Leading article: Drastic action is now needed to secure a general election
If Gordon Brown refuses to move, his Cabinet should force the issue
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Independent Minds
When does a government forfeit the moral right to govern? It is a question that has an uncomfortable relevance in Britain today. Labour emerged from the 2005 general election with a solid, if unspectacular, mandate to govern Britain. Yet that mandate has been draining away at an alarming rate ever since. And now, with Labour on course for a disastrous performance in Thursday's European elections, the party's authority is on the verge of being wiped out altogether.
The transition of Gordon Brown to Downing Street in 2007 is a crucial factor behind Labour's crisis of legitimacy. It is true that we do not have a presidential system in this country, but the fact that Mr Brown did not fight the last general election as leader of the Labour Party matters. He has no personal mandate. Indeed, Mr Brown never even fought an internal Labour leadership contest, running unopposed after much arm-twisting of MPs behind the scenes.
If the Government's democratic credibility looked shaky before, the expenses scandal of recent weeks has blown its moral authority apart entirely. No less a figure than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, has become the latest MP to come under pressure over his abuse of the allowances system. It is rather unfair for Labour to suffer more than other parties in the expenses fall-out; MPs of all affiliations have abused the system. But Labour is the biggest party in the Commons. With greater representation comes greater scrutiny.
The frantic atmosphere over expenses has paralysed politics. In normal times, an issue such as the precarious fate of Vauxhall workers in Luton and Ellesmere Port would dominate the political agenda. Yet at the moment, with politics dominated by debate about moats and gardening bills, the fate of General Motors Europe scarcely gets a mention in Westminster. Some commercial leaders are now beginning to complain that the expenses row is pushing other government business aside.
This assumes, of course, that the Government has any business that it is in a position to enact. Mr Brown says that dealing with the recession is his priority. But since the recapitalisation of the banks last October his government has introduced no policies of substance on the economy. Nor is it likely to. What, realistically, can be achieved between now and next June, the latest date that a general election can be held? Mr Brown's National Council for Democratic Renewal and his code of conduct for MPs sound like hastily drafted gimmicks, rather than proper reform packages. And the Government would have trouble getting any serious reform legislation through the Commons in its present fractious condition.
The Prime Minister is expected to announce a Cabinet reshuffle after Thursday's poll. But the idea that a few new faces will do anything to bolster the Government's mandate is, sadly, fantasy. What British politics needs is not a reshuffle but a general election, preferably before the end of the year. Only a national vote can provide the personnel clearout that the public demands. A fresh election is also needed to ease the paralysis of Whitehall. But we are unlikely to get an early election while Gordon Brown remains Prime Minister. His strategy will be to cling on until well into next year in the hope that improvement in the economy will give him a platform for election. Mr Brown was certainly quick to dismiss the case for an early poll yesterday.
So where can the impetus for change come from? It is possible that the Cabinet will tell Mr Brown that his time is up after this week's election results come out. And a low-key campaign for the personable Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, to take over from Mr Brown has been running for several months now. Mr Johnson might well enjoy a bounce in the polls, as new leaders often do, and save many Labour seats in a snap election. The former postman certainly has it in him to deliver an improvement in Labour's fortunes. However, what makes such a coup less likely is the desire of Labour MPs, many of whom would be facing defeat even with a new leader, to hang on to their salaries for another year.
This would, suffice to say, be the most dishonourable justification of all for allowing this broken administration to stagger on. It would confirm every suspicion of the public about the self-serving rapaciousness of MPs. If this week's results turn out to be as bad for the Government as many expect, Cabinet members and backbench Labour MPs need to summon up the courage that deserted them when Mr Brown ran unopposed for the Labour leadership and take action to remove the Prime Minister. That, in the end, is the only way the country will get the early general election it craves.
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Comments
Criminally incompetent failures.
Out with them now.
