And it wasn't even close. Time will tell how modern the "new" Tories are but for now, it's pretty clear people have had enough of (new) Labour. London Mayor Ken Livingston, despite his own bizarre rants, had remained popular but the Tories were much more successful with getting voters to the polls. Livingston lost 53%-47% to current Tory MP Boris Johnson.
New Labour took a beating at the polls yesterday with results not seen since the early 1970s. The years of Blair-spin finally caught up to Labour and Gordon Brown is not really the type that can ignite the troops. Much like the US, the UK economy is melting down with debt (personal debt is even higher than in the US) and voters are in a sour mood.
Blair extended Thatcherism and added a smiling face to the greed-is-good policies so it's hard to say just how well the Conservatives will do once they take over. Would the Tories really have avoided war in Iraq? Would their foreign policy look different than the Bush-loving Blair's policies? Doubtful. Would their fiscal policies be that much different? A bit, but doubtful as well. With the Blairite-New Labour goofiness with religion and demands for extended detention in so-called terror cases, it's not the stark difference that would have existed a few years before Blair. The Conservatives will surely push Gordon Brown out soon but how different actual policies will be is another story.
Oil hits a new high today and closes at $113.79 after testing $114. We're now in a no mans land and it's not going to take much to test $115. Gordon Brown and Bush can groan all they like but they should have thought about the consequences of invading Iraq and promoting conservation long ago. Since the US and UK invaded Iraq the cost of oil has gone through the roof and it's not going to ease up just because two leaders of two countries that the oil producing countries detest have a public temper tantrum.
Could you even imagine Bush publicly calling for this in the US despite massive funding to the banks? When pigs fly, I suppose.
Banks were urged by Gordon Brown today to pass on last week's interest rate cut to customers, and to 'come clean' about their bad debts, to help ease market uncertainty.
Amid continuing financial uncertainty, the Bank of England cut the base rate last week for the third time since December, but the cost of borrowing could continue to rise, putting thousands of homeowners under strain. Last night, Chancellor Alistair Darling said that the present turbulence was 'the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression'. He plans to meet lenders to discuss new measures to ensure those lower interest rates are passed on to mortgage holders.
But don't call it a boycott because then the communist government that gladly provides the world with cheap stuff might get angry and we would never want that. Only China can criticize other countries but we're not allowed to criticize them or else they will force western countries to go elsewhere to find cheap labor orchestrated by a wealthy dictatorship. S
o when did this big tradition of world leaders attending the Olympics actually start? I don't recall them tripping over each other to attend in the past but then again, the Olympics stopped being interesting to me when it became all about the corporate sponsorships and the doping and the every two years. Have this many presidents and prime ministers always attended?
As long as you have a political pension and benefits for life like Gordon Brown and others who talk up free trade. It's all fine and good to talk about the evils of protectionism but you have to be able to address the valid concerns of working people who watch their jobs go overseas or pay decline rapidly. Global trade can offer many plenty of positive benefits but to just wing it and open everything (think NAFTA) without restrictions isn't the answer either. Can a worker in France, for example, really compete with someone in Bulgaria for the same job but at a fraction of the pay? We see this struggle over and over on both sides of the Atlantic.
These are problems that Western Europe and the US are facing and neither extreme position is the right answer. Even when we do set up so-called free trade, all too often it only means free for local special interests and not-so-free for everyone else. Many in the emerging markets would like less dumping by First World countries and greater ability to sell their own products overseas. As the British economy heads downhill, how many regular families are going to want to dive in to the unrestricted free market? Moving in that direction over time is one thing, but the well being of families is at stake, so no need to rush overnight.
Gordon Brown looks worse every week. His attempt to extend the so-called anti-terror laws has received a very cool reception by MPs. How much longer can Brown survive before he is shoved out of office?
Gordon Brown's hopes of securing a parliamentary majority for his plans to extend the time terrorist suspects can be detained without charge have been dealt a severe blow by a survey of Commons opinion showing only a third of MPs back tougher laws.
The survey also reveals the appetite for further anti-terror legislation among Brown's own MPs is faltering, with 48% of Labour MPs agreeing there has been too much anti-terror legislation.
A housing bubble and government (over)spending is not just an American problem. The Blair legacy is now taking its toll and Gordon Brown is going to have more explaining to do.
The UK's current account deficit leapt by almost 50 per cent in the third quarter, hitting a record £20bn and raising fresh concerns about the stability of the country's economy.
The deficit was almost twice as large as expected, as the strong pound saw the level of imports far exceed exports, and the levels of investment fell. More troubling news on the UK economy, after the jump.
Public sector borrowing also hit a new high of £11.2bn last month, up from £9.1bn at the same time last year, while gross mortgage lending fell by 7.7 per cent during the month, confirming the slowdown in the housing market.
