Brown Out Cameron In

[davieG]

Brown to resign as Labour Leader, does that mean a LibLab pact?

Surely if it was a LibCon pact he'd be resigning as PM

[Tilley]

Brown to resign as Labour leader.

[Guest]

If this is the kicker towards a liblab coalition, I assume we'll end up with a PM for whatever period that either came in 3rd or wasn't put through the debate process and didn't face public scrutiny directly.

[Guest Bilo]

I hear he'll be gone by September.

That means it's not immediate and may be looking at a likely future election this year or early next and give the new leader a bit of time to settle in and build up support again. Another unelected PM would go down very badly with the electorate so those who think the progressive coalition is now back on may be best advised not to hold their breath. I still think the Lib/Con coalition is most likely and for once Alistair Campbell is right. It isn't presidential, it's party political. The electorate rejected Labour as much as Brown so this should be seen as a fresh start for Labour in opposition not as part of a Lib/Lab/Plaid/SNP/Alliance coalition that will collapse in under 12 months.

[breadandcheese]

If this is how PR is going to work, I definitely do not want it.

Our choices of government seem to be either:

1) A Lib-Con coalition - in which case both Lib Dem and Conservative voters are hugely disappointed as deals are done behind closed doors, without seemingly any input as policies they consider sacrosanct are tossed on to the heap in the quest for power.

2) A Lib-Lab coalition - in which case we will have a prime minister elected by the labour party, with the electorate once again being denied the opportunity to actually have a say on who their prime minister should be. Now I know the usual guff will be wheeled out about us having a parliamentary democracy and not a presidential system, but it really doesn't work like that in practice with the quality of the leadership being just as important as policy.

Quite frankly, I do not take the hung parliament as evidence that people want PR. I take it as evidence that both Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are actually all pretty inept. Brown disparaged Labour voters with his inability to admit mistake and childish tantrum-esque behaviour. Cameron disparaged Tory voters with his heir to blair rubbish (the figures seem to suggest that if the Conservatives had had the UKIP vote, they would have won a majority and all this hung parliament stuff would be unecessary). Clegg failed to boost the Lib Dems. I blame the leaders of the party for lacking detail in their argument, refusing to provide us as the electorate with clear answers to our questions and all the posturing around the middle ground neglecting elements of their party.

I think PR is rubbish if this is what we get.

[davieG]

If this is the kicker towards a liblab coalition, I assume we'll end up with a PM for whatever period that either came in 3rd or wasn't put through the debate process and didn't face public scrutiny directly.

I'd say so but it's not a unique situation as such. John Major and Brown both being 'unelected' but then we don't elect a Prime Minister, one could also argue that we don't directly elect a particular party we elect an MP to represent us who has allegiance to a particular party. That's not to say people don't choose a party first and the candidate second but in principal we are electing an individual.

[davieG]

If this is how PR is going to work, I definitely do not want it.

Our choices of government seem to be either:

1) A Lib-Con coalition - in which case both Lib Dem and Conservative voters are hugely disappointed as deals are done behind closed doors, without seemingly any input as policies they consider sacrosanct are tossed on to the heap in the quest for power.

2) A Lib-Lab coalition - in which case we will have a prime minister elected by the labour party, with the electorate once again being denied the opportunity to actually have a say on who their prime minister should be. Now I know the usual guff will be wheeled out about us having a parliamentary democracy and not a presidential system, but it really doesn't work like that in practice with the quality of the leadership being just as important as policy.

Quite frankly, I do not take the hung parliament as evidence that people want PR. I take it as evidence that both Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are actually all pretty inept. Brown disparaged Labour voters with his inability to admit mistake and childish tantrum-esque behaviour. Cameron disparaged Tory voters with his heir to blair rubbish (the figures seem to suggest that if the Conservatives had had the UKIP vote, they would have won a majority and all this hung parliament stuff would be unecessary). Clegg failed to boost the Lib Dems. I blame the leaders of the party for lacking detail in their argument, refusing to provide us as the electorate with clear answers to our questions and all the posturing around the middle ground neglecting elements of their party.

I think PR is rubbish if this is what we get.

I think I read/heard that Australia have had the Alternative vote method for 80+ years and the Conservative have got in 50+ times. With the AV you still tend to get an outright winner but it takes into account 2nd and 3rd etc choices, in fact as I understand it there's less chance of minority parties making an impact - this is the system Labour want.

[breadandcheese]

I think I read/heard that Australia have had the Alternative vote method for 80+ years and the Conservative have got in 50+ times. With the AV you still tend to get an outright winner but it takes into account 2nd and 3rd etc choices, in fact as I understand it there's less chance of minority parties making an impact - this is the system Labour want.

