by anderson
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is not so much weathering UK's political storm as he is lashing himself to a barnacled pier with hopes that the current squall will blow over, leaving him battered but still politically viable. And, once again, it appears that "resolve" in the face of a relentless reality is a driving excuse for Brown's attempted maintenance of the status quo. Resolve in Brown's case, though, is strictly limited to his own continued political career, despite blaring klaxons signaling its imminent demise. Though Brown has demonstrated a woeful misunderstanding what his job actually is, he nonetheless promised that,
�I will not waver, I will not walk away, I will get on with the job.�
In FT this weekend, Robert Shrimsley offered a concise description of Brown's plight, that the only remaining question is how long Brown can last.
Brown's twitching, should it continue for too long, will only further doom his party in the general elections. And Labour, like the GOP in the United States, could find itself cast into a political wilderness of its own making. It's time for Labour to cut Brown loose, end the twitching, and bury the body.Gordon Brown may be days from departure. Or � like the twitching body at the end of a hangman�s noose � his final spasms may be more drawn out.
In that same vein, an equally colorful story by the Globe and Mail's Doug Saunders Daggers of Westminister drawn for bloodied British PM:Prime Minister Gordon Brown's thick hide pierced with political daggers, his leadership stooped and bloodied and the entire nation asking not if, but exactly when, he will fall.
ReplyDeleteRuss,
ReplyDeleteOh, that's a good one, too. Describing Brown going down in metaphor seems to be a columnist cottage industry.
cheers!
It's time too late for Labour to cut Brown loose, end the twitching, and bury the body.
ReplyDeleteFixed that for you.
I very much doubt that cutting Brown loose sooner rather than later will prevent a thumping for Labour at the next general election. But Brown staying until the bitter end will deepen the hole the party will find itself in. In that sense Brown may do to Labour what George W did to the GOP.
ReplyDeleteHow a man who has presided over the crippling of his party at the local level, i.e. at the grass root, and in some areas of the country has seen the outright disappereance of his party from local councils, can suffer from the delusion that he needs to hang in there is just mind boggling. If Brown had any sense of what it means to take responsibility, he couldn't do anything other than to step down. He has done enough damage already.
I am not a fan of Brown, but what concerns me about his imminent demise is that for once, Britain and the US have got something right: The bank bail outs.
ReplyDeleteFrom a personal point of view, I think that the bankers need a good old fashioned taste of Stalinism with blindfolds optional. However, much as they deserve it, we simply cannot afford to let the banks go under, as they will take too many innocent victims with them.
The people who would take over from Brown would let the banks go under.