ConDemned
I’m still stunned after yesterday’s events.
The last few days of Britain’s political climate has been rather shaky and unstable: a lack of a majority of votes for any party lead to a hung parliament, meaning that no party had a majority of seats and thus would have found great difficulty in passing legislation. The country has effectively endured the last few days without a government.
So it was somewhat of a sigh of relief when Gordon Brown appeared outside 10 Downing Street and stated that he would take action to install a stable government that was best for the country’s citizens and as such would be willing to discuss a coalition government with the two other main parties. While it was sad to hear about his intention to resign before September of this year, his staunch attitude, that he must do what is right for the people of the UK at all costs, was admirable. The possibility of a Lib-Lab government seemed like a fair compromise, so the future of the country seemed a bit more certain and so I was contented.
The very next day, however, Gordon Brown suddenly and unexpectedly resigned as Prime Minister, placing Tory leader David Cameron in the highest position of power in the country.
What happened? In the space of 24 hours, the state of the nation went from one of hopeful optimism to the harsh reality that the Conservatives were now in power for at least the next five years. Many people, myself and a large number of friends and colleagues included, didn’t want this to happen.
Despite the atrocious way in which he was treated by the press, Gordon Brown’s term in office should be applauded. In the space of nearly three years, he was confronted by numerous disasters, such as torrential flooding, an outbreak of foot and mouth and a terrorist bombing of Glasgow Airport, yet he always soldiered on and ultimately got himself, his party and his country through these troubling events.
His biggest achievement as prime minister, however, is his handling of the horrendous state of affairs regarding the global ‘credit crunch’. An expert in financial dealings as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Blair, he took the lead in dealing with the economic crisis, nationalising Northern Rock and virtually doing the same for the Royal Bank of Scotland, reducing the V.A.T. rate to encourage consumer spending and liaising heavily with the U.S.A. and European Union to combat the economic downturn. The man always was always staunch in his belief that he only did whatever he genuinely believed was best for the country, stating at 2008’s Labour Party Conference that he “didn’t come into politics to be a celebrity”.
But become a celebrity he did, falling prey to the unfair and unjust scrutiny and accusations of rags such as The Sun and being featured in entertainment magazines where he didn’t belong. Who cares about a man’s popularity and personal life as long as he’s a good politician?
The public was subsequently seduced by Cameron of the opposing Tory party, leading to the situation that ultimately led to Brown’s departure and an unshakable air of sadness, gloom and doom falling over the nation. Although most of the problems he faced were inherited, he always did what was best for the country: Cameron and Clegg seem like they’re only doing what’s best for themselves and their parties (Clegg’s position as ‘Deputy Prime Minister’ sounds like something out of a bad cowboy movie).
I have a number of questions I want answered by the newly installed ‘ConDem’ government: Why was their no agreement between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and why were the details of the discussions kept so secret? Who is Nick Clegg to decide which party governs the country, and why after so much campaigning against Conservative policies are they ready and willing to change them so readily? Hopefully these answers will come to light under this new coalition government,as many people I know are outraged that their vote for the Lib Dems was essentially counted as one for the Tories, a situation that they voted against in the first place.
Yesterday, the final day of Gordon Brown’s leadership of the country, was truly a sad one: the man wasn’t the given the chance to implement his plans for further economic prosperity and his departure marks the end of an era.
I, along with my fellow Labour and Lib Dem voters, finish with a message to Conservative supporters: Don’t say we didn’t warn you. The Tories have ruined the country before, they’ve got the potential to do it again.
on May 12, 2010 on 7:04 pm
Nice blog but you kind of contradict yourself, you say its not very fair that someone who was not elected gets to be in power, but then your saying that a Lab-Lib government seemed fair.
How would it have been fair that these 2 run the country when, even though the Tories still had amassed the most seats, and these 2 sneak in and take it from them? This point is moot though because even if Lab and Lib had got together they still would not have had enough seats to be ‘past the post’.
I think a lot more of the country would have been unhappy if Lab-Lib had done some kind of deal, as it would seem to have reward those coming in second and third the position of power. It would be like giving the premier league cup to Man U instead of Chelsea because they got second, obviously not fair.
What are your reasons for not wanting the Tories in power, you say you and your friends didn’t want it to happen but don’t supply any insight as to the reasons why.
Most Lab supporters are those with very young children earning under 12k per year and those out of work as the amount of benefits in place for this cross section of people far out way the benefits of actually finding work.
You neglect to mention that it was labour that made students poorer, they abolished the student grants and introduced means-tested tuition fees. Most students leave Uni with debts of over 10k these days all thanks to a labour government. But this is going back to 2002/03, fast forward to present day the present economic climate… GDP is at over 11% Brown has done very little to change this, bankers are still giving themselves huge outrageous bonuses for basically ruining the country.
I say give the Con-Lib government a chance lets face it which ever party got in, they were all going to have to make huge cuts in order to reduce our deficit. As a country we cannot keep spending and not repaying what we owe.
But it is all just history repeating… Labour bankrupted the UK in the 70s and so when the Tories took over unpopular choices had to be made to get the economy growing again (this goes for who ever had got in power, as things could not keep going as they did). In 1997 the Tories were ousted by Lab, in which year we had the a great economy once again, and here we are again 2010 the country is bankrupt, and the new Tory leader in charge has some very difficult decisions a head to get the country back on its feet.
on May 13, 2010 on 1:37 am
[...] originally wrote the following as a comment on Michael’s Blog Entry, but it just grew and grew into this mini-behemoth of [...]
on May 13, 2010 on 1:48 am
I originally wanted to just post a quick comment, but it’s more or less turned into a mutant blog of my own.
‘One Week’: http://wp.me/peGIc-26
@ Paul
I’d give the Premier League Cup to Stoke. Not because they rightfully won it, but because it’s as batshit insane as applying a football analogy to politics. Not unless there was a rule that the first team has to reach 100 points, but as far as I know/care such a rule doesn’t exist.
on May 13, 2010 on 10:24 am
@chumba
true, the football analogy probably wasn’t the best (I was writing while watching fulham game) but it still does kind of get my point across.
Why should the political parties who were even further away from ‘passing the post’ get to be in power?
I understand that the Lab and Lib supporters are unhappy at the outcome but the Tory supporters would have had more grounds to be pissed if Lab-lib had done a deal to be in power as they finished up with the most seats even tho it wasn’t quite enough for a majority.