Why they are Trying to Drive Brown Out

As readers of this blog will know, I am not a big fan of Gordon Brown, I think he is more honest and far less egotistical than Tony Blair was and whilst he still seems to be following New Labour's policy of moving to a semi-authoritarian state he is doing it with far less speed than his predecessor. However, it is clear that Brown is not acceptable to the super-rich and others in the so-called Establishment who actually run the UK. This seems to be the only reason for why there has been such massive fuss about the local elections. So, Labour lost seats and a handful of councils, but show me a mid-term party in government who does not. Local elections are never a good indication of national flows anyway, especially, as Thatcher demonstrated you can rule for years only attracting a minority of the general votes. Another issue is why replicate Labour on 26% and not Ken Livingstone on 47% which would mean a far closer election. The reason is, because those who want Brown removed are using any stick they can find to beat him with. 'The Guardian' is supposed to be a liberal paper which you would imagine would be sympathetic to the Brown government, but no it is talking about the 'dusk' of Labour on its front page even though the general election is not until 2010.

The super-rich could cope with Blair. For a start he did not head the Labour Party, he headed a personal party, which as I have noted before was tied to its head as tightly as the Peronists were to Peron and probably even more than the Gaullists were to De Gaulle. Blair could always control Blair by flattery. In addition, his desire to manipulate the media and to make the public feel somehow guilty when they disagreed with him, fitted with these influential people's desires. Blair would go to war when the USA commanded it and he totally toed the line over the threat of terrorism which is the first piece in threatening the populous to accept the authoritarian laws the super-rich seem so keen to have imposed in the UK.

It is clear that those with real influence dislike Brown because he is too cautious, too curious, too much his own man. They want the 90-day detention without charge in place, they want Brown involving himself in more wars they can profit from, they want him selling off Northern Rock cheap so they can buy it up, repossess houses and make more money. They do not want a prime minister who actually nationalises things and raises income tax even if it is on a sector of society they despise (loss of the 10p tax band upsets their servants, don't you know?). They tried it last year when they called Brown a coward for not having a general election and they are now going to hound him until he finally goes. The trouble for the UK is what is the alternative? The Conservatives should be snatching the initiative and drawing up vote winning policies. No, they are sitting back even smug than before. They have allowed a clown, Boris Johnson, a man who regularly parades how many people he has offended and how silly he is, to become London mayor. What are those coming to work on the 2012 London Olympics going to think of this buffoon. Even the Conservatives had better candidates than him. In fact I cannot believe he will even serve his full term of office, some major gaffe will force him to resign. Yet, the fact that he was the candidate indicates the contempt that the Conservatives have for the electorate.

The Conservative lead David Cameron is amenable, but like Johnson is another old boy from Eton, one of the public schools which admits such a small slice of British society. He is of a social category of the kind that we saw with Lord Douglas-Home and Sir Anthony Eden back in the 1950s and 1960s. His social class is so far removed from that of 93% of the UK population, but then again, he is like George Bush in the USA, the elite are their core constituency. I could even forgive Cameron all of that if he actually had some policies. Though I despise Thatcher you could never say she lacked a clear vision of what she wanted to do and the policies to achieve it. Cameron, in contrast, is content to assume that the premiership will be gifted to him in 2010 and he will just keep the country steady in order to benefit the wealthiest. He will adopt a reactive policy with the limited economic tools the Treasury seems willing to consider. What I envisage in the 2010s is very similar to the UK of the 1930s under the National Government, just encourage the public to keep their chin up while they are crushed beneath the pressure of the global economy. Unlike 1939 there will be no move in 2019 when China goes to war, because the uber-wealthy are more than happy to let the Chinese government to kill and torture millions of people if they choose, just so long as China keeps exporting the cheap goods and provides the cheap labour the wealthy like to use.

As happened in the 1980s when the media brought Thatcher in and kept her in despite the bulk of the population abhoring her and voting against her, Brown will be removed by the campaign against him which started in full force this week. He will probably be the last politician to be in charge of the UK. After him it will be figureheads of the rich just as Bush is in the USA, so Cameron will be here, a man without any political impact or any sense of direction beyond what his wealthy masters command. What we are seeing the dusk of is not so much Brown's premiership, but of the last dose of democracy the UK will have.