Douglas Davis: Gordon Brown ... Britain's Nixon
[Douglas Davis is a writer and journalist currently based in London. His work appears in the Spectator (London) and the National Post (Toronto). Previously he was a senior editor and European correspondent for the Jerusalem Post. His most recent book is "Israel in the World: Changing Lives through Innovation."]
Gordon Brown has come a long way from those heady days in April when he basked in the praise of U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders attending the G-20 summit in London. He had, after all, just saved the world. Happy days.
That was then. Today, Gordon Brown looks drained and desolate, his political career in shreds, his leadership comprehensively trashed. The local government elections last week and European elections over the weekend could not have come at a worse time for Brown. Already fighting for his political life, the beleaguered British prime minister was left, alone and aloof, to suffer yet another dark night of ignominy and humiliation as his party sank to its greatest defeat in almost a century.
With his government in meltdown and his leadership teetering on the edge, only the power of inertia is keeping Brown upright. A flurry of resignations from his government last week -- a plot supposedly fomented by disaffected Laborites to hasten his departure -- revived the crisis but failed to dislodge the leader. Brown simply refused to go. Instead, he reshuffled his cabinet and flatly declared: "I will not walk away."
Still, the clamor for his departure continues, not least inside his own party. A sufficient number of Labor legislators is said to be willing and able to evict him from Downing Street. But when they met with Brown last night, they had made other calculations. Instead of forcing him out now and facing a general election within a few weeks, they opted to hope for a miracle and allow him -- and themselves -- to limp on for another year. At that point, the government's term will expire and elections will be obligatory.
Either way, Labor MPs know that many of them will be swept away when, sooner or later, they are brought kicking and screaming before the voters. In the local government elections, Labor lost control of all local councils in England. Meanwhile, European elections gave them just 15.3 percent of the vote nationwide, far worse than the party's most dire expectations and worse than any election result for Labor since 1910. The opposition Conservative Party won 28.6 percent, while the smaller parties -- including the xenophobic British National Party -- benefited from the general disaffection with the major parties.
The disenchantment with Brown is not a consequence of the election results alone. Not only is Britain suffering from the effects of the global economic crisis -- more than most, given the disproportionate size of its financial sector -- but the public is suffering a crisis of confidence in the political classes following a spate of revelations that has demonstrated widespread corruption among legislators.
British voters had generally presumed that corruption was a disease that afflicted other states. True, Britain has had its scandals, but those tended to focus on sexual indiscretions rather than financial chicanery. The current series of revelations, however, has comprehensively shattered that illusion.
Over the past month, the British public has woken up each morning to fresh newspaper accounts of MPs shamelessly exploiting the highly elastic rules covering parliamentary expenses. The malfeasance has gone to finance everything from cleaning moats to building duck houses to creating multi-million-pound property portfolios, all at the expense of the taxpayers, and at a time of unprecedented economic uncertainty and social dislocation. About one-half of the 646 legislators are expected to pay for this excess with their political careers at the next election.
The vilification of Gordon Brown does not respond to any act of personal or political venality. Nor, for that matter, is he facing a challenge over a substantive policy issue, or because the Labor party has discovered a particularly attractive alternative. His offense is that he does not possess the communication skills required of a 21st century political leader, particularly at a time of profound uncertainty...
Read entire article at World Politics Review
Gordon Brown has come a long way from those heady days in April when he basked in the praise of U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders attending the G-20 summit in London. He had, after all, just saved the world. Happy days.
That was then. Today, Gordon Brown looks drained and desolate, his political career in shreds, his leadership comprehensively trashed. The local government elections last week and European elections over the weekend could not have come at a worse time for Brown. Already fighting for his political life, the beleaguered British prime minister was left, alone and aloof, to suffer yet another dark night of ignominy and humiliation as his party sank to its greatest defeat in almost a century.
With his government in meltdown and his leadership teetering on the edge, only the power of inertia is keeping Brown upright. A flurry of resignations from his government last week -- a plot supposedly fomented by disaffected Laborites to hasten his departure -- revived the crisis but failed to dislodge the leader. Brown simply refused to go. Instead, he reshuffled his cabinet and flatly declared: "I will not walk away."
Still, the clamor for his departure continues, not least inside his own party. A sufficient number of Labor legislators is said to be willing and able to evict him from Downing Street. But when they met with Brown last night, they had made other calculations. Instead of forcing him out now and facing a general election within a few weeks, they opted to hope for a miracle and allow him -- and themselves -- to limp on for another year. At that point, the government's term will expire and elections will be obligatory.
Either way, Labor MPs know that many of them will be swept away when, sooner or later, they are brought kicking and screaming before the voters. In the local government elections, Labor lost control of all local councils in England. Meanwhile, European elections gave them just 15.3 percent of the vote nationwide, far worse than the party's most dire expectations and worse than any election result for Labor since 1910. The opposition Conservative Party won 28.6 percent, while the smaller parties -- including the xenophobic British National Party -- benefited from the general disaffection with the major parties.
The disenchantment with Brown is not a consequence of the election results alone. Not only is Britain suffering from the effects of the global economic crisis -- more than most, given the disproportionate size of its financial sector -- but the public is suffering a crisis of confidence in the political classes following a spate of revelations that has demonstrated widespread corruption among legislators.
British voters had generally presumed that corruption was a disease that afflicted other states. True, Britain has had its scandals, but those tended to focus on sexual indiscretions rather than financial chicanery. The current series of revelations, however, has comprehensively shattered that illusion.
Over the past month, the British public has woken up each morning to fresh newspaper accounts of MPs shamelessly exploiting the highly elastic rules covering parliamentary expenses. The malfeasance has gone to finance everything from cleaning moats to building duck houses to creating multi-million-pound property portfolios, all at the expense of the taxpayers, and at a time of unprecedented economic uncertainty and social dislocation. About one-half of the 646 legislators are expected to pay for this excess with their political careers at the next election.
The vilification of Gordon Brown does not respond to any act of personal or political venality. Nor, for that matter, is he facing a challenge over a substantive policy issue, or because the Labor party has discovered a particularly attractive alternative. His offense is that he does not possess the communication skills required of a 21st century political leader, particularly at a time of profound uncertainty...