If it provides outright winners, then I'd probably agree with it. Right now, I just find it highly annoying that these coalition talks are all done behind closed doors, where you actually have no say. Not even the MPs have much say (just the party hierarchy). Instead, we have the Lib Dems acting in a duplicitous manner, flirting with both Labour and the Tories trying to wring out as many concessions whilst putting themselves up for dutch auction.

At the same time, we have the party leaders telling us we need to remember that the people spoke and declared they did not want an outright winner, when the truth is that it was actually very hard to vote as no party was complete about their intentions. The IFS did a great job in exposing that.

[Jon the Hat]

This is starting to look like a stitch up to me. Clegg has been talking to Brown and they clearly agreed this action. For those who think Hung Parliaments are good I give you the future - secret talks even as official talks are going on with the largest party - just makes Clegg look like the devious schemeing power hungry idiot he apparently is.

Labour and the LIberal decocrast would be insane to try this. The public really do not want any more Labour government, and Labour should be thinking long and hard about how the future looks for them if they start ignoring the public mood.

[l444ry]

"In the national interest" is the catchphrase of the week. Try and keep up.

No, it's you who needs to keep up.

The term 'national interest' is used by these political scoundrels to conceal the fact that society is in reality made up of opposing classes, each with their own distinct interests, and the government act in the interests of only one class, the ruling class.

How can the interests of big business, whose function is to extract the maximum amount of surplus value from its labour force, be the same interests as their workers who have to fight to protect their working conditions and standards of living?

How can the investment bankers at RBS who were recently paid bonuses of £1.3 billion, be equated to the workers struggling to put food on the table for their families?

How can the interests of workers and youth trying to combat growing debt, unemployment and housing problems be the same as the Duke of Westminster, who is the richest property developer in Britain, with an estimated wealth of £6.75billion and owning vast estates in Lancashire, Cheshire and Scotland as well as internationally owning estates in Canada and Spain?

Whatever form of government is eventually cobbled together, the term 'national interest' will be used as a cover behind which they intend to launch savage attacks on the social conditions of the working class.

[Craig]

This is starting to look like a stitch up to me. Clegg has been talking to Brown and they clearly agreed this action. For those who think Hung Parliaments are good I give you the future - secret talks even as official talks are going on with the largest party - just makes Clegg look like the devious schemeing power hungry idiot he apparently is.

Labour and the LIberal decocrast would be insane to try this. The public really do not want any more Labour government, and Labour should be thinking long and hard about how the future looks for them if they start ignoring the public mood.

Well, around 64% of the electorate voted against your mob, so I'm not sure the public really want a Cons government either.

[breadandcheese]

No, it's you who needs to keep up.

The term 'national interest' is used by these political scoundrels to conceal the fact that society is in reality made up of opposing classes, each with their own distinct interests, and the government act in the interests of only one class, the ruling class.

How can the interests of big business, whose function is to extract the maximum amount of surplus value from its labour force, be the same interests as their workers who have to fight to protect their working conditions and standards of living?

How can the investment bankers at RBS who were recently paid bonuses of £1.3 billion, be equated to the workers struggling to put food on the table for their families?

How can the interests of workers and youth trying to combat growing debt, unemployment and housing problems be the same as the Duke of Westminster, who is the richest property developer in Britain, with an estimated wealth of £6.75billion and owning vast estates in Lancashire, Cheshire and Scotland as well as internationally owning estates in Canada and Spain?

Whatever form of government is eventually cobbled together, the term 'national interest' will be used as a cover behind which they intend to launch savage attacks on the social conditions of the working class.

In answer to your question of how can the national interest of different classes intertwine...

Quite simply when the country is in such debt that our taxes and those of our children will be used to pay off the borrowing of this government. It does not matter if you are upper class or lower class. If the government runs out of money, it affects us all.

[davieG]

In answer to your question of how can the national interest of different classes intertwine...

Quite simply when the country is in such debt that our taxes and those of our children will be used to pay off the borrowing of this government. It does not matter if you are upper class or lower class. If the government runs out of money, it affects us all.

Maybe but it wasn't the poor that got us into this state was it?

[Matt]

THANK FUCK FOR THAT!

Gordon Brown for the first time in his career has done the right thing.

Go home Brown, Go home, You person I don't like of Scottish ancestry (Just for the PC people out there who go offending by a previous post)

[Guest DavidJCW]

To be quite honest, I really don't care that Labour appoint a new head and if the case be, a new Prime Minister.