Vote BNP if you can, otherwise abstain from the pseudo-democratic circus.
http://www.geocities.com/cronyblatc
He hasn't explained why it is right that he flipped his flat over to his wife to avoid capital gains tax.
And above all, he is completely gormless.
His idea of leadership is to outsource the decision making. Set up a committee, royal commission, quango, whatever. Doesn't matter how much it costs or how wasteful. He just can't make decisions.
I disagree with almost everything Cameron says. But at least he gets things done. He has gone about as far as possible (and much further than I thought possible) in disciplining his MPs. I'm going to hold my nose and vote Conservative on Thursday, just to try to get Brown out.
What a pathetic man Gordon Brown is.
We hate you, Gordon.
Go away. Now.
How can he be allowed to continue with his Presbyterian cant after the MacBride Affair exposed his real values?
How long before the elders of his church issue a public rebuke as leaders of the Anglican Church have done? By not speaking out against him they condone his actions.
Having boasted of 'my values' in the speech in which he accepted the leadership of the Labour Party and thus became Prime Minister, Gordon Brown had any moral authority publicly stripped from him when his henchmen showed his real modus operandi.
The MacBride Affair exposed the 'dark arts' that really were his values, the likes of Derek Draper, Liam Byrne, Tom Brown et al were exposed to the public gaze, their methods revealed. Most of the time they had attacked potential Brown rivals within the Labour Party, hence the lack of any other candidate who would stand against GB in the Leadership election.
Now Labour pay the price for their cowardice, having anointed Gordon Brown unopposed, they can hardly claim that they do not want him! He invites disdain and scorn when he mentions the word Presbyterian, deluded to the extent that he still believes he enjoys some vestige of respect.
His incompetence, cowardice, indecision and cant have combined to create an image that so disgusts members of his own party that his presence or even mention of his name guarantee a hostile reception from potential voters.
He will not survive in office until June next year because both the Labour Party and the political system will allow it, let alone the general public. All three require a functioning leader, and Gordon Brown is the very antithesis of that!
A lame humiliated government can do less harm than a strong confident one.
Vote BNP if you can, otherwise abstain from the insulting pseudo-democratic circus;.
http://www.geocities.com/cronyblatc
They have been treating us, the public, with contempt by passing a ton of new laws, rules and regulations that would ever more regulate us, tax us, spy on us, patronise us and control every aspect of our lives in complete contravention of what we want.
Blair used to say, 'Reform or die'. Well, reform yourselves or preferably, die. We do not care, but leave us alone.
We want less laws, rules and regulations, we want you grubby lot out of our faces.
If your annual allowance that amounts to 24,000 pounds is the price for keeping you lot out of our lives, then take it and give us back our individual liberty, individual rights and privacy back to pre-1997 levels. After all, we had let you have that allowance for the previous 50 years, but you have treated us with complete and utter contempt and now it is our turn to treat you with the contempt that you so richly deserve.
If you, like the rest of the taxpaying public, are as dissatisfied with this man then please consider the process of deselecting him as your MP.
There are many thing this arrogant man can brush away but that he cannot. If those who claim to lead the Labour party will not act you the rank and file must deliver a message that hubris cannot ignore.
Your are in a unique position, you have the ability to take away Browns right to stand as your representative in the general election and deliver a vote of no confidence on behalf of us all.
I wonder how keen the local voters will be when they see the details of his expenses revealed?
Did he indeed flip a property to his wife to ensure a profit and avoid tax?
Did he own a second home despite being provided with state housing since 1997?
There we have it!!
This was achieved under FPTP but now you guys want to change it to P.R to make it "Fairer" mmmm nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with saving Labours skin?
Or this?
"It is rather unfair for Labour to suffer more than other parties in the expenses fall-out; MPs of all affiliations have abused the system."
UNFAIR???? W.T.F? No its not unfair -120 labour M.P's voted AGAINST REVEALING EXPENSES last year.They deserve Everything coming to them.
Then finally with a shiny new labour leader.....
