The vultures are circling...

I wasn't born the last time Labour lost power in a UK General Election, remembering which seems to be all the rage at the moment - given this year marks the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power.

I do, however, have a vague recollection of a November day in 1990 when Margaret Thatcher's time in office expired and she resigned as Prime Minister to be replaced by John Major. I say vague - I was six. I remember much more about the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, but that is another story.

As a student of politics though, I've read a number of accounts of Thatcher's downfall. You can watch a three-part documentary on her downfall on YouTube as well. Its an interesting watch.

I was thinking about how that situation parallels with the current one. While Gordon Brown has managed to keep his Cabinet together (for now) backbench MPs are queueing up to kick the government.

Charles Clarke said "There have been things that have been done recently which have made me feel ashamed to be a Labour Member of Parliament."

Stephen Byers, David Blunkett, Tony Blair and others have lined up in opposition to policies recently delivered by the Brown Government. An un-named backbencher with a marginal seat spoke out too - "The man has lost his authority – he's had a charisma bypass."

While no one at Cabinet or sub-Cabinet level has yet spoken out, the knives are out and a leadership challenge looks inevitable. The only question is who will it be?

Michael Portillo says it well in the first part of that piece:

"Nothing is more dangerous than a panicking backbencher."

Quite

UPDATE: The Telegraph says Cabinet Ministers are starting to question the PM, that he's losing control of MPs. One went as far as saying "It's all so reminicent of the last months of John Major. So maybe I got the "the end is nigh" stuff right... I just picked the wrong Tory downfall as my evidence...

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Are Labour on the verge of civil war?

This Telegraph piece seems to suggest so.

According to The Telegraph:

• Former PM Tony Blair says the 50p tax rate announced in Chancellor Alistair Darling's budget is a "terrible mistake."
  
  
• Blair would have CUT taxes not increased them.
  
  
• "New Labourites" believe the move has cost Labour any chance of winning the next election.
  
  
• Insiders want a new leader... and an election.
  
  
• Party discipline is to be tightened in coming weeks amid fears of MPs speaking out against the PM and a challenge to Brown's leadership.

Things looking a wee bit grim for New Labour then.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to add your name to the Number 10 petition calling on Gordon Brown to resign, you can do so here. I expect you'll find a couple of Labour MPs have signed up by the end of the week...

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Tony v Benny

Fresh from doing bugger all to help the situation in the Middle East and (apparently) campaigning to become the first President of the European Union, Tony Blair has set his stall out as a standard bearer for gay rights.

In an interview for Attitude, a title which I can't say I am that familiar with, Tony Blair had the following to say to the Pope:

“There are many good and great things the Catholic Church does, and there are many fantastic things this Pope stands for, but I think what is interesting is that if you went into any Catholic Church, particularly a wellattended one, on any Sunday here and did a poll of the congregation, you’d be surprised at how liberal-minded people were.”

“Now, that doesn’t mean to say there’s not still a lot of homophobia and a lot of things to be done. But the fact that it is unacceptable for any mainstream political party to be anything other than on the side of equality and respect is, in a way, the biggest change. The items of individual legislation matter a lot, but I think it’s the general shift in climate that is perhaps the most important point.”

“When people quote the passages in Leviticus condemning homosexuality, I say to them — if you read the whole of the Old Testament and took everything that was there in a literal way, as being what God and religion is about, you’d have some pretty tough policies across the whole of the piece.”

This contrasts somewhat with the view of the Catholic church leadership, with Pope Benedict XVI having previously described homosexuality as:

"more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil."

Now for me, it sounds like the Pope's stance is pretty unequivocal: If you are gay, you are on a bearing to evil. I wouldn't hold my breath for a change of heart on the part of everyone's favourite pontiff. Nice to see good old Tony keeping his face in the paper though - even if he is fighting a losing battle.

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You've got a friend...

I had thought I'd give the cynicism a miss for a bit this year, then I remembered that I really am cynical about most things... and a pessimistic bum to boot.

So when I saw that Tony Blair is to be awarded the Medal of Freedom from outgoing US President George W Bush (along with Australian John Howard and Colombian Alvaro Uribe) for being a "staunch ally" of the US, I nearly choked on my cereal.

Getting a medal for being a good pal? I thought the US had spurned the honours system? Next thing you know, if you donate some money to a political party, you might end up being a Sir or Dame. Oh... wait.

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