ROBERT BEERS
Dispatch to America
The Right Honourable Gordon Brown, according to various newspaper accounts, has serious issues with office equipment.
The Prime Minister has been known to rip phones out of the walls, spiral pens at assistants and when you get a fax from Mr Brown it may be tossed over to you while still attached to the fax machine, according to various media accounts.
In one incident, reported last year, the PM in a bit of a snit sent an office photocopier smashing to the floor of number 10.
There are also stories about the unusual decor in his ministerial Daimler Super V8. It seems the back of the front seat is black with dots from the PM’s marking pen. Perhaps this is Gordon’s artistic side during many elongated temper tantrums.
There have been more serious allegations:
CIVIL SERVICE CHIEF WARNED BROWN OVER HIS ABUSIVE TREATMENT OF STAFF.
This headline in the Observer consumed several news cycles
The article cited the PM’s ‘abusive behavior’ and ‘volcanic eruptions of foul temper’ in addition to reports of ‘bullying of staff’.
It is the lead-up to a UK election so the ‘Brown the Bully’ stories went on for days. Most recently an Oxford Don who advises Brown on international relations claimed that Gordon shoved him on a staircase. “Get out of the way!” the PM shouted pushing the adviser against the wall.
Many of these accounts come from the Observer’s a political correspondent Andrew Rawnsley’s new book The End of the Party.
Gordon denies all the above. “I don’t do that kind of thing.”
But there have been so many reports of incidents, including several calls reportedly to the National Bullying Hotline from 10 Downing Street employees, that it seems unlikely they are all fabrications.
Gordon Brown has the same physical fluidity and body language of the legendary Ed Sullivan. Ed, some may remember, seemed unable to move his head without moving his entire body at the same time. He would introduce a guest star whipping his body left or right so suddenly that he would nearly fall over. And sometimes he would do this to the right forgetting that the act would enter stage left and so Ed would have to re-twist and end up as a human pretzel. Off camera stage hands would try to get Ed untangled enough to continue the show.
Watching Gordon Brown’s awkward pirouettes at the dispatch box in the House of Commons are much the same as tuning in old Ed but without Senor Wences, Elvis or the Beatles to breakup the viewer’s unease at watching rigor mortis afflict someone still living.
And especially when he is speaking in Parliament there are hints of Richard Nixon. He scowls, moves his tongue around his mouth awkwardly and appears massively uncomfortable.
Gordon Brown has for years had to deal with a remark attributed to Tony Blair or his spin-doctor Alistair Campbell or some someone else in the Blair camp that the current prime minister is ‘psychologically impaired’
Now on the other side of that dispatch box is Brown’s nemesis Tory Leader David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party. Ideologically, by American standards, both major parties in Britain would easily fit in the US Democratic Party.
The great divide in British politics to me comes not from policy differences but more from the historical legacy of the two parties. Labour originally was the working class party and the Tories had an upper class heritage.
Tony Blair was a thoroughly New Labour type who just wanted to be seen as a regular bloke. His Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was old Labour, an On the Waterfront type. In the 2001 campaign when the DPM was on the receiving end of an egg tossed by a protester, he went into the crowd and punched the fellow in the face.
The Tories, however, are overwhelming from the boarding school expressways to success; the elite private called public schools are the traditional kennels for kids to become ruling class adults. Cameron is a blue blood with an Eton-Oxford pedigree.
To offset this David ‘just call me Dave’ Cameron tries to get down with the plebs but can’t dish his inner patrician as he leads the Conservatives into the next election.
Various journalists lately have tried to write the proverbial ‘Who is David Cameron?’ piece. The answers all seem still seem elusive.
Only a few months ago Cameron had a 20-point lead over a decidedly unpopular Brown but the Tory’s overly-focus-grouped image campaign so far has been unsuccessful reducing their advantage to anywhere from a 4% to 7% lead. Cameron’s campaign has been like watching a pro golfer consistently missing half-inch putts.
And now a quintessentially Tory scandal has swept the Bully-gate stories off the front page.
Michael Anthony Ashcroft, Baron Ashcroft, Lord Ashcroft, KCMG (Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George or more perhaps Kindly Call Me God) is a major financial contributor to the Conservatives but recently we learned he is not a big giver to her Majesty’s tax man. He is a non dom, i.e. his domicile is elsewhere. In fact, while he is in the House of Lords and in keeping with its dress code he is the biggest of wigs in the Tory party he is legally a resident of …. Belize.
And artful dodger, officially ensconced in a tax haven in Central America, who has also given £4 million to the Tories and is credited with masterminding the party’s election strategy in marginal constituencies.
The tired Labour party with its grumpy maestro and the more fashionable Conservatives with their sleek salesman at the helm have failed to catch fire with the electorate.
Behind door number three are the Liberal-Democrats who stand at about 20% in the polls and could be crucial if neither of the other two parties get a majority in whole rules Britain by this summer.
There has to an election by early June and with local elections May 6 the betting is on that date.
Britain is like other developed nations coming out of this mega recession tentatively. British Airlines is on strike today and the trains could be next. Massive government cuts are predicted after the election whomever wins.
Yet in asking dozens of friends, colleagues and strangers how they will vote they each offered an explanation about why before saying whom. None is enthusiastic for Brown or Cameron and each said whom they could not vote for before saying how they will vote.
I, on the other hand, have found my party; The Idle Toad Party only exists here in Lancashire and has no political ideology. They are new but already have elected one member to the County Council. They, in essence, stand for nothing. Of course they are just a local party.
Nationally, the Pirate Party has a future among the young as they want everyone to be able to download anything legally. Then there is the Animals Count Party which was founded by someone from Holland with the delicious name of Jasmijn de Boo and the best I can figure they want a dog to be Prime Minister. And in the last election there was the One-Man-Band party, which had candidates who were simply one-man-bands.
These parties happily are not proponents of Olympic fax machine hurling or beholden to Belizean special interests.
