Letter From Caledonia - much politics.
Jun. 9th, 2009 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f4f3I wrote this to a friend who lived abroad, bringing him up to speed on the political happenings here over the last few weeks. It's very biased, but for anyone else who's curious...
It's starting to look very bad. The sideshow is that the BNP now have two Euro MPs. Despite all the hand wringing (feigned and actual) this was always going to be a problem with proportional representation and a low turnout. The knuckle-dragger vote actually stayed around the same, but with Labour voters staying away in droves the BNP vote share went up. This also benefited UKIP (the UK Independence Party) who actually went up from 12 to 13 MEPs. They finished above Labour in vote share, pushing Labour and the Lib Dems down to 3rd and 4th, respectively.
Up here in Scotland Labour held on to two seats, the SNP got two and the Tories got one - I think. I haven't checked the Argyll seat, which declares today. The SNP got 29% of the vote, Labour 21%.
I haven't really looked at the English local elections, as, to be frank, I'm not hugely interested in them. But I think it's Labour's worst showing since WWI/The Crimea/1066, depending on who you listen to.
It really has been frightening to watch the establishment machine roll into action to remove Labour, now that they have nothing to offer them. The assault came on many fronts, and was orchestrated to perfection.
First of all was the usual media pressure, ratcheted up a couple of notches. The stuff you expect from the Sun, the Mail, the Star, the Express, the London Standard, the Times, The Telegraph and Murdoch's Sky TV. This was running at its usual level, with an unusual amount of personal invective against Brown - nasty stuff, with more than a dash of anti-Scottish racism thrown in.
The financial collapse was the starting pistol for regime change. All of a sudden, the unregulated City was facing a hostile government for the first time since... for the first time, period, I suppose.
Brown's government seems to have made all the right moves to cushion the fall and position us for a recovery, but those actions were unpopular with everyone, because they'll hurt. The investments to shore up the banks have left a huge debt burden for government, but unless the financial system collapses totally, that will be paid back (Lloyds paid back £2 billion today) - unless, of course, there's a new government who're prepared to "forgive" those debts "in the interest of allowing the financial sector to lead us back to prosperity" - I'd imagine that this is the biggest pay-off Cameron will make in return for their backing.
I don't know if you've been following the expenses row? Basically the House of Commons has been employing what we'd call tax avoidance measures if they were being used by companies, and a strategy of maximising expense claims which started under Thatcher and was facilitated by every government since.
The "logic" of the Thatcher years was that no one would wear an increase in MPs salaries, so instead they would widen the net for expenses claims, especially for travelling and second home allowances. Every MP was allowed to claim for upkeep of a second home, even those living in London. Couple that with the rise in house prices, and you have subsidised property speculation. Throw in a couple of wrinkles like being able to change the designation of your first and second homes for expenses AND for wider tax purposes, and you had MP's "flipping" their homes five times in a year, avoiding Capital Gains Tax when they sold, and furnishing successive properties from expenses. All within the rules, and all smelling rotten (although a lot less rotten, and much less expensive to the tax payer, than almost any UK PLC's tax shenanigans, but no privately owned media outlet will start publicising that particular "shame").
Anyway, Brown was having no luck starting the ball rolling on reform of expenses(talks with the other party leaders failed, since it wasn't in their interest to vote for Christmas). Brown then went on uTube, though, and promised to reform expenses.
The very next week all of the Commons' files on expenses going back 9 or 10 years were sold to The Telegraph by "persons unknown".
Since then they've been cherry-picking morsels to publish which will cause embarrassment all round, but particularly for the government. The first casualty was the Speaker, hounded out of office for being Catholic, working class, and for considering himself to be the shop steward for the commons, not its policeman. He actively encouraged the system of maximising expense claims - coming from the culture of workers as opposed to employers, this was perfectly understandable and culpably naïve. However, once one MP can be made to resign by media pressure, everyone was fair game. About a dozen or so have said they will stand down at the next election, and each party has their own "Star Chamber" (I kid ye not) set up to vet each MP in turn.
Next up in the regime campaign were the enemy within - a cabal of disaffected MPs who Brown has wronged somewhere, either passing them over or preferring someone else - quite often someone Scottish.
Apparently there has been some sort of email write around going on - they haven't all been in the same room together, and no one knows all the names. It would be comical if it weren't so tragic, pathetic if it didn't actually have the potential to cause harm. Last week they broke cover with three high profile resignations from Cabinet, all timed to have cumulative effect, with a continued trickle of lower level resignations over the weekend.
Last week the Guardian came out against Brown, aligning itself with the plotters. I'm particularly annoyed about this, since they've effectively gone all or nothing on forcing him out. If Brown stays leader, they can't support Labour up to the next election - I wonder if they'll turn Lib Dem?
Brown's response has been to unleash The Prince of Darkness. Mandleson is awesome to watch in this sort of situation. He made a public call for loyalty to the leadership while privately applying steel-capped loafers to ministerial bollocks. He also pointed out that if Brown IS ousted then the new leader would have to go to the country almost immediately or be hounded into it by the same forces who've been calling Brown "unelected" and demanding he submit himself for approval by general election. Who was is said that "they have an appetite for power, but no stomach for election?"
Brown might still go this week, but I doubt it (although I may be proven wrong by lunchtime). What I'd like to see is an announcement tomorrow booting every even slightly wavering backside out of the cabinet, and starting the fight back.
The economy may just be turning, Cameron hasn't been tested yet, and the expenses row will lose steam, if the causes are addressed. Truth be told, I think Labour will lose the next election, but I'll feel a lot better about it if we lose after a year of fighting for every inch, rather than being hounded out of office by a coalition of media moguls, grandees and turncoats. If nothing else it will wipe the smile off Cameron's face for a while...
