Show us your vision, Gordon

Gordon Brown called off an election to show us his vision. It's time he started doing so.



When Gordon Brown told Andrew Marr he wouldn't go to the country this year - nor next - in order to renew Labour's mandate to govern, he said:

"What I want to do is show people the vision that we have for the future of this country in housing and health and education and I want the chance, in the next phase of my premiership, to develop and show people the policies that are going to make a huge difference and show the change in the country itself."

And yet, it seems as if the only vision Gordon has is of personally retaining the keys to Number 10.

On inheritance tax and tax breaks for married couples, the government have stolen the Tories' clothes. On capital gains tax, they blundered and backtracked. On migrant workers, they have shown that they do not have a grip on the issue, nor a positive message for why migration is in the interests of Britian. On the latest EU treaty, Gordon has singularly failed to articulate the benefits of European membership, nor moved the debate from "do we even want to be in Europe?" to "what sort of Europe do we want to be in?" Instead, he will compel Labour MPs to force through the treaty without a proper debate.

If this is leadership, then it is second-rate.

Whilst the current government still represent the least worst option, they are in danger of being overtaken by a sort of complacency about a) the strength of their opposition and b) how they continue to demonstrate to the electorate that they have the ideas to drive the country forward.

The one thing I can't stand about Conservatives is the patronising way they assume they deserve to lead the country, without actually proving why. Looking at the direction the current Labour government is heading in, I'm seeing a similar arrogance. It reminds of me of the last line in Orwell's Animal Farm:

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but it was already impossible to say which was which."

Labour were the future once. For all our sakes, it's time they started being the future again.

Surely Huhne is on drugs or something?

The Huhney-Monster today launched his bid to become leader of the Liberal Dimocrats.

Who in their right mind would want to do that?

His flashy website states:

"The Liberal Democrats need an articulate, radical and effective champion. Chris Huhne will take the fight to our opponents. He will champion our name as a progressive, liberal party ready for power."

I wonder if the radical nature in Chris will see him advocate the same policy towards drugs that he espoused whilst a student at Oxford University. Namely:

"Surely no society has the right to impose its prejudices on its minority dissidents in the respect of their personal beliefs and actions. The university community has recognised that as fact. Drugs can no longer be despised as part of an escapist modus vivendi, and can be assessed as an accepted facet of our society."

Source: ISIS Magazine, sometime in the 1970s.

Huhne is crazy to want the poisoned-chalice of the Lib Dem leadership - perhaps he's off his mash on ecstasy-pipes....?


Hat-tips: Times Online, Guido Fawkes

Vati-con

The BBC is reporting that the Vatican has suspended a high ranking official after he admitted he was gay.

Being, as I am, a child of the politically-correct 1990s, the very act itself is rather astonishing, and on the face of it a rather indecent act. Sacking someone because they are gay is not de rigeur in the modern world. But it is precisely this sort of saga that goes further than just awakening my politically-correct indoctrination: it weakens my respect for Christian religious institutions and their teaching.

In pursuing such trivial things in our society as sexual preference and contraceptives in such a high-profile way, the Vatican may think it is doing us all a favour. Rather, they are being horrifically narrow-minded. To avoid confusion, I use the phrase narrow-minded in this sense: homosexuality is a mere spec on the canvas of the religious teaching of the Bible (to say nothing of whether the Bible actually incites hatred against homosexuals), and to focus on these specs misses the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is that we live in a world full of anger, theft, hatred, murder, warmongering, genocide, rape and so on. If the Christian faith is nothing else, then it is a means by which we can reconcile our competing claims in the pursuit of a common end; it a method of fostering 'brotherhood amongst men'.

By focusing on the specs, the Vatican fails to see the bigger picture.

And in the process, it fails us.

BBC accused of "dumbing up"

Apparently the BBC has been caught in a "dumbing-up" controversy over the news that Natasha Kaplinksy has quit the Corporation for Channel Five.

The BBC have hit back, saying they are not "dumbing-up" but merely responding to viewer demand...*


*This may or may not be true.

Move over, 18 Doughty Street

The new "kid" on the political-internet-TV-block is CampaignTV, which launched yesterday.

It's essentially brought to you by the people behind Labour favourites Silverfish TV, from whom video content will be provided.

I must say, on first impressions, CampaignTV is better designed than "the other side", and also has better content. (And there's no Iain Dale in sight.)

I just wonder whether it (like its competitor) will stoop to patronising the majority of the electorate by claiming that anyone who disagrees with its editorial line is, essentially, a child....