"Mr Johnson might well enjoy a bounce in the polls, as new leaders often do, and save many Labour seats in a snap election."
Apparently this will be good for the country and satisfy the need for an election it so desperately needs.
Please who ever writes this tripe - credit your readers with SOME intelligence to work out things for themselves and kindly desist writing anything this side of an election.
Vote BNP if you can. otherwise abstain from the pseudo-democratic circus.
http://www.geocities.com/cronyblatc
Media statements about him not standing down are based on a purely voluntary action. Of course, he would never do that.
However, no one cannot lead without followers. Soon, "Good Lord" Mandelson (Baron Two Pay Packets) will be tapping him on the shoulder, advising him that his Cabinet no longer supports him and "advising" him to leave forthwith.
He hasn't a single friend in the world or genuine supporter - Ed's Balls was a flunky who has only been biding his time - and the other frontbenchers hate the sight of him.
We could even have an election, where we vote for "new blood" to join the same tainted parties, that sounds like a step forward.
But what we can never have discussed in the newspapers, and what politicians can never advance (unless they do so to install their own agenda - ie: public funding of the main parties) is what is required - radical reform. The public can have everything short of that. It won't be enough.
There is one point of hilarity in this article, and that is the idea that Labour will revive in the polls with a new leader. Isn't this what the Tories used to think? when they kept swapping their leader every two minutes... Just that one statement, if sincerely held, disqualifies the writer not from pontificating on the finer points of 'what is best for Britain' (although they seem to hold to the view that what is best for Britain is what's best for Labour (and vice versa)) but it certainly does disqualify them from having any idea of the anger out there in the country. And yes, this is anger with all politicians at Westminster, but this anger is focused most furiously on the government of Gordon Brown.
At this moment, firing Gordon Brown, installing Susan Boyle as PM (with Diversity as her cabinet), changing the name of the Labour party to "Good Times are coming!" and distributing free champagne and truffles to the masses won't save them...
But they are welcome to try it.
his cabinet won't move against him: they are cowards and unable to distance themselves from him.
but if we use the european and council election to vote for a party, any party, other then labour. the labour backbenchers will rise up against their own leader and get rid of brown.
No, I say let's wait for them to put reforms in place and for all of them to finish their explanations to their constituents. I want to see whether the reforms will make the system transparent and make the MPs accountable. It should also be a requirement that all candidates seeking re-election have details published of all their parliamentary expenses plus their voting and attendance records since they first entered Parliament.
It should also be a requirement that the manifestos of all parties include a commitment to publishing expenses of those in the upper chamber, civil service, quangos, councillors (local county etc) etc etc
Of course the saintly Cameron voted against us knowing about any of this as recently as 30th April. Fortunately he failed and we'll start finding out next month.
The Tories fought tooth and nail against the Freedom of Information Act until it became law in 2000. Electing these people again would be a major mistake.
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
DC and NC have only to tell ALL their MPs to resign TODAY. I have emailed their offices over and over, needless to say they ignore me. Why is this I wonder? Maybe, perhaps just slightly something to do with their signing off M O N E Y. Or am I too suspicious......???
By pledging a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, BUT ONLY IF THE TREATY IS NOT ALREADY IN FORCE, he, Cameron, has coupled our general election to the repeat referendum in Ireland, provisionally scheduled for October.
And as we don't usually have general elections during the winter, that means waiting until spring 2010.
http://www.geocities.com/cronyblatc
But of course, a multi-millionaire who feels the need to bill the taxpayer for a mortgage on his house in the country, while paying off his main mortgage in London with the proceeds, must be afraid of the judgment of the people just as much as the Hoons, Blearses and Morleys.
So come on, Dave, table that motion now! Stop dithering.
After such a disasterous two years, Brown must throw in the towel. If he fails to do so, he will be unceremoniously removed from office by popular acclaim. There isn't one newspaper that would support him now. For the sake of our country Mr. Brown must go.