Prime Minister Brown
 

Today Tony resigned, and the new Leader of the Labour Party was invited to form a government. So, enter stage left, Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Don't know if he's hit your radar much on other side of the pond, but he's quite a different kind of personality to Blair.

I went to a hustings event during the Deputy Leadership challenge, and Brown was there. At that point of course he'd been the only one to get enough nominations to stand as Leader and was therefore the Leader-elect. Now, despite the fact that I am quite cynical about such things, I was surprised at how impressive he was close up. It was a fairly safe setting, mainly Labour activists and trade unionists, so he was relaxed, but he had serious magnetism when he entered the room and circulated.

Be interesting to see what direction he takes things in. Last night, just as speculation on the future cabinet was reaching a crescendo, a once prominant member of the Conservative opposition crossed the floor and defected to Brown's Labour Party.

I guess I have a reason to watch CSPAN 3 now, Your Parliament is more fun to watch than our Congress.

From what I've seen so far, he stikes me as a very strong leader. It'll be interesting to see how he goes over the next 12 months or so.

What I think is a very strange decision is for Mr Blair to be the peace envoy to the middle east. That makes no sense to me at all.

I know. It's like.......someone somewhere has a very dark sense of humour no?

He's a heavy weight for sure. Old school Labour, but with that Scottish presbytarian streak. Not left wing enough for me on a lot of stuff, the whole love of private and public partnership thing, but very different to Blair. Known for being uncomfortable with media attention, for instance, has a reputation for being less spin crazy as Blair. Which is, in itself, spin :P


For anyone who may be interested, there's a potted history of Brown here. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6743875.stm

And here he is having to hit the ground running with the London bomb cars.

Bombing Londoners, one hopes, would evoke more the resistance against the Blitz rather than the supineness the terrs evidently hope for.

This kind of terrorism is not exactly a new thing on Mainland Britain. In truth we only had a fairly short period of grace between the IRA campaigns and this new brand of Islamist attack. Although, I suspect the destructive intent of the Islamist attacks is greater. Particularly towards the later stages of their campaign, the IRA would often call through warnings prior to the explosion, to allow the police to evacuate the area.

Most Americans have little knowledge of your long history of dealing with the IRA. In fact I do believe you all set the standards for detention without charging, ala our Gitmo.

Merc, I wish you'd stop that -- who the hell charges POWs with anything? Before somebody quibbles, I've heard plenty about whether they're technically in the letter of law POWs or something else, but in practical effect they are POWs. I say treat 'em that way, and don't use our success in capturing people who want to harm us as some kind of stick to beat the Administration with. That's a sign that the Administration is fighting a war -- and you're refusing to. Not how you win against religious-bigot fascists, you footdraggers. Our cause is democracy's and therefore humanity's, and you're slacking. Pull up your socks. And open your collective fly and piss on tw while you're at it; he doesn't want us to win, ever, as his posts show.

I think the point is that they aren't being treated as prisoners of war, nor are they being treated as non-combatants.

Oh yes. We were fairly brutal. The history of Britain is not a pretty one.

Yeah, just look at duran duran murdering one of their old hits. Don't they know it's time to hang up their boots?

I doubt they are not being treated as prisoners of war: caged, fed -- well -- not serving a criminal sentence but being kept off the playing field of this conflict. The quibbles made about their status are administrative only, law being part of administration. This is the point I am trying to press -- we are acting in accordance with humane ethics and not simply tidying up loose ends by hanging them summarily upon arrival. We don't lust after their blood the way they're repeatedly telling us they lust after ours (anyone think they're kidding around?), and that has been evident in everything we've done. Contrast that with the likely behavior of, say, ancient Rome or the Soviet Union.

So what you're saying is, compared to ancient Rome or the Soviet Russia, America's behaviour is humane?

And sadly it was time and global culture that ended the conflict essentially, not the way the Government responded to it. As much as I am a product of my upbringing, I am aware that "we do not deal with terrorists, we lock them up and throw away the key" does not stop terrorism happening.

