Poor old foolish, feeble Gordon Brown - his short sighted, vengeful behaviour towards our foreign secretary - and the rest of labour for that matter.

I’m irritated at myself. I was too lazy to write about this when Gordon Brown first became Prime Minister, now it’s not exactly new news.
Poor old Gordon Brown, if it waasn’t for the fact that actually, he’s running Britain, not some small scale builders company, or a family owned corner shop, a person could possibly manage to feel sorry for him. But he is at the helm of a significant and (for good or for bad) dominant country. And the strategy employed in propelling the country forward? A deliberate and single minded diminishing of the Labour government, to the point of non existence in the mind of the average electorate.
It was irritating me no end during the summer that no one seemed to be picking up on this. The media, commentators and the average joe, everyone, seemed to fall for it. It was exactly the same with Alastair Campbell: ‘Isn’t he such a super alpha male’, ‘he’s soo fancy-able, all the women want him’ and all the rest of the ‘he’s so male I can hardly manage to contain myself around him’ ness - (and that was just the Richard Madeley’s of the journalistic world.).
There is nothing strong, dominant and male about these people. They are actually note worthily the opposite. What everyone falls for though is the superficial, bullish body language. That pitiful, wretched Alastair Campbell, the poor dear, it was painful to watch as he went from interview to interview promoting his book. With every new revelation a greater insight into exactly how hopeless and desperate a human being this person actually was. Seemingly spending most of his adult life at the mercy of an alcohol (and I’ve been around enough victims of long term cocaine use to recognise it’s obvious symptoms) addled mind. Desperately scratching about for somebody and preferably this someone would be a political male of a very high standing indeed, to present him with some answers about himself. The poor thing, he was so needy, he’d have took hints, at least, if that was the best that they could provide.
And Gordon Brown. He’s another one. Very different - it’s not about the amount of alcohol he’s destroyed his mind with. He doesn’t desperately need his little boy underlings ( the babyshambolic Balls, Brown’s identikit, mini-me Alexander and the infant of the brothers Miliband ) to bestow on him great, blistering insights into the Brown human condition - you know, something along the lines of:
Mate, I wouldn’t exactly describe you as un-fucked up.
But it is a very similar scenario.
During the summer we were constantly being told that Gordon the Great - here to save us, at last. Our warrior king, scarred and weary of battle - the Blair years dispensed with. here, eventually, we were being told, the great man himself, his immense, his immeasurable, vastly insurmountable strength of character, a commanding great leader, ready to cut a dominant swathe straight through the problems of the world. Showed us what he’d got -
That he’s more than capable of rocking up at the site of a flood scene and
speaking awkwardly to the firemen there.
But, and this is the big but, he did it bullishly and with the body language that only a man with not the slightest of empathic abilities can manage to.
And we all, (or should I say, not absolutely all, allow me to take the opportunity to brag that I happened to not be part of the alls.) Everybody:
‘he’s so strong’ ‘he’ll not be cowed by Bush’ ‘we can rely and trust in his great strong, manly self, in him’.
A fearless and dominant leader, here to save us all, eventually, at last.
We all fell for it!
This is about as far removed from the person that he actually is, about as far away as you can manage to get. He’s actually an unusually feeble man. Easily threatened and totally unable to deal with that. He just happened to manage to hide that from us with that, yes, quite male, bullish body language. But that is just the superficial, it is far from the person he actually is.
Just this week we had another reminder, another revelation about the feeble and foolish intellect driving forward our lives.
At a time when this country is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan and only days before our Foreign Secretary was due to fly out to the Middle East to meet with Palestinian and Israeli political leaders our Prime Minister deliberately belittled and attempted to humiliate him. Having had a copy of the speech our Foreign Secretary was due to give at Bruges for ten days he waited until after the media had been briefed about it’s content and only hours before the speech was due to be given did he demand huge chunks be removed. Now, I’m sure a person could say, well, this Foreign Secretary is this, he’s unable to convey gravitas, he seems so boyishly young, I’m not convinced of that. But, he IS Britain’s Foreign Secretary at a time of war and whether a person finds him appealing, unappealing, irritating or of yawn inducing inconsequence, never the less, he’s it. And Britain’s Foreign Secretary matters.
