogged Cameron. Indeed, Davis’s status as a self-made man would have answered many concerns about the Tory approach to social mobility. And not being distracted by such concerns, Davis could have spelt out a more meaningful version of modern Conservatism than Cameron’s notoriously vague “Big Society”.

So Davis would have entered last year’s election campaign in a strong position. And in that campaign, he’d probably have excelled. Imagine him in the debates – he’d not only have seen off Brown (which, in all honesty, isn’t that difficult) but he’d have nipped Cleggmania in the bud. In fact, a Davis leadership might have meant the end of Clegg as party leader as well as Brown. Because I think Davis, with a pugnacious attitude and clearer alternative to the Labour agenda, would have won the election outright. It wouldn’t have been a massive majority, but it would have been enough for the party not to need a coalition in order to govern. And with his party's mediocre showing in that election, Clegg would have fallen.

But there would have been a downside as well. Because if Davis hadn’t won the election outright, it is difficult to imagine him being as open to a coalition with the Liberal Democrats as Cameron. Furthermore, his personality – which often comes across as difficult, idiosyncratic and monomaniacal – would not have been conducive to the needs of running a minority government or even a government with a small majority. Indeed, it is difficult to see how Davis would have inspired a team across his time in opposition when he himself is so clearly not a team player.

Still, these problems notwithstanding, a Davis premiership would have given us one of the finest sights modern politics could imagine – David Davis against Ed Miliband at Prime Minister’s Questions. He’d have eaten Miliband Minor alive.

So my point is this – counter-factuals are great, but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that the leadership choices made by the Tories in the last parliament are just as important as those made by the Labour party.

Why Ed Balls Should Be Labour Leader

In a sense, the last Labour government ended too soon. Not for the country - there is no way we could have afforded any more "leadership" from Gordon Brown. But for the Labour party itself, the fact that their last government ended before they were utterly discredited by having to make the same sort of cuts that they lambast the Tories for - and the fact that our warped electoral system meant that their disastrous showing at the last election didn't completely consign them to electoral oblivion - means that many think that their project was not wrong; it was just curtailed before the benefits could truly be seen. Consequently, the party is not ready to accept the implications of its defeat, and as a result undertake the sort of ideological change needed to make them once again capable of winning, and performing less than abysmally in, government.

Ed Miliband isn't the right man to show them this. A slightly chippy little prig, he has all the charisma of a depressed garden gnome. When the party loses the next election, its members will assume it is because Miliband Minor was leader, and actually they needed someone with just an iota of charisma and a little bit of fight in them to actually take on Cameron. As such, it will miss the point that its policies are just as atrocious as its leader. The Labour party has come to represent in political form the old truism that the very definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing while hoping for a different result.

Thus, the Labour party needs a more capable leader - or at least one able to do the opposing bit inherent in being leader of the opposition. Miliband can't do it; he's a black hole into which anything of any interest is sucked and lost forever. There is one man up for the challenge, though. One man ruthless enough to have forced himself to the very top of Labour party politics, despite having the personality of a smug, rabid skunk. Yes, this is the time for Ed Balls. He needs to be Labour leader.

Of course, he wouldn't change the party's course - he's as bought into Brown's plans as anyone, not least because he was Brown's henchman for so many years and helped to create those plans in the first place. And the people aren't going to warm to Ed Balls either, in the same way as no-one really warms to the angry man in the bar who is just looking to kick someone's head in for fun. But what Balls would be able to do - rather like Howard did for the Tories when he became their leader - is oppose. Balls would fight Cameron. He would fight the coalition. He would marshall his not inconsiderable talents at being a massive arsehole towards his opponents, and make life tough for the Con-Dems in a way that Miliband Minor seems utterly incapable of achieving. And when he lost the next election the Labour party would have no choice but to accept that their defeat wasn't just down to the failure to oppose; they would have to see that the policies they use to oppose the coalition were as much to blame as their choice of leader.

So this is Ed's time to shine - in as much as such a person is ever capable of actually shining. But I doubt whether Ed will ever become Labour leader. I rather think he is the Michael Hesletine of his generation and party; a high-profile, clear contender for the leadership of his party with only one fatal flaw - that the people in his party don't really like him, so aren't going to make him leader. Yet the Labour party could do far worse than Balls. Hell, they have done far worse through their choice of their current leader.

Gordon Brown: Loser, Not Hero, Of The Year

Been a while since I last did a good fisk. This article is practically begging for it - a piece of pap trying to make Gordon Brown - who this year, more than any other, made himself clearly stand out as a total loser - into a hero. Let's go take a look:

Unlike the current leader of the Labour party, I cannot imagine Gordon Brown being a tolerable person to make a snowman with.

I don't want to make a snowman with any party leader of any party ever. If I did, then both Miliband Minor and Brown the Cunt would be pretty low down on the list. But sorry, what is the point about this idea of making snowmen with party leaders? Is there one?

He would fuss about the precise placement of the carrot nose and pebble eyes, possibly employing a ruler and spirit-level, and fret that this was not an appropriate use of our intellectual resources.

