UK Prime Minster and Labour Party leader Gordon Brown is in an unenviable position today. Tony Blair rode off into the sunset just in time. While never close, the knives are now sticking out of Mr. Brown’s back as Mr. Blair (through high placed discreet sources), Labour front and back-benchers, the London and UK-wide Press, and opposition party leaders gleefully expect to begin a political death watch somewhere around 9 p.m. this evening as projected election results become a reality.
This is the year of global political change. Americans are rejecting 7 years of George Bush’s political and economic policies and the candidates in the November Presidential election are all peddling change. This cyclical change is eating away at Labour across the nation. After nearly 11-years in control, the handwriting seems to be on the wall.
Some would argue had Mr. Blair gracefully left a year earlier and allowed Mr. Brown the chance to build his own legacy, today’s election may have turned differently. Alas, hubris is a dangerous virtue affecting many at the ape of political life. Hanging on to the aphrodisiac of power is a normal disease affecting politicians. Alas, as former Australian PM John Howard learned, when you try to hold onto that power, miss signals to exit gracefully into the night, back another country’s war entered into under deceitful purposes and then play loyal lap dog to them in a 1-way fashion and also believe you are invincible, the fall is that much harder and the blame plentiful. Success has many fathers, blame but one and it is very lonely to be Mr. Brown, Mr. Bush or Mr. Howard.
But with Tony Blair gone and his hands washed clean of responsibility the bad news just keeps flowing in bunches across Gordon Brown’s desktop. Young British men still die in Iraq and Afghanistan, petrol is today £1.11 per litre (that’s $8.55 per gallon, please stop whingeing about $4 a gallon petrol) and £1.27 for diesel, as former Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury Secretary) he is blamed for the economy’s woes, he has a smarmy opposition leader David Cameron nipping at his heels like an unruly frat-boy pit-bull, the continuing meltdown of the housing market began under his watch, our government now owns a failing mortgage bank, Northern Rock which was offered £24 billion pounds of guarantees to stop a run on the bank/restore confidence, a “colourful” man know for outrageousness named Boris Johnson is likely to defeat Labour’s Ken Livingston as Mayor of London, he grossly underestimated the backlash of the abolition of a popular 10p tax band with nothing put in its place, the revelation yesterday that autos purchased before 2001 will shortly be subject to excise taxes annually of more than £400 (quadruple the present rate) as the government tries to force people to buy fuel efficient cars and destroys the used car market and you can see why the usually dour occupant of Number 10 will likely be very depressed by nightfall.
The fact that these are local elections does not help. Local politics is retail politics and any of the US Presidential candidates can tell you how exhausting it has been to campaign in every city and town of small states like Indiana and North Carolina.
Last week Gordon Brown and Davis Cameron met briefly on the train platform at Paddington Station as they headed to Wales to campaign (Brown to Cardiff, Cameron to Swansea). One can only imagine what took place during that conversation.
Mr. Brown says he has been listening and learning as PM. It is a shame the curve is so steep and results so punishing. Mr. Cameron never misses an opportunity to pander to whomever he is speaking so he has talked a lot about preparations to govern and why it is so important.
It looks like he will get his chance sooner rather than the 2010 elections as there will likely be skirmishes and a vote of confidence which Mr. Brown would likely lose thereby throwing everything upside down during a time where stability might be a good thing.
