Calling a bigot a bigot

The election news from the UK is all about "bigotgate" - Prime Minister Gordon Brown's "gaffe" in being caught on an open microphone calling a Labour supporter a "bigoted woman" to his aides. Brown was forced to apologise on the radio, and then personally. But looking at what the woman actually said, he shouldn't have. After spouting the usual prejudices about the unemployed, she then went on

"You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?"

So, complaining about immigration, and eastern Europeans (in NZ it would be "Asians") "flocking" in. Brown was right - this woman is a bigoted racist. And his only gaffe was in not calling her that to her face.

Hanging on by his chewed fingernails

Another day, another Ministerial resignation for Gordon Brown. This time its Environment Minister Jane Kennedy, who quit in protest against Brown's style of "government by smear" (against his own party). While Brown will find a warm body to fill the portfolio, an increasing number of rats just don't want to work on his sinking ship anymore, and I'm really wondering how long it can continue for.

Not that ditching Brown will really do any good - the death spiral is too deep to salvage the next election, and it stems from deeper problems than just the identity of the man in charge. Fundamentally, Labour has abandoned its base, preferring instead to toady to slick traders from The City - just like our Labour Party in the 80's. And just like New Zealand, they're frantically rearranging the leadership and Cabinet deckchairs rather than admitting their betrayal.

There comes a time when disgust at the incumbents wins out over fear of the alternative. UK Labour passed that point long ago. The only question now is how long they deserve to spend in opposition.

"A better place"

Today, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the last British troops would leave Iraq by July 2009. In making the announcement, he also praised those troops (some of whom have commited acts of torture), and claimed that "we leave Iraq a better place".

What does this "better place" look like? It is a country in ruins, with a million civilian dead and 3.7 million displaced (out of an estimated population of 29 million). Torture is as common as it was under Saddam, the country is wracked by sectarian violence, there is no security, and the basics of life - food, water, electricity - are even less accessible than they were before the war. It is, in the words of one Iraqi, a nightmare. If this is Brown's idea of "better", I'd hate to see what "worse" looks like.

Constitutional reform in the UK

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced his first major policy: constitutional reform. This will include a significant transfer of power from the executive to the legislature (including the power to declare war, dissolve Parliament, and appoint judges and other officials), removing the Attorney-General from day-to-day prosecution decisions, exploring the need for a codified constitution and a Bill of Rights (s'funny - I thought the UK already had one), and lowering the voting age to 16. There's a suggestion that many of the longer-term decisions (such as codification) would be explored by citizen's juries. Notably absent from the list is a strong commitment to electoral reform and a shift to a fair voting system - something which now enjoys solid majority support after the patent unfairness of recent elections (and the abuses the resulting government has inflicted). Will the UK really have to wait for a hung Parliament to move its electoral system into the 20th century?

Disappointment aside, these moves are very definitely a welcome and positive step. It is simply incredible in this day and age that a supposedly democratic state would perform so many of its core functions through the "royal prerogative". Democratic states derive their legitimacy from the people, and their governance functions should reflect that, rather than pre-Enlightenment conceptions of Divine Right.

It's official

Gordon Brown is now officially the leader of the UK Labour Party - and he's already signalling a more leftward direction. Meanwhile, the deputy leadership election (conducted under preferential voting, though with a grossly undemocratic "electoral college" system which saw the vote equally weighted between the party's three "estates" of members, affiliates, and MPs) has seen the left triumph with the election of Harriet Harman, who had opposed the renewal of Britain's nuclear arsenal and called for higher taxes on the super-rich. In another poke in the eye for Blair, his preferred candidate, Hazel Blears, was the first eliminated. Jon Cruddas, the left's preferred candidate, came third, and it was the transferred votes of his supporters which saw Harman elected. Which I think tells you where the Labour Party's members and affiliates stand on Blairism...

But despite all this, Tony Blair is still Prime Minister, at least for the next two days. Hopefully he'll spend them pondering his rejection by the grassroots and wondering what he could have done to retain them. But somehow, given his arrogance and antinomianism, I doubt it.

Hopefully he'll get a very rude goodbye from Downing Street.

Brown anointed

Gordon Brown will be elected unopposed as leader of the UK Labour Party, after his only rival failed to secure enough nominations. And yet Tony Blair will still remain Prime Minister for another six weeks to allow time for a leadership election which will now not be happening.

The Independent is right on this: Blair should go now. The delay is nothing more than a self-indulgent ego-trip - as witnessed by today's mutual arse-licking session with George Bush in which they praised each other for their role in murderering 655,000 Iraqis and bringing that country to the brink of collapse (though in a rare show of political awareness, Bush admitted that he "could be" responsible for Blair's exit. Y'think?)

Government should not be a vehicle for the ego of one man. Blair should resign immediately and allow his country to move on. And then, maybe, he can face the justice he so richly deserves.

Blair's legacy

With Tony Blair expected to leave office sometime in the next few months, attention has turned to his legacy. And unfortunately for Blair, this may turn out to be something he didn't expect:

Gordon Brown signalled yesterday that as Prime Minister he would forge a foreign policy independent of the US and initiate "frank" relations with President George Bush.

And the reason for this is obvious: despite all of Blair's sycophancy and submission, his bootlicking and crawling, Britain has had nothign to show for it. There has been no quo pro to match blair's quid, except for 128 corpses. And I don't think that is what anyone had in mind.