It's starting to look very bad. The sideshow is that the BNP now have two Euro MPs. Despite all the hand wringing (feigned and actual) this was always going to be a problem with proportional representation and a low turnout. The knuckle-dragger vote actually stayed around the same, but with Labour voters staying away in droves the BNP vote share went up. This also benefited UKIP (the UK Independence Party) who actually went up from 12 to 13 MEPs. They finished above Labour in vote share, pushing Labour and the Lib Dems down to 3rd and 4th, respectively.
Up here in Scotland Labour held on to two seats, the SNP got two and the Tories got one - I think. I haven't checked the Argyll seat, which declares today. The SNP got 29% of the vote, Labour 21%.
I haven't really looked at the English local elections, as, to be frank, I'm not hugely interested in them. But I think it's Labour's worst showing since WWI/The Crimea/1066, depending on who you listen to.
It really has been frightening to watch the establishment machine roll into action to remove Labour, now that they have nothing to offer them. The assault came on many fronts, and was orchestrated to perfection.
First of all was the usual media pressure, ratcheted up a couple of notches. The stuff you expect from the Sun, the Mail, the Star, the Express, the London Standard, the Times, The Telegraph and Murdoch's Sky TV. This was running at its usual level, with an unusual amount of personal invective against Brown - nasty stuff, with more than a dash of anti-Scottish racism thrown in.
The financial collapse was the starting pistol for regime change. All of a sudden, the unregulated City was facing a hostile government for the first time since... for the first time, period, I suppose.
Brown's government seems to have made all the right moves to cushion the fall and position us for a recovery, but those actions were unpopular with everyone, because they'll hurt. The investments to shore up the banks have left a huge debt burden for government, but unless the financial system collapses totally, that will be paid back (Lloyds paid back £2 billion today) - unless, of course, there's a new government who're prepared to "forgive" those debts "in the interest of allowing the financial sector to lead us back to prosperity" - I'd imagine that this is the biggest pay-off Cameron will make in return for their backing.
I don't know if you've been following the expenses row? Basically the House of Commons has been employing what we'd call tax avoidance measures if they were being used by companies, and a strategy of maximising expense claims which started under Thatcher and was facilitated by every government since.
The "logic" of the Thatcher years was that no one would wear an increase in MPs salaries, so instead they would widen the net for expenses claims, especially for travelling and second home allowances. Every MP was allowed to claim for upkeep of a second home, even those living in London. Couple that with the rise in house prices, and you have subsidised property speculation. Throw in a couple of wrinkles like being able to change the designation of your first and second homes for expenses AND for wider tax purposes, and you had MP's "flipping" their homes five times in a year, avoiding Capital Gains Tax when they sold, and furnishing successive properties from expenses. All within the rules, and all smelling rotten (although a lot less rotten, and much less expensive to the tax payer, than almost any UK PLC's tax shenanigans, but no privately owned media outlet will start publicising that particular "shame").
Anyway, Brown was having no luck starting the ball rolling on reform of expenses(talks with the other party leaders failed, since it wasn't in their interest to vote for Christmas). Brown then went on uTube, though, and promised to reform expenses.
The very next week all of the Commons' files on expenses going back 9 or 10 years were sold to The Telegraph by "persons unknown".
Since then they've been cherry-picking morsels to publish which will cause embarrassment all round, but particularly for the government. The first casualty was the Speaker, hounded out of office for being Catholic, working class, and for considering himself to be the shop steward for the commons, not its policeman. He actively encouraged the system of maximising expense claims - coming from the culture of workers as opposed to employers, this was perfectly understandable and culpably naïve. However, once one MP can be made to resign by media pressure, everyone was fair game. About a dozen or so have said they will stand down at the next election, and each party has their own "Star Chamber" (I kid ye not) set up to vet each MP in turn.
Next up in the regime campaign were the enemy within - a cabal of disaffected MPs who Brown has wronged somewhere, either passing them over or preferring someone else - quite often someone Scottish.
Apparently there has been some sort of email write around going on - they haven't all been in the same room together, and no one knows all the names. It would be comical if it weren't so tragic, pathetic if it didn't actually have the potential to cause harm. Last week they broke cover with three high profile resignations from Cabinet, all timed to have cumulative effect, with a continued trickle of lower level resignations over the weekend.
Last week the Guardian came out against Brown, aligning itself with the plotters. I'm particularly annoyed about this, since they've effectively gone all or nothing on forcing him out. If Brown stays leader, they can't support Labour up to the next election - I wonder if they'll turn Lib Dem?
Brown's response has been to unleash The Prince of Darkness. Mandleson is awesome to watch in this sort of situation. He made a public call for loyalty to the leadership while privately applying steel-capped loafers to ministerial bollocks. He also pointed out that if Brown IS ousted then the new leader would have to go to the country almost immediately or be hounded into it by the same forces who've been calling Brown "unelected" and demanding he submit himself for approval by general election. Who was is said that "they have an appetite for power, but no stomach for election?"
Brown might still go this week, but I doubt it (although I may be proven wrong by lunchtime). What I'd like to see is an announcement tomorrow booting every even slightly wavering backside out of the cabinet, and starting the fight back.
The economy may just be turning, Cameron hasn't been tested yet, and the expenses row will lose steam, if the causes are addressed. Truth be told, I think Labour will lose the next election, but I'll feel a lot better about it if we lose after a year of fighting for every inch, rather than being hounded out of office by a coalition of media moguls, grandees and turncoats. If nothing else it will wipe the smile off Cameron's face for a while...
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:57 pm (UTC)