At this rate, predictions that there will be a General Election in the UK by the end of this year look pretty credible. It may be that we will get a poll by the autumn, particularly if the meltdown of the government directly affects things like the UK’s debt credit rating. Another day, another bunch of Labour politicians head off.
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Ed Balls in the Treasury. Jesus Fucking H. Christ.
Balls is an economics genius!
Apparently when he was Treasury Minister (or whatever the job title was) he managed to forecast the truly and totally independent Bank of England’s interest rate decisions correctly in advance every single time, a record of which no City forecaster can boast.
From ‘sources close to Jaqui’ we learn that she has only quit because of the pressure on her family. In other words it’s not her fault she had her hand in the till, it’s our fault for moaning about it.
Oh, and she ‘feels vindicated’ because she only stole the kitchen sink, not the whole kitchen.
How does that old saying go? Something like; Nothing befits a man more than the manner of his going.” Bitching, whining and blaming everyone but herself.
Still, the good news is that the opposition is planning to move a vote of no confidence in Gordo and his pals.
Well, Plaid Cymru has. Plaid bloody Cymru. Nice one Dave.
There’s almost no chance of an election before the very last minute. The MPs who’ve been caught aren’t resigning, merely standing down at the next election, and Gordon’s got a huge majority. And they all want their snouts in the trough as long as possible.
There will be no election. Not before June 2010, and possibly not then:-
(1) The buggers want the money for they are GramscoFabiaNazis and understand about capitalism and liberty and what it can do to make poverty hideous by showing what will be achieved instead: some are merely greedy pilgets, and others know full well that nobody will touch them afterwards.
(2) They really really believe what they are saying. (Yes, we do too, but we are libertarians.)
(3) An election will reduce Brown’s majority to single figures, or even to a “negative majority”, which will be floated at us, past the guns of the Police, as a “reforming concept and part of the rebirth of fair government, brought closer to the people and made more relevant to today’s issues affecting young people and hard-working-families.”
Oh, and I almost forgot!
It will be trumpeted as a “Good Working Inverse Majority” – “we shall get on with the job of reforming the political system for the benefit of the People”…
(especially young people and hard-working-families)
– Kim Jong-Il and Castro (both of whom will continue to remain dead) will cheer, and swap ambassadors with us.
“Negative Majority”, “Inverse Majority”.
What wonderful terms! Is English a great language or what?
Just out of curiosity, since British law isn’t my strong point, what exactly triggers an election? A majority vote in the House of Commons?
The Guardian leader this morning was astonishing. It would have been regarded as unusually savage had it appeared in a traditionally right wing serious paper. From the Labour Party’s main cheerleader, well, quotable:
And,
to Eric:-
there are several conditions which trigger an election.
(1) The Government runs to the end of its full 5-year term, and an election must be called.
(2) The Prime Minister, sensing a good moment to increase his majority in the Commons, could ask the Queen for a dissolution. Vide: Wilson 1966, thatcher 1983. (usualyl granted.)
(3) The Opposition party/parties get a motion of “no confidence in Her Majesty’s government” agreed for debate – if it is carried, the Government falls and must ask for a dissolution of that Parliament. (Vide: callaghan 1979.) This normally only occurs if the sitting administration has a very slim or negligible “positive majority” – not an inverse one!
As Guy Herbert rightly points out even the Guardian is breaking with Mr Brown (most likely because of the fear that he will lead to “Progressives” losing power).
As for the Church of Scotland. Well I have my problems with its theology, especially the Calivinist stress on predestination.
However, there is certainly a good side to the Church of Scotland – most clearly seen in the life and work of Rev. Thomas Chalmers (1780 – 1847) a man who stressed that people should do good not out of a hope of future reward (he rejected the idea that good works helped people get into heaven) but because helping other people get a firm foundation in life is a good thing to do – nothing to do with any reward.
To Chalmers people should use their own time and their own money – not money they have stolen from others. And they should not parade their virture in the hope of praise, but rather just help other people be all they can be, self reliant and productive. Without any desire for praise or prizes for their help – in this world or the next. Even in the city of Glasgow at a time when vast numbers of Irish immigrants were arriving, Thomas Chalmers (in his time – he would be horrified by modern Glasgow) managed to both provide for the poor (no starving on the streets) and avoid the theft of taxation and the creation of a welfare class cut off from any hope of betterment.
How does this fit with Mr Brown?
It does not fit at all.
Mr Brown is a glutton for praise – his”courage and compassion” is constantly praised by his ministers (such as Mr Mandleson) and by HIMSELF under the mask of praising the good “the government” is doing.
Nor is the money that Mr Brown spends his own – it is partly money from sky high taxation (force) that has done such things as undermine by private pensions (by the tax raids upon them since 1997) and partly from the biggest binge in borrowing in British history – a binge than started long before the present crises.
This is not the thrift and hardwork that Chalmers and the Church of Scotland used to stand for.
Mr Brown is a phony – under the mask of responsibility he is grossely irresponsbile, he is a spend thrift and he contantly seeks the praise of other people for “good works” (in a way that would have disgusted the Presbyterian tradition) that are not even from his own money – but are based on the selling out the future of future generations.
Not building a society of productive indepenent people – but a society of welfare dependents crippled by government debt.
And for this he is praised for “dealing with recession” and for “making tough choices” and even for “investing in the future”.
The only counter argument I can think of to the above is that the left may point to the fact that Thomas Chalmers and people who felt like him eventually broke with the Kirk and formed what became known as the Free Church which split the Church of Scotland for so many decades.
However, given the utter departure from its traditions (even in matters of sexual morality) of the modern Church of Scotland it may well be time for another “Great Disruption” to save the “true Church” from the corruption of the official (government backed) Church.