We don't actually vote for a PM, we vote for our local MP's... the fact that a hypothetical new PM is also voted in by their constituency means that in certain respects, they are voted for by the public. I also don't think that there'd be many around the country that would actually complain that Brown is replaced by another Labour minister... I'd imagine the party popularity would even rise initially.

Now, as I said a few hours ago, had Labour done this before the election, they may well still have been in power right now with a majority, or certainly been the largest party. However, as it is, this could well be the move that leads to a Lib-Lab pact that sees the Tories extend their stay as being the opposition.

[FoxyPV]

It appears that Brown's resignation was a precondition for a Lib/Lab pact.

Don't know what this means though for the proposed govt. A progressive coalition (if you want to call it that) will not last the pace due to the disparate desires of those in coalition.

[BrummieFOX]

Bilo's Deathlist 2010

Ronnie Biggs

Liz Dawn

Michael Foot RIP

Ariel Sharon (I appreciate this is technically cheating)

Gordon Brown's political career

May need an update Bilo??

[breadandcheese]

Maybe but it wasn't the poor that got us into this state was it?

There is also no denying that the poor also benefitted from this boom in lending, albeit the money was in the hands of the state, rather than there hands. Gordon Brown could embark on large public spending increases because of the cheap capital flowing round the globe. We've had increased public sector spending increasing public sector numbers, new schools, hospitals. Whether we got value for money when making the huge public spending increases is another matter but they are still benefits.

[Guest]

At least it's given us a bit of comedy gold where Adam Boulton looked close to laying Alistair Campbell out live on Sky News

[l444ry]

Clearly after the political pipsqueak Kay Burley disgraced herself, Adam Boulton was jealous and he's made a prat out himself too. What lanet are Sky News on?

[FoxyPV]

This is really pissing me off now - ALL PARTY LEADERS ARE ELECTED - BY THEIR PARTY AND ALSO BY THE PEOPLE AS THEY ARE MPS!!!

Hague - get this into your fooking head.

Tories will offer AV now. One more nail in their coffin.

EDIT: Realise this has been mentioned before but just listening to Hague brought it up again

[davieG]

This is really pissing me off now - ALL PARTY LEADERS ARE ELECTED - BY THEIR PARTY AND ALSO BY THE PEOPLE AS THEY ARE MPS!!!

Hague - get this into your fooking head.

Tories will offer AV now. One more nail in their coffin.

EDIT: Realise this has been mentioned before but just listening to Hague brought it up again

If it's AV rather than a pure PR it probably wont as I wrote earlier, I Believe I have remembered it more less correctly the Aussies have had that for 80+ years and the Conservatives have won their election 50+ times

[Shrenchel]

If this is how PR is going to work, I definitely do not want it.

...but if we already had PR then there wouldn't be the electoral reform dealbreaker that the Lib Dems are demanding but the Tories won't give them, so they would have probably already agreed a few policy areas and jumped into bed together by now.

Every other country in Europe has PR and it's rare that the party that wins the most number of votes doesn't end up forming the government.

This isn't how PR works, this is how our archaic systems works when it's cracking at the seams.

This is starting to look like a stitch up to me. Clegg has been talking to Brown and they clearly agreed this action. For those who think Hung Parliaments are good I give you the future - secret talks even as official talks are going on with the largest party - just makes Clegg look like the devious schemeing power hungry idiot he apparently is.

Labour and the LIberal decocrast would be insane to try this. The public really do not want any more Labour government, and Labour should be thinking long and hard about how the future looks for them if they start ignoring the public mood.

Well, as far as the public mood goes you could argue that the Conservatives in power is what 36.1% of people want, Lib Dems/Labour/SNP/PC/Greens in power is what 55.3% of people want.

[Jon the Hat]

This is really pissing me off now - ALL PARTY LEADERS ARE ELECTED - BY THEIR PARTY AND ALSO BY THE PEOPLE AS THEY ARE MPS!!!

Hague - get this into your fooking head.

Tories will offer AV now. One more nail in their coffin.

EDIT: Realise this has been mentioned before but just listening to Hague brought it up again

So we all imagined each party campaigning with a leader did we? Don't take it so literally, we do understand the system, we just don't think you can have a mandate to govern if you change your leader immediately after an election.

[davieG]

So we all imagined each party campaigning with a leader did we? Don't take it so literally, we do understand the system, we just don't think you can have a mandate to govern if you change your leader immediately after an election.

At what point after an election does it become acceptable?

If you think it's unacceptable full stop why did the Tories allow Major to take over, if you feel there's a time when it is acceptable then that needs to be stated although I can't imagine any specific elapsed time being more acceptable than any other.