Jonathan Loynes of Capital Economics said the data showed the UK economy to be "dangerously unbalanced". "This morning's flurry of UK data paints a worrying picture of a dangerously unbalanced economy," he said. "The UK's external position now looks pretty much as bad as that in the US, suggesting the pound needs to fall sharply like the US dollar."
Peter Spencer, chief economic adviser to the Ernst & Young ITEM Club, added: "What is really shocking about these figures is that they reveal that the Exchequer was running a large current deficit before the credit crisis hit home, when the economy was doing very well and it should have been showing a large current surplus.
"Now, the economy is slowing sharply and the public finances will deteriorate equally rapidly. The first hit will come in February when the January tax receipts will be published. These will be well down on last January's figure, which was of course swollen by huge City bonuses and profits last year. We have revised our forecast of this year's current deficit up to £16bn, twice the Treasury pre-Budget report forecast of £8bn. As if the Chancellor had not got enough problems on his plate already."
Not exactly a good way to launch a new campaign. £300 million is roughly $613 million, so it's hardly a small cut. Brown makes it really hard to like Brown.
His rejection of providing UK voters with the democratic right to vote for or against the new EU was pretty sad. The ruling class of Europe continues to ignore any concerns that voters have with the ever-expanding EU, probably knowing that voters will show politicians what they think of the dog with fleas. That's bad enough but now Gordon Brown is preparing to ditch one of the few positive programs started by Blair. This leaked report says a lot about the new PM.
Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Gordon Brown will be advised today that the target Tony Blair signed up to this year for 20% of all European energy to come from renewable sources by 2020 is expensive and faces "severe practical difficulties".
According to the papers, John Hutton, the secretary of state for business, will tell Mr Brown that Britain should work with Poland and other governments sceptical about climate change to "help persuade" German chancellor Angela Merkel and others to set lower renewable targets, before binding commitments are framed in December.
It admits that allowing member states to fall short of their renewable targets will be "very hard to negotiate ... and will be very controversial". "The commission, some member states and the European parliament will not want the target to be diluted, though others may be allies for a change," says a draft copy of Mr Hutton's Energy Policy Presentation to the Prime Minister, marked "restricted - policy".
Peaceful protest is fine, as long as it's somewhere else? What's the point of having a democracy if free speech is forbidden?
Tony Benn, the veteran Labour MP who announced his desire last week to return to the Commons, said he would be defying the ban. In a letter to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, he said: "The authority for this march derives from our ancient right to free speech and assembly enshrined in our history."
Chris Nineham, of STWC, said they had no intention of disrupting parliamentary business, adding: "We have marched in exactly these same areas and they have never used this law before. A few days after Mr Brown promised to enhance civil liberties, this is a serious assault on the right to protest."
A former SAS soldier, Ben Griffin, who will be on the march, said: "Gordon Brown cannot praise protesters in Burma and then ban a protest in London."
With so many mixed messages from the first meeting of PM Brown and Bush, we may not know the direction this relationship is going until the next serious status check in Iraq which is in October. A few items to consider from the joint press conference yesterday:
* Start time was delayed by 20 minutes * Bush referred to Brown as "Gordon" while Brown referred to Bush as "Mr. President" * Brown talked of "full and frank discussions" with Bush * Bush heaped praise on Brown though Brown did not return the compliment * Brown avoided using Bush's favorite "war on terror" phrase * Brown did not say he was accelerating the departure from Iraq, but he also did not change the current talk of bringing home troops on schedule.
As Chris in Paris wrote in his earlier post about Tony Blair's successor Gordon Brown's then-upcoming meeting with Bush, he noted that Brown should keep in mind that most Americans and Brits want change and want out of Iraq.
Gordon Brown last night praised George Bush for leading the global war on terror -- saying the world owed America a huge debt.
The Prime Minister vowed to take Winston Churchill's lead and make Britain's ties with America even stronger.
Mr Brown stunned critics by THANKING President Bush for the fight against Islamic extremism, and insisted the UK-US relationship will be his No1 foreign policy priority.
..."We acknowledge the debt the world owes to the US for its leadership in this fight against international terrorism."
There's nothing wrong with expressing support for a strong partnership with the U.S., but there was no reason for him to affirm Big Military Anti-Terrorism Adventures -- if this is what he calls fighting terrorism, Brown may not be PM for long.
The Times Online, however, says the pressure for a Brit pullout on Brown is not far from his mind.
Downing Street remains emphatic that he will not unveil a plan to withdraw British troops, who are due to remain in southern Iraq until the Iraqi army is deemed capable of maintaining security. A spokesman said there had been no change in the government's position.