I'm looking forward to seeing what chances Brown makes though. I like me a serious PM, and if it takes a resignation rather than an election to get one then I can't say I'm bothered. Perhaps all future PMs should come into power this way - a charismatic with good soundbytes runs with a dour, heavyweight partner, then steps aside once he is elected...

I think there's a fairly large number of people who voted labour in the hope that Blair would step down and let Brown take over :P

Permit me to register a moment of incredulity: you have to ask?

Consider also the level of humanity we display, contrasted with the level our foes display. They're the ones with the fondness for beheading journalists who surely never did anything to call for getting lopped. It is they who drag charred corpses through the downtown area and hang 'em up on bridges. Tell me, have we killed any Moslem journalists? Are we likely to? Shall we, out of religious bigotry, fly an airliner into the Petronas Towers anytime soon?

Face it: our foes are scum. Let them have only the lifespan of scum organisms.

I think DanaC was suggesting that you were damning with faint praise.

Perhaps she should simply have suggested as much?

While at first glance it may not look like I'm setting the bar very high, the reality of the situation is that nondemocracies have no internal reason to behave well. Democracies, however, do, and they consistently behave better than their enemies do.

Getting back to Brown, the real thing that worries me is that he is not so good at realising his dreams and objectives. I see the money thrown at the NHS and wasted that we, as the taxpaying public, are still paying for. Then there's the complexity of tax credits that has seen a serious amount of fraud and overpayments that then have had to be reclaimed from individuals who had no knowledge that they were being put in that position.

He does look good in a number of areas - the decision to overturn the super-casinos proposition is one I support whole-heartedly - it would have been completely the wrong solution for the problem it was chosen to solve. Overall, though, I am sceptical about Brown and the Labour Party's credentials to deliver against their promises - old and new. The focus has always been in the wrong place and that has led to mismanagement and overspend - I dread to think of the final cost of the NHS computer system, and countless other IT projects that have spiralled ever upwards. Then there's all those PFI construction projects that have resulted in over-priced and under-utilised public buildings. Brown's new initiatives also smack of electioneering and an early poll to take advantage of an unproven and untested honeymoon period.

I hope my misgivings about his enthusiasm and actions prove to be unfounded - the thought of another 4 years of Labour mis-government is something I do not fancy one little jot.

In another thread somewhere, DanaC asserted that the "vast majority" of Britons prefer the way things are currently done there, specifically the socialist aspects of the government, as opposed to a more laissez-faire approach. Would you agree that this is the general opinion there? I do hear a lot of people bitching about the NHS, but that doesn't necessarily mean they want something different...

I think some of that is very fair. The PFIs in particular are an appalling mistake. As, I think, are Academies, for very similar reasons (massive cost to the tax-payer, despite the small contribution from sponsors, the loss of what was previously an asset owned by the local people (i.e Community school) and a reduction in legal protections for both children and parents involved. I cannot, with all my loyalty to the party defend either of these initiatives. Nor can I defend the drive to spread the system into every area before a decent amount of time has elapsed to test the first tranch. Another thing i can't defend is the pressure brought to bear on local authorities by central government. When the choice you are given is no new school/hospital/investment to improve -v- an Academy/ PFI hospital you find yourself between the devil and the deep blue sea.

The Tax Credits system is deeply flawed and the reason for that (imo)is that it should have been delivered through the benefits system not the tax system. My reading of it is that it was Gordon's idea and the only way he could ensure it going through undiluted was to make it a treasury issue. Bad as the delivery has been in some cases, the majority of claimants don't have the nightmare scenario of massive repayments. I personally know of many families for whom those tax credits have made a real difference. The system needs fixing, but the idea itself has helped a lot of people.

Poverty levels in this country when Labour came in ten years ago were appalling in some areas. 1 in 3 children in Yorkshire lived below the poverty line. There are still pockets we haven't got to. But we've lifted over half a million children out of the worst of that poverty. Part of that has been through the tax credit system.

