Brown defies calls to step down as British PM

[defendandprotect]

Brown defies calls to step down as British PM

AP – Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown leaves 10 Downing Street, London, Wednesday, June 3, 2009, for … By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer David Stringer, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 19 mins ago
LONDON – British Prime Minister Gordon Brown clung fiercely to his job Friday, defying calls from some within his beleaguered Labour party to resign.

Brown told reporters he never even considered resigning, instead announcing a Cabinet reshuffle he hopes will help restore his fortunes. Brown has been badly stung by a scandal over British lawmakers' expenses, a string of top-level resignations and catastrophic results expected in local elections.

"I have the determination to take this country through the most difficult of economic times, and this is what I am doing," he said. "I will get on with the job and I will finish the work."

Brown, who some legislators view as the key obstacle to the party's hopes of avoiding defeat in the next national election, promoted key allies to his inner circle in a bid to block efforts to oust him from his post.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090605/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_brown

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Labour must not fail in the UK

the only other alternative is the right wing. Unless they have a coalition with the Lib dems? No one would want the Conservatives back so Labour has to get its house in order.

[vadawg]

2. looks like labour is toast and the lib dems are not a good option

so looks like the tories are gonna be in the driving seat as far as the UK Parly stands.

[defendandprotect]

4. Why . . . have the liberal dems been co-opted?

Don't know who's leading them now ...

lost track of it -- used to watch on C-span and only getting back to it now.

[vadawg]

5. the lib dems always do quite well in local elections and the euro, but in a general election

nobody wants them to form the government, they are a loose coalition in a lot of ways and would quickly declare war on berkshire for some strange reason.

[BolivarianHero]

6. I don't remember the name...

Hughes?

The Liberal Democrats are a socially liberal, pro-Europe party that opposes British involvement in American wars and that is hostile to the worst excesses of neo-liberalism. They are tireless in their support for gay rights (unlike two certain Democratic Presidents and Labour PMs, the four of whom will remain nameless) and for the rights of women and favour secular, science-based public policy (unless SOME "Democrats" in the Bible Belt and some of Tony Blair's cronies). They tend to appeal to affluent social liberals who dislike the Tories but don't have a material basis for supporting any form of socialism and to social democrats disenchanted by the obvious failings of New Labour.

They are somewhat to the left of Blair/Brown's people (who have wholeheartedly embrace neoliberalism and U.S. Inperialism) and noticeably left of the Tories. Nonetheless, they are to the right of other factions within Labour (and to the "old guard" as a whole) and generally to the right of Scottish and Welsh nationalists (especially when you talk about Forward Wales, Solidarity, and the Scottish Socialist Party...It's a little bit more complicated when you talk about Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party) and are considerably to the right of Respect and the Green Party (which is more leftist like the Aussie-Kiwi green parties and less liberal like the Canadian, American, and German parties).

They tend to win 15 - 20% of the vote, but are routinely underrepresented because their vote tends to be dispersed rather than concentrated, save for parts of Cornwall, and parts of Scotland and SW England. This dispersion of support is a bad thing foe a parties in first-past-the-post systems (i.e. Westminster and American-style) unless they have a critical mass of support because votes are meaningless if they don't lead to winning seats. Many people who are well-versed (or aspire to be, in my case) in political theory and electoral systems tend to consider this a problem in that it disenfranchises huge swathes of citizens, exaggerates ideological differences and other regional tensions among subregions within states, and leads to governments that do not necessarily reflect the will of the people (60% of Britons fucking hated Thatcher, but she misruled the country for 15 years anyways...If you like first-past-the-post-systems, expect me to come out and call you a crypto-Thatcherite). Consequently, we tend to advocate various forms of proportional representation, and tend to view people who claim hostility to conservatism and neoliberalism with suspicion if they do not share this position (We have a hard time believing they genuinely want to prevent the right from attaining power on the back of vote-splitting).

I want to see Labour fail, as they have no right to fearmonger about the Tories while propping up the same political system that allows them to win fraudulent majorities.

[vadawg]

7. yep okay, as i said the lib dems wont win, so you are probuably looking at a tory government sooner

[defendandprotect]

8. Is there any chance that Brown would be succeeded by someone else?

i.e., just change leadership of the party?

Re the Lib Dems . . . I used to love to watch the guy back about ten years ago . . .
pre Newt revolution when their influence on C-span pretty much knocked everything
worthwhile off C-span....

eh . . . Patrick something . . . or something Patrick?

Tall, slim, elegant -- elegant but moving speaker?

We used to see a lot of British parliament -- more than the Q&A --

and Irish, as well . . .

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. The chances of anyone else taking over Labour from Brown, before an election, are getting less

Brown seems to have just enough allies left to form a 'credible' cabinet - though it's meant that people he was rumoured to have wanted to get rid of (eg the chancellor, Alistair Darling, who's had a lot of criticism recently) have stayed in their posts. And as the OP says, he's said hthere's no way of stepping down.

For the party to get rid of him, about 80 MPs have to openly propose a different candidate. And few people think a change of leader would actaully enable Labour to win the election - just make the win less bad. And his potential successors may rather let him be the fall guy, and come in to pick up the pieces afterwards.

You're probably thinking of Paddy Ashdown (Paddy, or Patrick, isn't his real name, but a nickname because of his Irish connections that stuck with him). He stepped down as Lib Dem leader some time back (late 90s, I think), did some UN stuff, and is now an 'elder statesman' type. After him there was Charles Kennedy - very 'normal-seeming', compared to most politicians, and he led the opposition to the Iraq War in parliament, so he looked good after that. However, he turned out to be an alcoholic, and the party thought it was affecting his work, so they forced him out. They elected Menzies Campbell as leader - he'd been foreign affairs spokesman during Iraq, so also had a lot of credibility; but he was in his 60s, and got tagged as 'too old' - and he was forced out in about a year.

Now, the Lib Dem leader is Nick Clegg - young (in his 40s), and rather bland and unnoticeable, in my opinion. There's nothing wrong with him, but he doesn't manage to get the media interested in what he says, unfortunately. At the moment, all the opinion polls point to a Conservative absolute majority at the next election, and it seems unlikely there's anything Labour or the Lib Dems can do about it. Unfortunately, a large part of the British public is 'Tory by default', and since they've been out of power for some time, and the leader David Cameron is an experienced PR performer who can make the Tories look acceptably human, the public are going to give them another try.

[defendandprotect]

10. Thanks for all the info -- yes, Paddy Ashdown . . .

As I mentioned, I did at one time know a bit about all this -- and hope to catch up again.

Would be disappointing to see labour lose - tho I don't register Brown as an asset --
not that I know that much about him.

Hope they don't use computer voting!

Thanks again --

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. that is horrific

of course the pendulum swings left and right very few years

[RDANGELO]

3. This is all Blair's fault.

He has done what Bush has done to the Republicans. He created the mess and left Brown holding the bag. It's a shame because Brown is good guy.