Europe

Apologies for a forthcoming lapse in posting. I'm off to Europe for a few days.

I'm away with the department to Vienna and Brussels, to meet with some representatives of some rather large institutions - the UN, NATO and the European Commission. I'll hopefully get some decent chat while I'm there. And some Belgian beer.

Anyway, I haven't been organised enough to schedule many posts, so you'll just have to wait until I get back for more of my meanderings.

Back soon.

Read more...

Gordon Brown: by the numbers

Some numbers for you:

24,278

• Number of people who voted for James Gordon Brown to become MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in 2005.

0

• Number of people who voted for James Gordon Brown to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2007.

43,536 (and counting)

• Number of people who have signed a petition on the Number 10 website calling for James Gordon Brown to resign.

Funny how a guy who made his name as a prudent Chancellor can't tell when his number is up.

Read more...

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...

Read more...

Ayrton Senna - 15 years on

Fifteen years to the day since the death of racing legend Ayrton Senna at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

I can still remember where I was and what I was doing at the time - despite being only 9 years old. And I remember watching racing at the time thinking "this guy is a crazy genius." I doubt there'd be many that would argue with that.

His death - alongside that of Austrian Roland Ratzenberger in qualifying the previous day - brought about a number of changes in driver safety in the sport.

The BBC have a documentary about his life in Formula 1 - which, judging by some of the haircuts, is a few years old. Well worth a wee look though, and you can see it here.

Read more...