The recognition of this fact has yet to occur to our Prime Minister though. David Miliband poses a slight, insignificant and only potentially future threat. And so must be dealt with accordingly - by being diminished, belittled, humiliated and dishonoured.
This is the behaviour you’d expect of an out of favour teenage son left to run the corner shop while the grown ups take a family holiday. A short sighted, petulant, devious, underhand and foolish act. And it’s not the first.
I’m convinced the only reason why he allowed David Miliband to become our Foreign Secretary in the first place was just so that he could dispense with him on the grounds that he has held this senior and important position and still, nobody knows who he is, and even the ones that may have some inkling of familiarity are not overly persuaded. Which is hardly surprising when you look at the behaviour of our Prime Minister.
David Owen, a previous Labour Foreign Secretary, stated that he was heartened to witness the fact that Gordon Brown had brought David Miliband with him on his first trip over to America as Prime Minister. And that this could be seen as evidence that Gordon Brown was showing reassuringly un-hubristic behaviour.
I say.
Bullshit.
If anything, it was our very first inkling of the shape of things to come.
The reason he took him with him?
So that could stamp all over any possibility of a repeat of a Jack Straw-eskque (you may have noticed, I have no clue how to spell that, but oh well) show involving our Foreign Secretary getting to ‘make love’ to Condoleezza Rice all over the White House lawn, exchanging stolen, adoring glances as they courageously battle the demanding, braying journalist mob. Good grief, he couldn’t possibly have allowed something like to have occurred, way, way too much publicity for David Miliband. God, if he’d have allowed something as extreme as that our Foreign Secretary may actually be a known quantity by now - and worse, he may actually be liked, as well. Something needed to be done. ‘Take him with me, all the interest will then, obviously, be in me, he’ll just get ignored, carry on like this and then he’ll just be expected to go away. Job done’.
One slight issue, this is what he’s been going in for quite a few years now. Any sniff of Labour heavy weight beginning to take shape and they have been appropriately dispensed with. And the Labour Party is left with the obvious end result. A diminished, enfeebled, demeaned and practically non-existent Labour government in the minds of the average electorate. I’m sure that seemed like a good idea during the summer, nobody being able to conjure up so much as an idea about who exactly is the Labour government apart from Gordon Brown. Doesn’t’t seem too canny a conniving, underhand, arrogant an idea now, though, does it?
Young David Miliband though. It’s the exact same scenario, only reversed with him. Physically he may seem slight (I’ve managed to be all briefly touched by the flame myself and he’s not as all little and skinny as he looks on the telly!) he hasn’t bothered affecting any of his bosses brooding machismo. Doesn’t do disgust and hate fuelled aggression across the dispatch box. Isn’t able to viciously bitchslap an opposition M.P into submission (well, isn’t able to if the M.P in question in male, a female M.P? another matter altogether but I’ll just leave that little 'issue' aside, for the moment). On the face of it, the superficial, surface perception that people seem to be going off about David Miliband - he’s being judged weak. Not substantial enough to be Foreign Secretary. But I would say, no, actually, this is the exact same unthinking response which successfully hid how frail and feeble Gordon Brown actually is and how dramatically un-Alpha Male-ish Alastair Cambell so clearly was. The actual person that David Miliband is - let’s all look further than those little, skinny, comically puny looking legs. David Miliband is a very strong, sure of himself, certain and definite politician. An academic with an impressive intellect at his disposal. A person with a genuinely ethical, driven, thoughtful nature.
The labour party is just as weakly foolish as GB if they’re not aware of his worth.
But this is where the Labour Party is at, right now. Gordon Brown will continue to abolish any symptom of a blossoming Labour talent, for fear they may make known he’s not the only relevant Labour figure. Are they all going to allow themselves to be led by the nose by him? I fear so.

