Clearing up the mess

Patrick

Old dog, new tricks - won't happen.

Ronnie

The should call an election and put a very broad proactive manifesto to the country, forcing the other parties to do the same. He'll lose, of course, but a general election is the only way any of this mess can even begin to be cleared up.

Stronghold Barricades

The Guardian simply points at the dithering

Now that his attack dogs have been silenced by the spotlight, however, maybe he can turn his attention to actually running the country

Forlornehope

Brown won't agree on party funding; he cannot. Liberal and Conservative parties can manage with a £50000 cap on individual donations. Labour cannot manage without the funding from the big unions and the other parties will never agree an exemption. Even in a hung parliament there could be a majority for this change but it will not happen until after an election.

kinglear

Leadership? Proactive? Gordo doesn't do that. Or even sorry and mean it.

Michael

Peter, Fraser and others in the Spectator stable, I have read the entries this week by Guido, and this morning in the Times, where he chides all the journalists in the MSM for cowardice in the field of duty in being craven to the lobby and unwilling to reveal truths that was common knowledge, in the true and certain eventuality that you would be frozen out by the political classes, and that it was up to him in the final analysis to blow the whistle. How can GB root out the corruption in the heart of government when he created it? Tom Bower has been screaming it for years. Where have the rest of you been?
I know that the BBC is in the pocket of New Labour, but for the rest, shame on you. Why are you just now jumping on the band wagon with all this righteous indignation?

Raedwald

Hayden Phillips' recommendations into party funding are deeply flawed and anti-democratic. To base a State funding subvention on votes cast at the previous GE will always favour incumbent parties, and erect barriers to entry for others.

The combined membership of the three big parties is now down to 1% of the electorate. State funding on Phillips' basis would rightly cause outrage amongst the 99% of us who are NOT members of one of the three parties.

Phillips also completely ignored the work carried out by Helena Kennedy and the Power Commission - one suspects because the 'Power' recommendations didn't favour the incumbent parties.

The day any government implements Phillips will be the day my last shreds of hope for the future of our Parliamentary democracy fade away.

Joe Mooney

Nothing will save Gordon now. The email scandal is a disgrace and as head of the Government he should resign over the issue. In fact the whole Government should go. Their time is up.

Well done to Guido Fawkes for his excellent work on exposing the email scandal. He is a hero.

Tom Pride

I do not believe that Brown can actually accept that he has done anything wrong and without being able to do that no change is possible.

James Delingpole made a post on his blog illuminating the consequences of the collectivist mindset which is worth a read (at least I think so).
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/james_delingpole/blog/2009/04/15/why_leftliberals_make_the_most_vicious_smear_merchants

“And the reason so many in New Labour are finding it so difficult to understand why they have done anything wrong is this: at the heart of every left-liberal's political philosophy is his belief that his cause is so morally superior that any means, no matter how low, justifies the end of staying in power and furthering the noble "progressive" agenda.”

It is a morale booster:

“In a straightforward debate, it [the right] will always win on facts, because Conservatism is a philosophy which springs from Empiricism and first principles: looking at the world as it is and seeing what works, rather than - as left-liberals do - trying to shape the world as it ought to be, if only we can somehow cram this square peg into this round hole.”

There is also a good reference in the comments to “Fallacies”, at:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/fallacy.htm

Nicholas

Michael.

Hear, hear. The great pretence, the propaganda wall, the house of cards must be toppled.

Doug

Re: expenses talks with other parties. It isn't going to happen. Brown hasn't changed, he is still the uber tribalist and whatever he tries to negotiate on expenses will in some way be designed to make a cheap political point at the expense of the Tories. Brown just cannot realise that he is in a weak position and must let the Tories have a greater influence or better yet call an election.

Frank P

Ronnie

Your suggestion at 10.02am is the best one I've read since this nonsense broke. I wish I was as confident as you are that he won't win the election when he deigns to call it. The section of the parasitical electorate that is entirely dependent on the continuation of the largesse of NuLab's policies is now a very significant demographic. I doubt that even those socialists who are fed up with Brown's eccentricity and megalomania would wish to slaughter the milch cow - even though it has bovine spongiform encephalopathy. But I hope you are right!

Mike, Brighton

It's difficult to see what Brown's political strategy is at the moment.
There is no legislative programme and MPs have very little work to do, he is hardly responding to events as Martin points to. His entire focus is on the media perception of his response to the economic crisis and his string of eye-catching initiatives. It's not enough. Where is the vision, legislative programme and leadership to show where Brown wants to go and the society he wants to build? Beyond vacuous soundbites. All there is, is a vacuum.
Maybe he's tired like the government and sleep-walking to defeat as Major did?

William Blake's Ghost

He could also take the opportunity to put Sir Hayden Phillips's review of party funding into early effect on an all-party basis.

Are you seriously suggesting that state funding of political parties through a literal Poll Tax is acceptable?

Do you think it is right to discriminate against small political parties and effectively create a closed shop for the major parties ok?