The NHS is in a bad way. But, I don't think it's as bad as it was. Financially, it's got serious fundamental issues. Part of that comes from the willingness of my party's government to continue the trend of privatisation which began under the conservatives. What we should have done, imo, is reverse that trend. When each hospital was run as single unit, with cleaning and domestic staff employed directly by the NHS and the specific hospital, and laundry services done in house, we did not have the problems we now have with infection rates. We also would not be paying agency rates which then translate to exploitative wages by the time they reach the cleaner.

That said, there seems to be a disparity between people's perception of the NHS and their actual experience of it. Though there are plenty of people who do have an unpleasant experience of the NHS, many people who express dismay at the state of the NHS, when asked what their own personal experience of their local hospital, or GP, has been will report very positively.

The one thing I am absolutely certain of, is that the conservative party would dismantle whatever is left of the NHS within a very short space of time, given the chance. And, just like the Network Rail fiasco, they'll sell what is ours to a few business moguls, for a fraction of what it's worth.

Like so many countries, the UK has done well because globally the markets have been coping well (India and China expansion offering low-cost consumables) despite the oil market seeing rising prices that otherwise would have spun a global recession. The UK has also benefitted from eastern block labour gaining access to our shores and providing competitive labour. This has all buoyed our economy. IMO had Labour, or any other government, mismanaged their assets under different circumstances then we would be in disastrous state - thankfully we aren't that far damaged.

Our government has wasted £billions on badly managed initiatives. The improvements that have come through are totally disproportionate to the amount of investment. We have social problems that are escalating rather than receding and little evidence that our government has the substance to back up the gloss they attempt to paint over every area of concern.

As a worker, I am taxed at every turn. As a married couple our tax system penalises us further. When we do need to call upon the system to support us it fails miserably. The one time we had the need to call out the police they declined to come; when my son had to call upon emergency medical assistance it took nearly six hours to get to see a doctor who could treat him, and it meant driving to two different hospitals to achieve even this. My wife works in the education system dealing with truancy - she has seen an ongoing deterioration in school attendance and in discipline over the years (she has been in her job for 9 years).

If Dana is seeing improvements and contentment where she is located, I can only tell her that this is not the case where we are. The Blair years and regime gave us empty promises. Brown was an instrumental part of that regime. He is showing significant signs of taking a different approach now, but my main concern is his ability to deliver - he hasn't done so effectively in the past.

We actually don't want a laissez-faire approach - that isn't far removed from what we have now - i.e. the government promises it will make change but either fails to make resources available to do so, or else throws money at a problem without managing its use. We want the problems grabbed by the throat and dealt with cohesively, professionally and effectively. I cannot recall any time that our current government has managed to achieve this in any shape or form - note Blair's scrabbling around trying to define his legacy.

Plenty more I could add, but a busy day tomorrow and less than 6 hours sleep already on the cards. Maybe time tomorrow night to continue.

No I don't see contentment where I am located. The problems are far from solved, some are getting worse and some have improved. There are many schemes and initiatives which are having very positive effects at a local level, but the results are patchy, some areas it's noticeable some it really isn't. It's generally not the headline grabbing stuff.

You are absolutely right that the improvements have come at totally disproportionate levels of investment. We have poured money into ridiculous schemes like the NHS computer link up and the PFI hospitals. The education system has been fragmented to the point of near insensibility in terms of governance and local people's ability to affect services through the democratic process has been whittled away drastically.

Those trends have been a continuation of similar trends under the conservatives. Which, you can imagine pleases me greatly:P

Well, by laissez-faire I meant government disinvolvement; i.e. privatization to a greater or lesser degree. It seems that most British citizens of any monetary means are choosing to pay for private services anyway to get suitable care, in which case why bother with the overarching government-run system in the first place?

The problem, in part, has been the fragmentation of the service, through piecemeal privatisation and outsourcing of services.

Perhaps then, if a half-measure like piecemeal privatization isn't getting you to the goal, perhaps it's time for going wholesale.

Weaning a nation off the welfare state's government tit is never going to be accomplished without pain.