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The wreckage of the consensus This is the paragraph from the Times (of London) today about Gordon Brown’s plan to ‘shake up’ (whatever that means) UK politics:
Gordon Brown wants to use opposition MPs and citizens’ juries in his government to produce fresh ideas and energy
The idea of co-opting opposition MPs – in order to neuter them and implicate them in government decisions – is the classic move of undermining the sharp and necessary disagreements that are a healthy part of parliamentary democracy. As for the citizens’ juries bit, I doubt Gordo has in mind the canton system of local referenda that the Swiss use (if only). After all, Brown is not keen on a “citizen’s jury” when it comes to the recent EU constitution, sorry, I meant treaty, is he?
And it is only Monday.
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And Bercow is one of the Tory MPs said to be helping him. How soon before Bercow jumps ship?
Also a clever idea to get Patrick Mercer onboard on his special subject of security. Mercer surely owed Camoron one for all the loyalty he showed him a few months back.
Conservative party M.P.s for Buckingham tend to be big government types (although they often talk in terms of markets and so on) – even big government types by the standards of the Conservative party.
Mr Bercow has always been treacherous. I remember him from Federation of Conservative Students days – he called himself a “libertarian” back then, and then backstabbed everyone. He was the elected head of F.C.S. and cooperated with its destruction (John “Gum Gum” Gummer and others had fed a lot of lies to both the press and to the Conservative Party Chairman).
Of course the destruction of F.C.S. was really just a “dry run” for the destruction of Mrs Thatcher (certain people wanted to see if they could get away with such things), no one told Norman Tebbit (Conservative Party Chairman at the time) that of course – and he did not understand the matter till years later.
Oddly enough I met (a year or so ago) the man who stood against Mr Bercow for the leadership of F.C.S. at the last conference. We got to talking and I had to admit that, based on how they had turned out in Parliament, I should have voted for him (to my lasting shame I voted for Mr Bercow – even though I already believed him to be a man of bad character, it was “the line” you see, what a fool I was).
As for Mr Brown:
Yes citizen involvement – apart from a vote on the E.U. Constitution.
And “honesty in government” – apart from breaking his promise to let the people vote on the E.U. Constitution.
Mr Brown is clearly a dishonest man.
Yes, Mr Cameron treated Patrick Mercer (supposedly an old friend – and a man who had worked very hard indeed to win Mr Cameron the position he now holds) very badly.
First Cameron had his people brief against Mr Mercer (a lot of nonsense), and then he sacked him – putting out that he wanted to reduce the number of old Etonian types in the Shadow Cabinet.
Mr Mercer real crime was that he did not pretend not to be an old Etonian (no fake “Dave” “I am one of the people” act for him) and that he went into the army (and was honest about how things are there) as well as into private business.
Rather than being given a job at Conservative Central Office and then given a job in P.R.
The David Cameron never-worked-a-day-in-his-life route.
This is the beginning, surely and purposely on the road to a one party state.
Brown the great dictator…
Why do you think our troops are being kept overstretched and over there.
This is the beginning, surely and purposely on the road to a one party state
Nah, this is a stunt. Politics.
If Gordie were to be proposing proportional representation I might agree, but this? Gesture politics. Dianniafied drivel.
There could be another reason of course.
The big fist is desperately short of talent in his cabinet and is looking for someone, anyone to help him out of the hole he is just about to fall in. Leading in the polls or not.
One party state is, I agree, on the way. The trouble is that most people do not care a jot. Depressing .
A government of National Unity! What a shame the Germans are on our side, sort of. What war are we being united about? The war on poverty? (Still poor people in Britain, then?) The war on Drugs?
Brings back memories of Churchill. I have a conspiracy theory for you- Churchill was a Russian pawn! He only got mad at Hitler because Stalin wanted him to! Between them they turned Europe Red, or into welfare-addict states! Could be a good book in that….
Brown interested in input from the citizen? As they say: “Yore ‘avin a larf mate.”
I suspect he, like most of the European elite, would be much happier if input from the citizen were as minimal and as restricted to the ceremonial as possible.
He is clearly doing his best to sabotage the opposition by gulling and picking off any members of the heard he can and ensuring anyone who does get involved with him will be implicated and can’t later criticise him.
