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Why "if not Gordon"? I don't particularly like him, but he has received a poisoned chalice from Tory Blair. The focus group last night must live in a different country to the one that I have watched sinking since Thatcher ruled. "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". If not Gordon then, perhaps, Clegg and the gibbering demagogues.I am still proud of being a socialist and slightly smug about the mess that Capitalism has created 'again.'
Sean Appleby-Simpkin, (Labour not noo labor).

SELF DEFEATING

Not Gordon because anyone - ANYONE - who spends years accepting the Westminster ethos, WITHOUT CHALLENGING IT, is clearly short of honour and integrity (plus a few other useful attributes).

To get into Parliament - almost without exception - an individual must PLEASE A POLITICAL PARTY. Not please a constituency, as at election time they will be a rosette stand - a party cipher - their existence as a person being secondary.

Once in Parliament, as an MP, there are rituals to be learned and one's seniors to obey and please. Those who best submerge self (and constituency) to serve party dogma, leader and the Westminster charade, rise ever upward. Strength of character and representation of voters is unconducive.

The better the 'performance' (including never answering a question and always lauding the leader) bring an MP into the cabinet, and within striking distance of the top job. The very fact of being regarded as suitable for a cabinet position, is proof that this person is super-loyal, on-message (whatever that message might be) and subservient to dogma. One of these ciphers will, inexorably, be the next PM.

Whether this is Gordon, Dave, Nick, or even Vince the invincible, they have all come that same route and are tainted thereby.

We need a hero of the old fashioned sort. Honour, integrity, wisdom, humility - not intoxicated by their own charisma or oratory.
Someone like that school-teacher who 'felt' right to be around, taught well and never needed to 'apply' control. You know the one. . .
And it just isn't Gordon.

In Scotland we are watching ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Alba - the new Gaelic TV channel launched tonight and simultaneously broadcasting on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 2 ........

A historic week indeed.

IT'S ABSURD: BUT THAT'S DEMOCRACY FOLKS

"And we've the second of our focus group films by American pollster Frank Luntz. Tonight he's asking if not Gordon - then who?"

Frank and his twiddly knob boxes held by a bunch of 'floaters' - it's all just theatrics isn't it, come on, admit it. Even Frank says it isn't 'scientific', so really, what's the point? Why don't you spend the money instead on asking some accomplished academics, i.e. some real experts (but not Mr Third Way please), instead of this populist nonsense.

I boldly suggest that most people watching newsnight would prefer to see/hear what people who've spent some years studying the economy etc think is required to get us out of this quagmire of spin and slease we've 'evolved' rather than watch a bunch of bemused 'floaters' twiddling knobs whilst watching spinmeisters theatrically perform.

TO QUOTE STAN LAUREL

"What she said!" (JJ above @ 4)

But PLEASE, if we must investigate politicians rather than principles (which by definition they don't have) let's have some politically neutral psychological input as well as opinion from JJ's academics.

I have just watched Messiah Blair on 'More 4' explaining, pathetically, why Iraq is a triumph of some sort - his triumph.
Tony, too, was once 'WHY TONY', and no one, with any psychological nous, would have touched him with a Jeff Hoon. But the answer to 'why Tony' that emerged, was charisma, oratory, empty rhetoric, spin and that bloody rictus. No one made that apparent to the sleepwalking masses.

Time for action Newsnight.

"If not Gordon, what?" ..... Gaelic punk and an Elvis impersonator on TV Alba????!!!!!!?

Barrie, I too have just watched Blair on Jon Stewart's show. Wasn't is extraordinary? It seemed like a complete stranger. Not because he looked or sounded or said anything different, but just because we have seen nothing of him for a year. We spent ten years looking at him and listening to him everyday, and now he seems completely unknown. Very strange.

