The dysfunctional Brown court

John

Has Carter left yet? Has Muir been promoted?

Frank Pulley

There is only one word in the lexicon of scatological abuse to describe Brown and it is not permitted in the Coffee House. But to give you a clue, he has even been blackballed by the Berkshire Hunt for disgracing their name.

David C

Great.

This isn't a medieval court, it's the last days of Adolf Hitler.

While the UK goes down the Suhwanee, the cabinet is doing a reprise of 'der Untergang'.
The Tories have advanced into Georgia and von Brown throws a quick sturm und drang.

I can hardly wait for the YouTube videos.

Our Government has found its vocation - a footlights review.

I was thinking of a few, less risible observations to make but the situation is too absurd to bother.

oldtimer

The many reports we have now had, from several different sources, about the PM in his No. 10 bunker reveals an alarming state of affairs.

I wonder how much worse it must get before one or more of Mr Brown`s cabinet colleagues has the gumption to remove him from office. At present not one of them looks as if they could pull the skin off a rice pudding let alone depose a useless Prime Minister.

Jennifer E.

Gordon Brown has stealth-taxed us for years, he has raided pension funds and he has made the lives of elderly people coming up for retirement a nightmare. I think the government should be made criminally accountable for their actions, so do many other people.

I can't ever remember a time in my lifetime where the people have been so against the state. I feel very sorry for the Conservatives. By the time they get into power they will be left to clear up the mess from a tax and spend government who has delivered nothing apart from encouraging people to use their credit cards.

Our kids can't even read or write properly and the level of street crime is just unacceptable. The government has lost the personal data of citizens and they expect to introduce ID cards. Losing that data seems criminally negligent to me. Why aren't the opposition coming out and insisting the government is prosecuted for this? Many people think they should be and nothing is being done to make them accountable for their actions. We need some city guys in the opposition front bench - tougher guys who can deal with this. Quite frankly, the opposition still seems very weak and it must strengthen.

Worried of Windsor

Let's hope he hasn't got a gun licence.

Austin Barry

The assassin in the wings is surely panda manque Alistair Darling. What is Darling, humiliated by Brown, waiting for? Surely he should resign citing Brown as a shambling disaster of a PM whose affiliation with the Berkshire Hunt our Frank Pulley has indentified. Come on, Alistair, a few more malts, a bit more Caledonian courage and you can bring down this unelected, unwanted horror.

Nicholas

There you are with that Dowager Empress photo again. Very appropriate. The Last Empress of Labour.

Robert Williams

James likes the "Baldrick" line in the FT, but my favorite is "There has certainly been speculation about a reshuffle with talk of Darling being replaced by schools secretary Ed Balls (“Ed?” said one sceptical Whitehall man. “Think Gordon Brown without the charm.”)"

Rhymin Simon

It is actually the Berkely Hunt

Nicholas

I thought part of the quote from Martin Weale, head of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, very telling of Brown's regime:

“It’s not the PM’s job to make economic announcements but whether we’ll ever get back to constitutional government again, I’m not sure.”

Brown's assault on constitutional government actually seems to have been worse than Blair's. The spin and out-of-parliament briefings, which he promised to stop, have increased. The amount of public monies being spent on damage control and propaganda for Brown The Celebrity is obscene.

Yet, it is strange that it is mainly journalists who are highlighting the constitutional dangers from the Brown regime. Nothing about this from the opposition parties or from within the parliamentary system. One draws the sad conclusion that Mr Weale's concern for our political system is justified when there is little or no political outrage at Brown's increasing despotism.

What redress do the public have when our politicians abuse the system that is at the heart of our democracy? The 1689 Bill of Rights did not envisage a situation where the government would seize and maintained all power, disarming the people and enacting laws making it impossible for them to protest or to hold government to account by the threat of force.

These fundamental changes seem to have come about with little or no commentary on them, yet they represent a revolution in politics. Blair and Brown have thrown away the rule book, to the detriment of British democracy, and seem to have got away with it. The precedent is one which I feel sure the Tories will expediently follow and which lends itself to compounding the appalling lack of democracy inherent in the EU.

If ever a public enquiry were needed it is about this. The undermining and abuse of the fundamentals of our constitutional system by New Labour. The rise of unelected decision and policy makers. The politicisation of the Civil Service. The lack of parliamentary scrutiny. But who will champion this?

The Laughing Cavalier

I said weeks ago on this blog that not one of them has the guts to knife the Dour Leader in the back. Nothing has changed save that the situation worsens daily.

Marian C

Well said to all the above contributors.

Desperate Housewife/Devon

Hurrah for Tories £2million exempt from inheritance tax theft, but what about pensioners having to pay tax on their incomes? We've paid through the nose already.

Verity

I've asked before: why doesn't HM remove this unelected, destructive, not to say insane, prime minister?

It's a serious question. Why does she not shut down this government? Does anyone have any thoughts?

occasional ranter

Only the crumbliest, flakiest crackpots, waste like crackpots never wasted before....

imminently homeless

I don't think we can smell petrol in the bunker yet. When's the election again?

Hysteria

Verity - I am afraid it's a dream. I remember when I was in the military in the late '70s where there was semi-serious talk of some kind of coup. But we got Maggie so that was ok!

What to do now? Whilst the internet has allowed a more ready exchange of views and the ability to connect like-minded people the flip side is that the state can more readily police the "chatter" -

interesting though that ones thoughts of removing an elected government by dictat (HM or otherwise) immediately puts one at odds with the law of the land. Such people would be regarded as terrorists.

And as the old saying goes "one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist"

So - seriously - there is nothing to be done until an election. Except of course to continue to pressure the next government to declare policies that will redress some of the crap of the last several years.

I have low confidence in team DC however.............

Frank Pulley

Rhymin Simon

There's one in Berkshire, too. And about 500 in the House of Commons at this point in history.

Wilfred

What an entertaining thread this has turned into!

Austin Barry's 'panda manque' is priceless - best laugh I've had all day. And I agree with his assessment - Alistair Darling would be the perfect instrument with which to remove Brown.

I particularly agree with Nicholas, however. I think it is the damage to our political institutions and political culture that has been wreaked by these wretches, that is the most serious and harmful.

I believe that the lack of confidence in the current Tory front bench, as commonly expressed on this site, is largely due to precisely this damage.

TGF UKIP

Even better than the Baldrick line was one Whitehall insider's take on Ed Balls "Ed? Think Gordon Brown without the charm."

TGF UKIP

Jennifer E, "I feel very sorry for the Conservatives. By the time they get into power they will be left to clean up the mess from a tax and spend government." While I note at the end of your post that you comment that the opposition does seem very weak, your sympathy is greatly misplaced.

Please remember that the Cameron Tories have consistently promised to match Labour spending. Indeed, by forsaking their duty, as an opposition, to oppose the wasteful spending of the Blair/Brown government they should be rightly accused of encouraging it.

We have the worst government faced by the worst opposition for at least fifty years.

Which brings me to Nicholas' brilliant post and his entirely reasonable and logical conclusion.

Hysteria

Why has he got spaghetti on his hat?