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.