THOROUGHLY MODERN BLAIR

Hi Nick. He still looks like the desperate boy I always saw. I would love to have some data on his early life (I browsed a useless biography). I suspect his mother's Catholicism might have been 'heavy' but don't have enough to go on.
Poignantly, I sense an input into little Tony, similar to that received by young Margaret Thatcher - solid, immutable precepts, rather than broad philosophical enquiry. They both have utter rightness in common.
I reckon Tony has something to prove to one or both of his parents (like so many of us). It is like the tin tied to the cat's tail; the tendency is to keep running, UNLESS one has the courage to stop and address the 'tin'.
Even more poignantly, this applies equally to J Gordon Brown also. But then: this simply reflects the flawed nature of 'the politician'.

'...focus group films by American pollster Frank Luntz'

If you only want red ones in your sweetie bag, it certainly helps to remove all the other colours first.

Buying time.

debt is time limited. So the question is can enough time be bought till the debts expire. The insurance debt runs out in 3-5 years. The 'smaller' housing debt is longer time frame.

The city uses the argument that it does not need regulation because it brings in billions to the economy as if its a one way street. Is the amount they have brought in more than the state bailout now? Just looking at the numbers is the city [under the current system] a net asset or net loss to the uk?

The discredited chicago school of economists reasoning is of 'light' as opposed to 'heavy' regulation. Neither is correct. Now the search must be on for the 'right' regulation?

In trading terms bets have been placed without a stop loss. Time for a stop loss.

I really like Gordon Brown I think he´s genuine and was a very good chancellor and is a great PM. I don´t think you can really fault his morality or blame him for American bankers mistakes either.

When he does go, and I hope its not for a while yet I would like to see another woman PM in the form of Harriet Harman. She is a really good speaker and she speaks her mind too, I disagree with her on some things but I think she´s a real fighter but with a good heart too. My second choice would be Jack Straw, he´s been around a long time, I don´t know a time in the last ten years when he hasn´t been out of the cabinet, he´s rock solid and former SU boss when the SU actually meant something.

more on understanding cdus and the The Derivatives Chernobyl here


Credit Default Swaps: Evolving Financial Meltdown and Derivative Disaster Du Jour

by Dr. Ellen Brown


[it won't let me post a link]

KISSYFISH: NOT SOMETHING YOU MEET EVERY DAY . . .

However: Harriet Har-man-hater and Jack 'blowin' in the wind' Straw, are all too commonplace. Do you really want the country run by a woman who is in visceral contempt of around half the population?
You can't seriously want a man, so short of edible substance, that he is a survivor in a crocodile swamp? And J Gordon Brown? You see him as a victim - you are right; he is a victim of early years and or his natal disposition, plus the bizarre selectivity of party politics. Don't blame the poor Yanks, they are in enough trouble.

Please say you are just a wind-up!

One for Monday maybe...

Of course I can't seem to post with multiple links.

Let's just try one:



It leads to these:

"Fairness is still our guide" - Guardian

What next?

"And the sword of social justice strong, still, in its sheath!"

Who writes this guff?

I guess... journalists:

"Harry Potter author JK Rowling gives £1 million to Labour" - Telegraph

I know everyone is at it, but I would have liked my national broadcaster and its crack squad of blonde and/or bald Whitehall building attendants to help understand one small thing that immediately struck me from such as this in the above... story:

'But a source indicated that Miss Rowling's money would not simply be swallowed up in debt repayments, but would allow the party to continue with its work.'

Oddly this echoes the 'story' in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, too. Pretty much verbatim.

Reads more like a press release than a bit of Whitehall chat.

Other than just how many 'sources' there are these days to issue such speculative gems, how does this work?

If I have massive debts and get some money, no matter what happens isn't the effect just to defray the debt and its effects slightly?

So If I owe the Government for tax or the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ for its licence fee because I am broke (ironically thanks to their best efforts on behalf of my family), they can't come after it if it arrives in my bank account because 'it is allowing me to carry on with my work'?

Seems like a multiplicity of standards to me, at best, but I am sure there good and legal, if not ethical accounting practices to justify it all.

I held this contribution to the blog until I had heard a number of interviews with Gordon Brown. I had hoped that I would be able to comment on his new vision; though none of his ministers seemed to be able to explain what this was.

