It's over. The Bank of England is printing money. The bank rate is as close to zero as it can get. The pound is sliding - again - . The country has been humiliated by its Leader's cold reception in the United States. And mortified by his pretence that he speaks for Europe.
The government is split from not just reality but one minister from another. The prime minister refuses to accept that he is responsible for the appalling effects of his stewardship of the economy for the whole period of Blair's government and for the dregs of his regime on Blair's majority. Demands that he should at least recognise what he has done and apologise are met with incomprehension, never mind refusal.
United Kingdom troops are dying in Afghanistan and loitering, discarded by our allies, in Iraq. A third of the entire generation of children educated under New Labour are functionally illiterate. Basic services, such as the country's energy supply, are hanging on by a thread with half the generating capacity from nuclear power stations out and no replacement capacity within years of coming on.
Unfunded and unquantified pensions liabilities threaten further hundreds of billions of pounds surfacing into the public accounts. The banks have collapsed. Much of the population has debts beyond their means to pay off in their working lifetimes. Life expectancy in some parts of the United Kingdom is less than 60 years, and this after three quarters of a century almost of a universal public health service.
And all that Downing Street can talk about is re-establishing the prime minister's 'image' at an afternoon meeting to be held on 2 April.
Keep Calm and Carry On? For Ever?
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Yep.
That pretty well sums it up.
He needs shooting.
But failing that leave him at the helm. We're going down anyway - let Nu Lab be tarred with this brush forever.
A pity that the real culprit (Blair) gets away Scot free and is loving his life of adulation in the US and has never looked healthier.
There is no God.
It doesn't seem sensible to let things get worse and worse in the hope of collapse, P. We shouldn't have a system where a failed government can only be removed by the collapse of the country.
Last time, at the end of Callaghan's Labour regime, they weren't even burying the dead. Must we wait again until London looks like Naples under rubbish? Until the power is off, until the IMF finally blows the whistle on the client state? Until ordinary pensions cannot be paid, hospitals run out of drugs, schools leak and rot, and classes reach to 40 and more, till shops are lucky if their shelves are only half empty?
There must be an election called and a suitable government installed.
The decision to call an election does not rest with this man alone.
I don't want to shoot him E-K. I want a general election in view of the collapse of the banks into bankruptcy, the plunging of large numbers of working people into desperate levels of debt tied to an asset shrinking in value, the deskilling of the workforce, the rising levels of interpersonal violence, the politicisation of the police, the loss of civil liberties, the failure of UK foreign policy and the reintroduction of torture as a part of valid government. (Did I really have to type that last phrase?)
Not shooting. Voting is what we need.
Maybe voting. Followed by some sort of ceremonial shooting?
"The decision to call an election does not rest with this man alone."
Sadly unless he is sacked by The Queen or oustedby Labour rebels the decision does indeed rest with this man alone.
Shooting is too good for him, I would be happy for him to live out the rest of his life hiding in the shed with Fred.
Indeed not shooting. If we start shooting, there will not be an election.
That is what the Civil Contingencies Act is for, and we know they are itching to use it.
Keep calm and carry on, until June next year. Unless the House of Commons grows a pair and passes a vote of no confidence. You've two hopes of that, as they say in Glasgow - Bob Hope and no hope.
I am not very convinced, btw, that any feasible incoming government will actually do much about your litany of disaster: "...the deskilling of the workforce, the rising levels of interpersonal violence, the politicisation of the police, the loss of civil liberties, the failure of UK foreign policy and the reintroduction of torture as a part of valid government..." Is Call-me-Dave really man enough to sort out that little lot?
And where was the Enabling Act that would have allowed the Government to confiscate money from the super-rich, the bankers and footballers and others?
Nobody needs more than £100 000 a year to live on.
Sadly unless he is sacked by The Queen or ousted by Labour rebels the decision does indeed rest with this man alone.
Unfortunately true.
Given that Labour rebels are unlikely to assist, I have been wondering for a while whether it is now time for a letter-writing campaign to Her Majesty?