Still struggling to see the point of this snowman shit. But anwyay, Brown'd probably chuck a mobile phone at your face for not agreeing with him that snowman should look exactly like him (which is like a fatter Richard Nixon, fact fans).

But, and herein lies the rub, I have never felt the need to imagine the potential for cold weather fun with the head of the party I'm supporting, simply to feel confident in their potential to lead it to power.

Then why the fuck mention the whole snowman thing? Jesus. Try reading back your own article next time. Just so it makes some sort of fucking sense, as opposed to just being padded out fawning and bullshit.

Brown, it has often been observed, was born into the wrong era. Paralysingly ill-suited to the territory of 24/7 performative politics, his stock would have been valued considerably higher in the olden days when moral compass, staunch resolve and attention to detail were as important as the ability to crack a genuine smile on YouTube is now. But Gordon Brown, as in so many other areas, had no such luck.

What moral compass, staunch resolve and attention to detail? None of this was shown in Brown's failed time in Number 10. He was a shallow opportunist, determined to cling to his unelected and undeserved position. His time in power is summed up by his odious slogan of "British Jobs For British Workers". He would say anything to stay in power; the problem (for him) was that he was shit at saying it.

He did not, of course, lead his party to power in May, but down to the doldrums of defeat which may well last much longer than this country deserves. And yet, though his inability to capture public confidence was personal as much as it was circumstantial, it is his dignity in defeat that makes him my hero of 2010. His exit from Downing Street was touchingly humble. No amount of nippy accounts of "22 days in May" can deflect from the power of Guardian photographer Martin Argles's shots of Brown with his family in their final moments at Number 10.

I'd rather read a million accounts of those 22 days in May than gawp at a photo of Brown strutting down the street like he is some sort of genuinely historical figure. After all, those 22 days - for better or for worse - gave us our incumbent government. Whereas that shot was of a man leaving a building he should have vacated days before. And he appears, for all the world, to be dragging his family with him.

Returning with them to Fife, he has embraced life below the radar as a constituency MP, surfacing only recently to offer his characteristically comprehensive thoughts on the potential for global financial restructuring in his book Beyond the Crash, serialised here.

Oh, please. Brown went from being Prime Minister to being an MP who could not be fucked to work for the constituents who elected him. He did nothing after being turfed out of Downing Street except write his book which has, to a large extent, been a failure - a dead weight on those bookstores that elected to stock it.

When he denounced Tory cuts as "immoral" and "economic vandalism" in an article for the Mirror last Saturday, he only echoed the sentiments of the thousands of protesters who had taken to the high streets that day to express their outrage at the national plague of tax avoidance.

Thousands of protestors in a country of 60 million? What a man of the people Gordon Brown must be. Particularly since he was just rehashing the muted attack lines of his replacement as Labour leader.

In his passionate belief in international co-operation to temper national insecurity, we see beyond Brown the caricature to Brown the believer.

Never seen this belief in international cooperation. What I've seen is Gordon Brown the believer in his own (undeserved) entitlement to power.

The country may not have wanted him as a fatally flawed leader, but it needs him now as a quiet economic hero.

In what way is the man who nearly bankrupted this country - and forced these cuts on the coalition - a fucking economic hero? And in what way is he quiet - this man who once blithely boasted that he had ended boom and bust? Jesus Titty-Fucking Christ, the last thing we need is to hear more from Gordon Brown. His time in power was an absolute fucking disaster, and his incompetence and malign policies will hurt this country for many years to come.

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.

Reviewing Gordon Brown's "Book"

I can't review his book on the simple grounds that I never, ever plan to read it. But I suspect this is the sort of review (via Amazon) that I would write had I disgraced my eyes by reading it:

I've never been a great fan of Gordon Brown and this book just exemplifies why. A more useless damaging individual the country has never been subjected to.

His book is a litany of errors he inflicted on the British economy. If Blair had had the courage to throw him out of his cabinet he may well still be in power and the countries finances would certainly be in a better state.

Brown has written this book to hide behind, sadly for him it is turgid and unconvincing, not unlike the man himself.

Of course, I'd have said "turgid, unconvincing and utterly pointless" but the gist would have been the same...

I'm away for the next 24 hours or so graduating (for the second time - once just wasn't enough!) Therefore, posting on this blog is even less likely that normal. In fact, if I was a betting man (which I'm not on the grounds I'm shit at it) I'd say there is no chance at all of anything new appearing on this blog before Friday morning. In the meantime, I'd like to leave you with this thought - Gordon Brown's book, according to my deeply unscientific research in my local Waterstone's, has been massively outsold by the latest turgid doorstop of a novel from Tom Clancy. But that doesn't tell the whole story. On the first day of release, Clancy sold a massive 6 copies. Brown sold just two.

Make your own judgments on those stats. I know I certainly will...

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?

Quote of the Day

"I'd rather be a child of Thatcher than a son of Brown."

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am no fan of Cameron but frankly he could not be more right on this one occasion. For all her flaws, Thatcher did a lot more for this country than Brown ever did, and I'd far rather politicians followed her example than that of the pathetic incompetent Brown.