As far as I can make out his strategy boils down to a two pronged attack. The first element is his ‘strategies for the long-term’. After all three aspects of his much trailed ‘relaunch’ miserably failed, in the last couple of weeks, his latest wheeze is nurseries for two years old – in ten years time, if we can afford such radicalism! Hardly revolutionary!

The second element boils down to ‘not me gov’! The latest recipient of his buck-passing is the international financial markets. Despite having taken personal credit for the last decade of boom on these international markets, he now disowns the resulting bust, and claims that this is the one and only reason for his current unpopularity. After his dismal question and answer session at the Labour conference, I even began to feel sorry for him; as one does sometimes feel sympathy for born losers. But the voters will surely see through this lame excuse.

But we should not have been surprised by recent developments. Gordon Brown had developed the ideal strategy for a political vice-president; pass the buck. In the first instance his response was to avoid the decision. His budgets were largely smoke and mirrors, with little significant change embroidered by slight of hand effects. Indeed, the abandonment of the 10% rate in his disastrous last budget was the hidden price for his headline 2% reduction in the basic rate; a headline designed, very effectively, to make the budget look positive. In fact, his avoidance of decision-making was probably the best strategy when times were good.

Thereafter, the real brilliance was to pass the buck to someone else. It was, to be fair, a strategy invented by Margaret Thatcher; set the (often unpalatable) strategy and then pass operational responsibility to someone else - as has so often happened since with local councils. Gordon Brown has proved to be the master of this approach. The Bank of England took on the responsibility for the economy and the City for financial matters. Brown then claimed responsibility for their success, but now blames the latter for the latest problems and has distanced himself from the latter.

Most important, while he was second in command, he was able to use Tony Blair in the same way; even though there were reports that the latter was not even allowed to have any sight of these decisions. Successes were Browns and failures were Blair’s. Now, of course, he is in charge. Harry S Truman famously said ‘the buck stops here’. Brown’s equivalent policy is that ‘the buck passes on’! Hence his now infamous indecision and his ‘not me gov’!

The electorate, though not the government, realise that this is not the way leaders are supposed to behave; and hence Brown’s steady decline into the abyss. It is a shame that Gordon doesn’t see where he is headed. I am sure he would not want to go down in history as the one who destroyed the Labour Party; especially after Tony Blair, who Brown tried so hard to destroy, was its most successful PM.

15. mercerdavids:

Like you, I was keen to hear more from the horse's... mouth, so it was nice to see Mr. Brown prepared to be interviewed live after a long while on, of all things, the Andrew Marr Show on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ this morning.

Perhaps not so easy to sit through what seems a series of repeats: 'Not good enough', 'Lessons need to be learned', "We're going to look at this', 'We'll review that', etc. After how long in power?

Good of Andrew to also ponder just how long one can point at history and everyone else (well, America) for why the UK seems to be in the unique situation it is. Is 'Global Financial System' - trotted out how many times per spinmeisters mantra? - code for 'nowt to do with me!'.

Yet for all this, tangibly, I only heard a man claim what may be wrong, yet then little could be done, especially by many of the systems that permitted excesses being put in place either by him or on his watch!

And if bonus-culture is to blame, why is his 'target-meeting over common sense'-administration riddled with this very practice... from public servants!

And I really, really would prefer that pols will stop telling me 'what the country wants' with no basis whatever to support that or include me.

The man's connection with reality is zero. And his default to not 'accept' fact to 'solve' his situation, at least in his own mind is ridiculous. Just like the head of the Ministry of Magic. And this voter knows it... longer term.

It seems quite a few others do too, if many polls I read are to be believed. Though many, oddly, still do not get shared in some quarters.

BROWN-OUT

Junkkmale's restrained comment on Brown is spot on.

I would add that when a 'man' of nearly 60 trots out the school motto, those who have ears to hear, perceive a boy. The finger nails and desperation to be 'topp' do nothing to dispel that view.
I repeat; a pool of politicians, wherein PMs such as deluded Blair, pig headed Thatcher, indescribably awful Major and now Little Boy Brown, float to the top, is a pool that needs cleaning right out and re-stocking.
I note that Campbell is still floating around - nuff sed.