She has the power; if/when Brown "decides" to call an Election he will, formally, merely meet with her and request that she exercise it. If he can ask her, so can we.
How would we kick this campaign off, I wonder?
HG: Sorry to be a wet blanket, but the slight flaw in all this is the assumption you seem to make that the Labour Party will certainly lose any forthcoming election. Given the suspicions surrounding the totally unexpected Glenrothes outcome it might not be a good idea to count chickens....
(I said something similar in response to one of your earlier posts, but those comments seem to have disappeared somewhere along the great cyber highways and byways).
Nomad, If I haven't posted any of your comments I am sorry, it is purely technical incompetence (usually mine, occasionally the result of being in foreign places and on foreign computers with instructions in foreign languages - and even foreign scripts have been suffered.)
You are right that it is not a given that Labour will lose any future election, although it is a given that Labour led by Gordon Brown will lose any future election. Five more years? No, definitely not.
I was turning over this problem for Labour in my mind, and trying to integrate it with constitutional problems that Patently raises in the suggestions in his comment when I saw your remarks.
Perhaps I can say something sensible shortly. Or not. I'll share my efforts.
My further thoughts, and a couple of bullet points for a letter to Her Majesty, here
It's so dismal, I could weep! How bad is it going to be by the time he is forced to call a General Election? He's not going to let go of the job willingly and that's a fact!
Does the Queen actually know what's going on? Do you think she would step in if she did? She's seems to take her position very seriously.
I'm gutted! My poor country :(
Do we know any Doctors? Can't we have him sectioned?
Just a thought!
Patently, Keep going! You're constructing positive moves. You should see my thoughts. Actually, I'll put them out below. Very incomplete but others might have the answers.
I'm not so certain that Labour would lose a general election if one were held now.
This is the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the Miners' Strike, and some people have long memories. This means the Conservative party are unlikely to win a general election.
The Liberal Democrats are also unlikely to win. Everybody knows that a vote for them is a wasted vote because it splits the (Labour|Tory) vote and therefore reduces the majority that (the Tories|Labour) need to get in. Also, where they've managed to gain power in local authorities, they're now being bitten hard in the backside by past decisions of previous Labour and Conservative councils.
The Greens are a minority, unfortunately (you can't win votes by threatening to take people's cars off them -- probably not even from non-car-owners who would otherwise be just about to get run over by the very cars that were about to be taken away), as are the odious UKIP (who'd turn us into the 51st state of the USA) and BNP (about whom the least said, the better).
The entire political process has been poisoned. Nobody expects a politician to tell the truth anyway anymore, so there's no point in an honest person entering politics. And I can't expect much from an electorate so dumbed-down they think "WAG" or "reality TV star" are serious career options.
So I think there's still a strong chance that Labour could get in; just because of the quality of the opposition, and because people always prefer the devil they know.
Labour cannot win any general election while led by Gordon Brown.
Labour are predicted to lose any general election even with another Leader.
Any change in leadership by the Labour party will precipitate a general election.
Labour's core vote will support the Party whoever is Leader because its prime objective is to be in power.
Labour's core vote is too small to ever win power alone.
Current constitutional norms require a general election between now and the beginning of June 2010.
Current constitutional norms are at odds with Labour party interests both in their core support's goals and in the retention of power goal.
Constitutional norms that have at their heart a hereditary monarchy and a shifting body of laws are much weaker than party imperatives that have at their heart a coalition of popularly supported economic and social systems and interest groups.
The economic system is crashing, following the Labour-designed financial system that has already burned.
Acquiescence to Labour-constructed social systems is being withdrawn across the population as the economic system collapses.
Consent to government, constitutionally reinforced is being withdrawn as constitutional weakness under stress is revealed.
Coercive measures to ensure governability have been put in place as constitutionally agreed practices break down.
Financial and economic failure are beginning to interact with constitutional weakness and produce the failure of democratic political institutions and settlements, uniquely in the first world, in the United Kingdom.
That's as far as I've got. But this is a huge crisis across every front in our country - and while other countries have some of it, only ours has all of it.
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