karlskirche -vienna

karlskirch -vienna

this is the pamphlet you get, i don't suppose you can read the website:

http://www.karlskirche.at/

and

kontakt@karlskirche.at

if there happens to be anyone that wants to donate to the upkeep of the church.

Karlskirche - Vienna, and it's take your breath away magnificence.

This is the Karlskirche - an awesome, stunning and magnificent church in Vienna. Standing directly in front of it is a humbling and, sorry, going to use the same word again, magnificent experience. Vienna's magnificence took my breath away, again and again and again. And how very civilised they all are. Cyclists absolutely everywhere, not a single one of them ploughing through a red light, not one attempted pedestrian annihilation. It all only served to remind me - we really have become a barbaric and uncivilised lot here. Younger English males have allowed themselves to become brutally misogynistic. The contrast between Viennese society and our own still laddish lot was fairly stark. i think i'll go away and spend some more time fantasying about pulling myself one of those good looking (and my god, there was a more than abundant supply of these) intelligent and ever so sophist' Viennese male to flirt and fawn over in their stunning city.
(as i commented to Chap Sticks on his blog, he was recounting his weekends all really rather civilised tale. I contrasted it with my own:
bumping into an ex' at the supermarket and being informed that he's still up for a jump.
so just not the same

presbyterian scottish mind control

thanks arnold.
yes, we are subject to a form of presbyterian scottish mind control. handed down via a compliant, obedient, controlling and covetous media. . . . .
or, maybe i should become re-acquainted with my meds.
bye
Aahhh!
On the subject of which:
Funny, the Daily Mail didn’t seem very interested in posting my comment on their site in response to an article based on the Nuffield report yesterday.

I’m not sure whether this is the Daily Mail doing Gordon
Brown’s bidding or whether you are genuinely just not
making the connection. A few well placed criticism’s of
the government, a pointed retort by a health minister and
the job’s a good ‘un? Possibly, if the British public were
predominantly made up of human being’s with the I.Q of
a dog. Lord Krebs, merely a concerned expert in the effects
of alcohol acting independently of the government? Lord Krebs
has been specifically commissioned by Gordon Brown to come
to the exact conclusion he has come to for reasons that I write
about on my blog: femalepoliticalandsocialcomment.blogspot.com

So - it would appear, the Daily Mail - still ‘On Presbyterian Message’.

this is in response to flipc - he commented that we've basically been a nation of piss heads for quite some time now.

hello to flipc
actually, the last 500 years? I come over all English gung ho' patriotic with every new report/attack.
Our streets filled with terrible, culturally un-evolved English people falling over in a pissed up stupor? We're merely reconnecting with our wild, pagan past. Or, at least, I think that was my last slurred excuse issued from which ever lamp post I was clinging onto just before I fell into . . . . .
Oh, I mean, sensibly discussed at a dinner party of dentists.

hello to arnold - i've been trying to find (well, half-heartedly trying) the bbc poll.

hello
thanks for the comment. just been having a quick shifty over the bbc site and google using the key words - and not a lot coming up. info' on where the bbc poll is, please?
thanks again. bye

Nuffield Council report on alcohol consumption in the UK - has anyone else worked out exactly who it is that has funded this?

Well, well. Proof, if any more were needed, it is official: this one certain James Gordon Brown does truly believe we are all very, very stupid indeed. Without very much effort at all, it was pretty damm easy to make the connection and join the dots. This Scottish puritan is hell bent on - and as his health minister Dawn Primarolo put it “we in the government will be making sure” that we become a more sombre, sober, serious and bloody boring, dull as ditch water society.
Today the Nuffield Council on Bioethics published a report into alcohol consumption in the UK. And according to it we’ve become a nation of terrible, irresponsible raging alcoholics that are all incapable of intelligent, astute decision making about our own lives and due to this we should all be taxed into a teetotal submission at the alter of Gordon Brown’s Scottish Presbyterian ways. GB imagines that if he can just get the wording right, have the report headed by someone who really doesn’t look like he’s anything to do with Labour and cunningly add a slight attack, a few negatives directed towards the government and none of us, not a single one of us, are going to make the connection. Well, I spotted it straight away and a few little searches on the old wikipedia later and hey presto - I’ll just let you all take a shot at guessing which was the Human Being sanctioning the funding of this report.
When, in the run up to Tony Blair leaving, there was that constant English sneering arrogance about Gordon Brown being too Scottish to be Prime Minister, I personally was not a very happy English person to be constantly made aware of the fact that people in this country can still manage to fall back into that disgusting and I would have thought long since extinct English cultural arrogance about Scotland and the Scottish. But actually, I don’t think they were far wrong. He is too Scottish to be Prime Minister, this and his culturally hubristic belief that if only we could be gently (at first, and if this approach doesn’t work - hammered upon from a great height by his clunking fist) steered towards becoming a more responsible and serious society, one in which, recognising the error of our pleasure, delight and laughter filled English drinking ways, we become a more sombre, sober and serious society. One not too dissimalar to the Scottish Presbyterian world he grew up in and believes is of the more superior version of society. This is really not ok. Gordon Brown, those hideous sneering, arrogant English media people were not wrong - he is too Scottish to be Prime Minister. And we should not allow ourselves to be led by the nose and brain washed by this version of Scottish cultural arrogance.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is funded by the Medical Research Council. The Medical Research Council is part of the Department of Trade Industry as was, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform as is of the 28th of June 2007. Obviously, I don’t need to explain that these are Departments of the Labour Government.
He is, in a very underhand, devious and arrogant manner attempting to pass this Lord Kreb - the reports chairman - off as merely a highly qualified, concerned and more importantly independent of the government, expert in the effects of alcohol. And that, entirely independent of the government he has come to, conveniently enough for a Scottish puritanical Prime Minister, the conclusion that GB was needing to give him an excuse for imposing his conservative, pleasure free, high minded and serious ways on us. I hope people read this, and weep with worry about the fact that this is the shape of things to come with this version of Labour. They will not stop until we have all bucked under the weight of these non stop, nannying, nagging, and anxiety creating reports. And have all eventually become exactly what it is that he wants us to be: Presbyterian Scotland somewhere around 1934.