For goodness sake the Philips report is an effront to the electorate and democracy.

I can just see the slogan now

DON'T VOTE DON'T DONATE

And I will be one of those promoting it and so should every other right of centre voter!

The Hayden Philips report should be burned because of those insults to the electorate!

As for the rest, I agree with the approach but would reserve judgement on the detail as there may well be further abominations against democracy that serve only the self-interest of the major political parties and not the democracy of our country hidden within the small print.

wonderfulforhisage

Who cares? According to Carswell? (I think I read it on his blog) 75% of new laws emanate from Brussels.

JW

Michael, 10:14: Did you also read the bit where Guido described Fraser Nelson as one of the few journalist who can 'hold their heads high'?

http://www.order-order.com/2009/04/the-lobbys-shameful-complicity-in-mcpoisons-reign-of-terror/

Ronnie

Frank P, I think Labour will lose because the broad constituency that Blair put together is now shattered, particularly in the midlands and south of England. The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, the National Front and the nationalist parties will all gain and it will be interesting to see what the next government looks like, indeed what the country looks like after the smoke has cleared.

What is now clear is that this Prime Minister and this government are finished, there is no way back and, with no new blood with which to change things, Labour will suffer in each of the elections to come this year and next.

I don't believe that the Labour dependents are as large a group as you think and I also think that many of them will not vote when the time comes. In addition, Labour will lose a number of seats in Scotland and the new government will resolve the West Lothian Question because they will have no reason not to.

As I have said on another thread, both of our main parties have now exhasuted themselves and our patience after long periods in government. We got Blair because people had had enough of the long Tory collapse; we will get a new government at the end of a long Labour collapse (but it may not be Tory as they are not fully rehabilitated in the public mind).

It is a cleary visible political dynamic that will run its course.

Verity

Frank P is right, as he so often is. The parasitical sector has been, in the memorable word Daniel Hannan used in Brussels to Gordon Brown's face, "engorged".

If they all turned out to vote, the toxic left would remain in power. Our only hope is to count on their feckless, can't-be-arsed (or "what election?") attitude.

Always a pleasure to see you, Frank.

Also, what Willim Blake's ghost wrote.

Ronnie

Frank P, I think Labour will lose because the broad constituency that Blair put together is now shattered, particularly in the midlands and south of England. The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, the National Front and the nationalist parties will all gain and it will be interesting to see what the next government looks like, indeed what the country looks like after the smoke has cleared.

What is now clear is that this Prime Minister and this government are finished, there is no way back and, with no new blood with which to change things, Labour will suffer in each of the elections to come this year and next.

I don't believe that the Labour dependents are as large a group as you think and I also think that many of them will not vote when the time comes. In addition, Labour will lose a number of seats in Scotland and the new government will resolve the West Lothian Question because they will have no reason not to.

As I have said on another thread, both of our main parties have now exhasuted themselves and our patience after long periods in government. We got Blair because people had had enough of the long Tory collapse; we will get a new government at the end of a long Labour collapse (but it may not be Tory as they are not fully rehabilitated in the public mind).

It is a cleary visible political dynamic that will run its course.

Moraymint

Pushing a blancmange up hill with a fork comes to mind.

Frank Goddard

He could also SACK jackboot Jac qui,resign himself,then call an early GE.We can all hope, can't we???
Frank G...English pensioner

Frank Goddard

A further comment from my previous outburst,what has happened to all the Bliar supporters in the celeb market,who in 1997 went OTT for him,the likes of The Attenboro's,the Putnams,the MacCartney's,etc,etc.Another question I would like to ask the cofeehousers,the Co-op bank has not been mentioned at all during the bank crisis and do they give donations to the Nu-Labour???Strange!!!
Frank G....English pensioner.

Frank Goddard

Ronnie,Re-National Front.Did you mean BNP.
A lot of people think the NF is the BNP,far from it.Read their website.I am a Tory by the way,but I do like to see the other point of view.
Frank G...English pensioner.

Verity

Ronnie - If the socialists put in a new leader - other than Harridan Harman - they will win the next election. This will give us time to put in a new leader and regroup, and we will come storming in as the implode two years later.

Dave the tory

Frank P, if you're right then there is no hope for this country. If this unspeakable government doesn't get turfed out whenever it is forced to submit itself to the electorate, then the British people deserve everything that has happened and will happen to them. Fortunately, I cannot conceive of such a scenario.

TGF UKIP

Brown's present travails have absolutely no relevance to where politics might be a year from now, when a general election will be only a very few weeks away.

The reason why Brown and his party and media friends still have an entirely realistic chance is that Cameron will still be leading a petrified and conviction free Tory Party.

Ronnie

Frank Goddard, I did mean BNP. I'm sorry, I meant nothing by it, I'm just showing my age.

Verity, who could they have as 'new' leader who could make any difference? The Labour brand as a whole is terminally damaged and even having Harman talked about as a possible leader shows how poor a state they are in.