If you want a good conspiracy theory Nick g. here is one:
Otto Von Bismark cooperated with socialists, indeed subsidized some of them, in order to produce class based politics which he rightly believed would undermine Liberals (in the old sense of the word) who he regarded as a threat to the Prussian Monarchy. Bismark also introduced the first nation wide government “insurance” (i.e. welfare) schemes, in order to get workers to depend on the state.
Later on Bismark understood that he had helped create a monster (far more of a threat to the Prussian Monarchy and the Junker landowners than the radical Liberals had ever been) and he launched a campaign against the socialists – but it was too late.
The trouble with the above story is that it is true – and the best conspiracy theories are false (so that we can laugh rather than cry).
Of course Bismark also managed to split the Liberals.
An illegal tax increase was imposed in 1862 (to fund a military build up).
Sadly the Liberals (not being consistant libertarians) did not see the issue as the tax increase, or the military build up – they viewed simply in terms of the tax increase not being improved by all the three Houses of the Prussian Parliament.
What became the “National Liberals” were won over by the military victories of Prussia and its allies over Denmark (1864), Hapsburg Austria (1866), and France (1870) – they decided that their nationalism was more important that their liberalism, and actually welcomed such crimes as the conquest of the low tax Kingdom of Hanover in 1866 (just as Italian Liberals welcomed the conquest of the conquest of lower taxed realms by the Kingdom of Piedmont – again nationalism was more important to them than opposing high taxes or conscription, or a rule of terror in such places as Sicily – school text book histories are always rather quiet about all the violence in Sicily AFTER “unification”).
On the other hand what became the “Progressives” would not go along with Bismark (and had a bitter laugh when Bismark betrayed the National Liberals in 1878), but the Progressives gradually lost their belief in freedom and became more accepting of statism (as long it was under democratic control of course). They even ended up cooperating with the Socialists (of course neither they nor the Socialists knew that Bismark had helped turn the Socialists from a few cranks to a major force).
It was a similar story where I am sitting in Kettering, Northamptonshire.
Perhaps once Liberals did believe in liberty – but they certainly did not by 1871.
The Liberals in this town (as in so much of England) decided that they could not raise enough money for their “British schools” (the “British schools” were “nonconformist”, i.e. hard line Protestant, schools – and most of the Liberals were such “nonconformist”).
So they supported the creation of a School Board which would use the threat of violence to collect money for the sort of “nonsectarian” (i.e. schools were their sects would have a lot of power) schools they wanted.
The ratepayers were defended by the evil Tory folk (when they could be dragged out of the pub, or kept from going hunting and fishing for a little while) who declared that they would raise enough money for their voluntary “National” (i.e. Church of England, Anglican) schools, for any child whose parents wanted him or her to go (the very poor not being charged a fee).
The Tory folk won every vote on the issue of a School Board for the next twenty years, but then the British government (via the 1891 Act) forced everywhere to have a School Board.
Of course the Kettering Liberals had other interests apart from government education (prohibition for example), but like the German Liberals they had decided (without really thinking about it) that various things (democracy, “secularism”, education, temperance – well anything really) were much more important to them than liberty.
OKAY! Your conspiracy theory is bigger than mine! BUT- I bet mine gets aired on the BBC first!
Polispeak for same ideas that have never worked before but if we give it a new name and throw more money at it it will magically work this time.
I’d like to shake up politics.
Clamp Gordon Brown’s head in a paint mixer.
(Slack jaw, not much to say…)
There has been a stunt a day from Mr Brown for the last four days.
“Major policy speech” on Monday.
“Press Conference” on Tuesday.
Yet more “Third World Aid” announced by Mr Brown on Wednesday.
And “Citizen Juries” stunt by Mr Brown today.
The “Citizen Juries” are there to allow “ordinary people to make judgement on policy” – they are not going to be allowed to make a judgement on whether the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should agree to the Constitution of the European Union, of course.
Stunt for Friday:
Swedish super rich person switches for the progressivism of Mr Cameron to the progressivism of Mr Brown. In return for being appointed as an adviser on the environment.
Oh yes. and Lord S. promises to give the Labour party yet more millions in return for its support of progressive “social justice”.