Could you stick with Gordon for 3 more years?

AJ

Don't give him ideas for our sake.

David Ossitt

Please let him try; the effect would be a backlash of public anger so great as to sweep him, his government and the labour party out of office for many years.

Jonathan Cook

You can just see Gordon Brown covertly ordering a series of BSE leaks from a government laboratory just before the general election is due.

We will then be told that delaying the election is "the right thing to do".

Only Torchwood can save us from this alien lunatic.

Wight Tory

Please don't give him idea's

The Huntsman

Alternatively he could use powers intended to deal with a major terrorist attack and suspend the constitution, citing some emergency - say total bankruptcy after the IMF refuse further loans - as the reason.

This is why this observation from McStalin's lips: “Do you really want to see tomorrow, in the midst of a recession, while the Government is dealing with this, the chaos of an election?” was so sinister.

Still, he could try this if he likes, but he will then discover what it is like to be on the receiving end of a pitchfork up the backside as he is marched to The Tower to await the usual awful fate....

Mitch

Nice try, but somebody has forgotten 'convention', by which we are largely governed.

By convention, the GE will be held 5 years after the last i.e. by late spring 2010.

boulay

well done david herdson - i imagine the real PM (PM) is already drafting the press releases and arranging with his media stooges for airtime to explain the absolute necesity of this happening for the benefit of the european union, sorry, labour party, oops sorry again "the citizens of the united kingdom."!

Sam - do you really think that brown cares about "public uproar"? if he gave a fig he would be long gone.

TomTom

The 17th Century is key to understanding the current political environment. Our ancestors would not have tolerated the circumscription of individual liberty and the corrosion of national identity and culture that has occurred to a manifestly lazy and ignorant voting population. Every warning about mass-democracy leading to tyrannical rule has come about; but it would now appear that Parliament itself is discredited as is the idea that our 'Representatives' have any connection with either national interest or individual households.

It would be interesting if Brown availed himself of the Civil Contingencies Act or this piece of ritual, because it would permit the rupture in parliamentary history that is essential to creating an accountable political system. Parliament is a theatre for the political parties just as a Court is a theatre for lawyers; the rest of us are impressed into its script and costume dramas as unwilling hostages.

Hawkeye

It would be political suicide and it may cause riots in the streets.

Steve.W

Does Lord Peter Longtitle know this?

Pete-s

If he tried it on, we will find out if our head of state has any intention of ever protecting citizens rights.

oldtimer

The trumped up claim of an emergency as a reason for delaying an election will not wash. The biggest financial crisis in living memory was no reason for not holding the US Presidential election - nor would it have been an adequate reason for deferring a UK general election.

Bruce, UK

Zanu's Goon Squad had better practice their kettling technique then.

richardj

You are ignoring the way in which ordinary and not so ordinary people would react. Poll tax riots would not be seen as anything. Total non payment of tax and vat would be the best way to deal with such a disgusting performance from disgusting politicians and their hangers on.

Clif E

No i can't stick with Gordon Brown or his robotic style dictatorship Labour Party for no more than one year, in the last two years he and his party have destroyed thousands of pubs, clubs, peoples jobs and peoples freedom to choose, the sooner there gone the better.

Laurence Hodge

Huntsman: I like your image of the pitchfork. Funnily enough I posted along similar lines at Labour List which is a great source of innocent fun...

The general tenor of public opinion in Britain seems to be that we have never experienced a worse crisis in government and never had a leader so widely deprecated. However our history does offer a precedent where an arrogant, spendthrift and paranoid ruler imposed ever greater burdens on the people and rewarded them with increasing levels of suspicion and surveillance, even intercepting their correspondence entering or leaving the country.

Yes, the latter part of the fourteenth century and the final years of Richard II offer an interesting parallel to our present predicament and students of history will know that that King’s final recognition that he would never regain power came as something of a visceral surprise to him. Doubtless some will regret that the modern era is unlikely to adhere slavishly to historical pattern.

Alfred T Mahan

I doubt he'd try this one, Mitch, but since when has "convention" held back the Labour Party? Choice of Speaker; politicisation of the civil service; use of taxpayer funds for party political purposes; misuse of the Parliament Act - the list of times they've ridden roughshod over previous practice is endless.

