In Defence of G. Brown (British Politics)



From the rough draft of Gordon Brown's next book of inspiring stories, Morally Uplifting Tales For Sturdy Young Britons:


"Once upon a time there was a wicked King in Albion. He lied and cheated and took money from the public funds and gave it to his cronies, and if anyone wanted to be a knight all you had to do was give him gold and it didn't matter how noble or worthy you were. And he was a bad administrator and things went wrong a lot, for example his men once released a lot of dangerous villains from prison by mistake. And the people cried out against him, and once he was nearly deposed for selling the knighthoods to anyone who would pay, but somehow he always got away with things. He had an easy smile and a glib answer for everything, and his lies were so shameless that eventually people would get tired of trying to make him tell the truth, and all the wise men smiled and said, 'He is a great political operator, you have to admire it in a way.'

"More, he had a very capable Chancellor, named Nodrog. Now, Nodrog didn't smile much or have quite the same way with people that the King did, indeed he looked a bit grumpy although it was only the way his face was shaped, but he was a very clever man, and he kept things ticking over nicely. He made sure all of the businessmen had plenty of business, and most of the workers had plenty of work. So what with one thing and another and largely thanks to Nodrog, although the people continued to mutter and grumble about the King, somehow they never quite got around to rising up and overthrowing him.

"However there came a day when the King said, 'Well, I see which way the wind is blowing, lads, we've had a good run for our money but it can't keep on forever, I'm getting out while the going's good.' And he absconded in the night leaving Nodrog to rule in his place.

"Now just as Nodrog was starting to settle into running things, one of the palace scribes happened to lose a copy of a census, which was a list of all the cattle and goods that people owned, so that if it fell into the wrong hands it would make it easy for robbers to know where to steal things. And all the wise men shook their heads and said, 'Oh dear, I don't like the looks of this.' And they consulted their entrails and decided that Nodrog wasn't going to be a fortunate ruler.

"And then there came to light new evidence of bribes that had been paid to the palace when the King was in charge. This sort of thing had happened such a lot under the King that the people had got used to it and no longer found it remarkable any more, but now all of a sudden they formed a mob and made a fuss.

"Now whereas the King would have just denied everything until the cows came home, honest Nodrog said, 'I am sorry, this was wrong, it should not have happened and it will not happen again.' And all the wise men looked knowing and said, 'He is weak and on the ropes.' And all the people, emboldened at last, rose up and lynched Nodrog.

"Was that fair, children? Was it? Hey? I mean was it? You fucking ingrates. I hope you all die, die screaming with crocodiles chewing your faces off. Clean this up please Morag."



...Is it fair, children? It is not. This all went on under The Gremlin. Where the hell was everyone then?

This has been a corrupt and incompetent government since 1997. The one thing it got right was an economy that, for whatever reasons, and with whatever fudgings and potentially bad long-term legacies, at least resulted in prosperity for quite a lot of people, and for that Brown is largely responsible. Now Shitface has jumped ship and escaped his due deserts, now you get righteously indignant?

Brown has apologised and said he will clean house. That's more than we ever got under Slippery Jim. I will repeat that, with disbelief: a Labour Prime Minister has apologised for a wrongdoing - for something he was remotely connected with rather than, say, the potato famine or the bombing of Dresden - instead of slipping out of it like a greased weasel. Is it satisfactory? No, but the last ten years have not been satisfactory. Where were you all then? Worshipping at the altar of the monumentally corrupt and mendacious Goldenballs.

Do you realise what a bunch of peasants you all sound like? 'Ooh, he can't smile.' 'Ooh, he isn't lucky like the other one' - that last, in effect, in fact I think in those words, from eminent political commentators being paid to write in newspapers. Brown was the reason you never turned on Blair, because you were content to take the shekels he generated.

Judge Brown on his record as Chancellor. There is, actually, a lot to criticise there: selling off our gold reserves at a low, mortgaging our future with the various Private Finance Initiative scams, the growing mountain of personal debt, neglect of farming and core industries and a dubious reliance on services and the media to pick up the slack. For the culture of corruption and inefficiency, blame the other shit and give Brown a chance to put things in order if he will.

I'll go further. To my utter amazement, given how much I've come to despise the Labour Party, I think I want Brown to beat Cameron at the next election. Cameron has modelled himself on Blair; Brown will go out of his way to be the opposite.

I...find I grudgingly like the surly Caledonian fucker. I like that while Cameron is getting down with the youth, Brown is putting out a string of books on courage and unsung British heroes. Yes, yes, they're probably ghostwritten and it's all image-making, but I like that that's the image he wants to project, and would suspect there was a glimmer of truth in it, if I didn't know that truth coming in contact with a politician would result in a devastating explosion similar to a matter-anti-matter interaction. He's going to continue to let us be ruled by Brussels as everyone else has, which makes it all horseshit, but I find it a refreshing change to have a Prime Minister who at the very least feels obliged to pretend to be proud of his country.

There are other more interesting encouraging signs: this for example, once you get past the oxymoron of a government commission being set up to tackle the growth of the nanny state.

The one thing Brown should be blasted and damned for, eternally, is allowing that prick to be Prime Minister before him. If only Brown had been PM in 1997 and Blair the Chancellor. Hitherto we have only been able to speculate, but I find myself quite certain now that's the way it should have been. The economy would have gone down the shitter - there'd be about 60% unemployment and a lot of us would be so impoverished we'd be eating our own pets - but culturally this would have been a much nicer, happier, saner country.



08 Dec 07



Update March 08 -

No referendum on the EU constitution. Fuck him, then.

And that other cow attacking the Proms, and besides I remembered that old man getting dragged out of their conference a few years back. Ignore the above, which was only anyway in the realm of 'Which deadly disease do you prefer?' Fuck them forever.


Edit later -

And, 'potentially bad long-term legacies' of his time as chancellor? We've been selling the family silver off on the cheap and buying things on the never-never it'll take generations to pay for, often to the enrichment of people with incestuous links to the Labour Party. The lot of them should be in the dock.


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