Silly Billy O'Reilly - and his terrible, awful, just awful great sense of despair

I was heartened and amused by a brief little segment on Bill O’Reilly’s show today. Unfortunately, he found the very same revelations greatly disheartening and yet more evidence of America’s obvious cultural malaise and near state of collapse. It was all too much, at one point wounded and overcome with emotion, he felt the need to cradle himself protectively. What terrible humanitarian catastrophe produced this response? American kids being asked the question ‘would you ever live in another country?’ and one of them, the confused, unpatriotic, traitor answered ‘yes, I’d like to live in Europe’.
Well, who could blame poor old Bill O’Reilly his sense of despair? In his young days Americans knew their place . . . . . as the worlds superiors. And very much because of that everything was right in the world. Now there’s kids out there that consider foreigners their equals! This is of grave concern to him and a topical fox news talking point. The American youth are not growing up anywhere near as ignorant and arrogant as they were when he was lad. A respect and awareness about the worlds different cultures is showing worrying signs of becoming the norm. If this is left to continue to fester - Well, My God - this may result in a whole generation of Americans having set foot outside of their country!! Good grief, and then where would America and we in the world all be!?
We continue to only live in hope

Hello to the person that left my very first comment and thank you, it was a positive one. I was kind of wondering if my comment may have come across as standard fare, America hating stuff. I really hope that that isn’t the case ‘cause I really like your country and your response, I hope, shows that it possibly wont come across that way. But as far as the ‘the blog name is kind of lacking in originality or zip’ part. I’m afraid going to have to defend myself on that one. I was thinking - I just wonder if I’m going to get a lot of sniping and sneering at what would seem like a conservative, unadventurous and a really quite snore of a site name - and yes, it would appear that this might be the case. The obviousness was intentional. All the better for a person to be able to remember it by. So again, thank you for you response, bye.

fox news propaganda - russian style pregnant women queues being the reason why america shouldn't get free health care

I’m just waiting for the Fox News segment - they’re using the fact that dentists have become so expensive in this country (Britain ) people are preferring to either not go at all or are pulling their own teeth out (as one comedian said - “just go down the pub and get them kicked out”) as evidence that free health care is a terrible, terrible plague on all our houses, basically. There’s been a cock up with the system and people are finding it difficult to find a free dentist.
So I’ve just watched it and no surprise there then - typical right wing scaremongering. Our precious free health care system and our own person health being described as “crumby”. The situation used as evidence that if there were any introduction of free health care in the U.S it would only be a matter of time before the poor things descend to our poor, pitiful European free health care level. Funny - ‘cause it’s France, not America that has the best health care in the world. The fact that not only are we just as healthy here as they are and that in Sweden they actually live longer - and this really sat well with a self-described capitalist pig, didn’t exactly register. They all generally concluded that free health care is a very, very bad thing indeed - the reason? America would very quickly become exactly like Russia, only instead of there being bread queues there would be pregnant women queues coming out of clinics everywhere, which they stated is exactly what’s going on here. My local G.P is just around the corner from my flat and yeah, so far, yet to spot a queue of pregnant women forming! But if that works as an argument there, then good luck to them!