The Left by and large don't understand convention and restraint because they are so convinced by their own righteousness (and therefore the evil of their opponents) that they feel the end justifies the means. It was to the Left, in sixteenth century terms, that Cromwell said "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: think it possible ye are mistaken".

I don't think he'd have got very far with New Labour.

Richard

Let's hope he does it. He would be either humiliated into backing down or lynched. Either way the Labour Party would be driven into third or fourth place at the subsequent election.

Hawkeye

richardj said: "Total non payment of tax and vat would be the best way to deal with such a disgusting performance"

Remember Darling's advice yesterday - if the Budget did not pass then from today there would be no income tax.

This 3 year measure depends on the gap between parliament being prorouged and the next election. Since income tax is a TEMPORARY tax and renewed every year, the most Brown could get is another year before the money stops.

To be sure, it would be one year too many....

Liz Brown

don't give me a heart attack please

HJ

He's more likely to hold an election earlier and then rig the results Iran-style.

He's been fiddling the figures and concealing the truth for years, so he's very likely to do it again.

Tankus

delete this thread now ...for gods sake

Josh

How much does it cost to go to Dignitas?

T .England

Brown shouldn't be primeminister anyhow, him trying to keep his unelected bum in power for one more minute than he should is just such a vile thought.
I for one would be protesting with millions of others at Downing st to get his unwanted, unpopular, unelected bum removed, it makes me mad just to think he would try such a thing, I wouldn't put it passed the cretinous creep though.

Stepney

Over...my...dead...body. We've never had a proper revolution in this country but my God if he attempted this the barricades would be up on every street and we'd be ripping up the cobbles by tea time.

The last deranged madman who tried to **** with our democracy was Hitler.

Be warned.

SCHIZOIDER

Three more years before the Tories get to strip the flesh from my bones, I can live with this.

michael

4 more years?
Hmm...lets look on the bright side; thats plenty of time to qualify as an insolvency practitioner.

CCTV

Give Scotland independence with a referendum in England only and bury Brown under the Stone of Scone

David Boothroyd

Not this rubbish again. It came up in 1997 about John Major. It is no longer practically possible to govern without Parliament because of the requirement to pass a Finance Act and three Consolidated Fund Acts each year to keep government finances going.

PS Alfred T Mahan - the convention on the Speaker, if there is one, is that they come from the Government benches, so it was not broken in 2000.

Peter - Toronto

But surely would not be able to raise any tax beyond the first year so cuts in governement spending would be at 100%. Would really be into nasty cut territory!

Ex-SuperiorLibraryAssistant

Over my dead body...

Alfred T Mahan

David Boothroyd - you can argue this one either way. For forty odd years the Speaker was drawn alternately from Labour or Conservative, and Martin's election changed that. However I agree that previously the government had always provided the Speaker.

Verity

Oh, the brave music of a distant drum!

You have no hope of lynching anyone or storming anyone with pitchforks or rolled up copies of The Speccie, because the police are servants of the government and would taser you. You have ceded your control over the government.

Still, you're only following the lead of our Sovereign Lady who appears to have ceded all interest in the dictatorisation of Britain ages ago. When Blair was President for Life, before he moved onto greener pastures.

Father Charles

We would indeed be living in "interesting times" as the ancient chinese curse would describe them.

However I don't think on past showing he has either the imagination or the courage to try anything quite so bold..unfortuneately.

Paul

Once again, I find myself agreeing with Verity. I don't think that the current police service will be impressed by the loss of your democratic voice.

If the dreadful scenario did ever come about you would hope that the Army would counter the police and rout it quickly (being made up of bullies and cowards as it is), and hopefully they would be moved to do this before too much martyrdom of the civil populace. But make no mistake, we would have to rise up.

Verity

I believe I am correct that the Armed Forces answer only to HM, not any politician.

If the citizenry took to the streets, and the police accepted their orders from the politicians in power, as in the fine ancient tradition of the Stazi, for example, would HM order the troops out to protect the citizenry?

Personally, I wouldn't bet the ranch.