It Could All Have Been So Different...

As Labour types continue with their asinine grumblings about the fact that they are no longer in power, they would do well to remember that it could all have been so different. There are two scenarios which, had they been pursued by the Labour party, could have had them still in power at the moment.

The first has been much commented on – the failure to call a General Election shortly after Brown became PM was a colossal tactical error. They would have won that election, and right now would still be in power as part of a five year term. Furthermore, Cameron – the first Tory leader since Major to be Prime Minister – would have been deposed, and the Tory modernisation programme would have been stopped in its tracks. That was the perfect time for the Labour party to win a fourth term, and they bottled it.

But there is another way in which they would have stayed in power. Had Brown been dropped and replaced by a more collegiate, affable leader such as Alan Johnson, then they would have lost fewer seats at the last election. They could never have won outright, but they would have been in a better position to claim that they were the ones that the Liberal Democrats should have negotiated with in the first instance. Furthermore, having a leader other than the egregious, arrogant Brown may have allowed for rather more successful negotiations between Labour and the Lib Dems. There would have been no guarantees about it, but a Lib/Lab Pact for the new millennium would have been far more likely with a Labour leader other than Gordon Brown. But again, the Labour party missed its opportunity.

So what to make of these costly errors? What can the Labour party learn from its mistakes? Mainly, I’d argue, that cowardice has a cost. Not going to the country in 2007 cost them the chance to win an election outright. Not replacing Brown cost them the chance of being credible coalition partners for the Liberal Democrats. Both were potentially difficult decisions fraught with risk – they would have been gambles, but they might have paid off with the prize the Labour party now seems desperate for – a continuation in power. But their cowardice stopped them, and ultimately led to them losing power. Which is perhaps the perfect epitaph for the Nu Labour years – they were ultimately kicked out of power because of the cowardice and aversion to risk that defined their time in power.

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.

The Next Tory Leader

It may seem odd to be speculating on who the next Tory leader will be when the incumbent is probably the most successful Tory leader for the past decade and a half. Of all the party leaders, I’d say he’s the most secure. But, as Francis Urquhart once observed, “nothing lasts forever. Even the longest, most glittering reign must come to an end someday.” Indeed, the sole certainty that a Prime Minister has on entering Number 10 Downing Street is that they will one day leave office. The same with party leaders.

So, when Cameron does stand down, or is forced out after an election loss, who will take over from him? Looking at the most high-profile Tories, it is difficult to see any of those vying for the top job. George Osborne is no Gordon Brown – he doesn’t seem to have the burning desire to follow his friend into Number 10. Hague is popular with the people, but the recent scandal about his special assistant may have tainted his view of frontline politics and therefore his desire to be leader (again). Who else? Gove? Hardly. Theresa May? Competent, but hardly inspirational. On the backbenches you have David Davis, but he is a restless, impetuous soul who may not be the right sort of personality to lead his party successfully. Perhaps Boris might return to the Commons – he’d be a popular choice with the people, but again he’s a bit of a renegade and his inability to keep his wedding tackle in his pants. As a President, I think Johnson would work. As a leader of a party in a parliamentary democracy and a potential Prime Minister, well, I don’t think BoJo would work so well.

So none of the most high-profile Tories – but then again that is hardly surprising. Cameron will be in power for at least five years, possibly even ten – and given the propensity of all of the main parties to choose leaders with limited parliamentary experience, the next Tory leader may only just have been elected to the Commons – or may be elected next time.

Besides, before the next leader is chosen, something is going to have to happen about ideology in the Conservative party. Cameron’s project of making the Tory party electable again was largely achieved through jettisoning ideology in favour of neutral, non-threatening platitudes. And it worked on some levels – the Tories are back in government. But the problem with being in government – particularly a government facing as many problems as the Con-Dems – is that you do need some sort of ideology to guide you as you govern. Cameron’s beliefs will be exposed by the way in which he governs.

And we’ve already seen the faint glimmerings of that in the concept of the Big Society. Quite what it means remains something of a mystery, but I can’t help but feel that we are witnessing a revival in Tory paternalism. What Cameron is isn’t quite clear, but what he isn’t is a Thatcherite. Which is fine – but there are others in the party who are.

Right now we are in a position where order in the Tory party is maintained by the relative novelty of being back in power. People get behind Cameron not necessarily believe in what he says and what he stands for, but because not seeing eye-to-eye with a Tory PM is better than powerlessly disagreeing with a Labour PM. But that won’t last. The longer they stay in power – and an outright win at the next election – the less the novelty of power will create unity. So in five years time, or in ten years – when Cameron goes – it may be less about personalities and relative visibility, and more about what factions exist at the time, how powerful they are, and who is leading them.

It is too early, far too early to be able to guess who will be the next Tory leader. However I reckon we can make a prediction about the nature of the next Tory leadership contest. When Cameron was elected, it was about finding someone who can win. Next time, it will be about defining what the party actually stands for – or rather about which ideological faction is going to take it into the future.