Behind the scenes, however, American officials are picking up what they believe are signals that a change of British policy on Iraq is imminent.
..."The view is Britain feels it can't fight two wars, and Afghanistan is more worth fighting for,” added the source. Yesterday a British soldier was killed during a rocket attack in Afghanistan, bringing to 67 the number of British fatalities there.
Also, check out the AP story on this same meeting between Brown and Bush. It's a decidedly different spin.
Brown took power just a month ago, with strong early marks for his response to terror threats and catastrophic flooding at home. He faces the tricky task of helping Bush tackle world crises without getting too closely aligned with a U.S. leader scorned in Britain.
Bush, meanwhile, likes to size up a fellow world leader in person and, over time, measure the person's mettle under fire. Yet he doesn't have much time left. And his popularity, along with a good bit of clout, have worn away with the war in Iraq.
"What the president wants to find out is whether the new prime minister is a reliable ally," said Simon Serfaty, a European expert at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. "The word to use is reassurance. This is not about a marriage. It's a date."
...Brown's spokesman Michael Ellam said there was no plan to withdraw British troops before the Iraqi army is deemed capable of maintaining security. Notably, though, Brown is covering his bases. After leaving Bush, he planned to meet leaders on Capitol Hill.
If Brown has any intention of staying in power as PM, he's going to have to figure out how to get the UK out of Iraq. His attempt to hold off meeting Bush face to face failed so today he will meet with Dear Leader at Camp David to discuss Iraq and the "special relationship." In addition to the large anti-war population in the UK, Brown should also keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of Americans are also against the war, so there's no need to be a whore to the American right to maintain the relationship. Americans are very anti-Bush and want out of Iraq so Brown should not hesitate to break with the failed agenda that Blair promoted. The "special relationship" has nothing to do with Bush. It has everything to do with America and the UK and Americans and our British friends want change and want out of Iraq.
"Our withdrawal rate should be determined not by the security situation - which allows the militias, the insurgents, to determine our withdrawal - but by the state of training of the Iraqi forces," Lord Ashdown said on the BBC TV AM programme.
"If we can no longer suppress the violence, we are in a sense a target for the violence," he added. "Therefore, we need to hand this process over to the Iraqis.
"Will things get worse for a bit? They may but they are probably going to anyway. The evidence was that if we cannot suppress the violence we cannot prevent it getting worse. What we need to do is train up the Iraqis."
He said Tony Blair had "failed to use the leverage" he had to influence Mr Bush's policy in Iraq and urged Mr Brown not to make the same mistake.
"We committed the cardinal sin of these interventions, which is to have ridiculously over-ambitious aims; to recreate Washington in Baghdad, to recreate a fully-functioning Western-style democracy in a Middle Eastern country," said Lord Ashdown.
A lot is being made of the recent comments by British ministers who have suggested changes in the relationship between the US and UK. Somehow there has been panic over those comments because they are pointing towards dialog and multi-lateralism. It wasn't that long ago that US also believed in those ideas so just because the Bush administration is afraid of them doesn't mean that the US is against them.
We've seen what good a lapdog does for the relationship, making it weaker and serving no benefit to anyone, so there should be no problem at all with Gordon Brown taking a fresh look at how the two countries interact and moving it back to where we were in the not so distant past. It's a healthy conversation to have and instead of running in fear, as the Bush people are doing, we ought to embrace this update that will help us all grow. There should be no need to make excuses or apologies...this is the way grown adults behave when they talk and have dialog. This is how friends behave with each other.
In what will be seen as an assertion of the importance of multilateralism in Mr Brown's foreign policy, Mr Alexander said: "In the 20th century a country's might was too often measured in what they could destroy. In the 21st century strength should be measured by what we can build together. And so we must form new alliances, based on common values, ones not just to protect us from the world, but ones which reach out to the world." He described this as "a new alliance of opportunity".
He added: "We need to demonstrate by our deeds, words and our actions that we are internationalist, not isolationist, multilateralist, not unilateralist, active and not passive, and driven by core values, consistently applied, not special interests."
Obviously the jury is still out with Brown but it's healthy to have new and different viewpoints in this relationship. We've already seen what good a lapdog is so this is a very welcome new development. Competing ideas can only help the process which today is mired in a bubble that serves no benefit to finding a way out of some previously very bad policies. Blair was a disastrous failure with offering and standing firm on opposing points of view. He talked as though he might, but the end result was always the same. Let's see what the new PM can do to make a break with the failures of the past.
After ten years of spin and triangulation, the Gordon Brown era is starting off on a much different note. Though he is still holding firm on Iraq, for now, he is shaking things up with a new team who are less likely to be lapdogs for Bush and the neocons including one new minister who has previously sparred with former US ambassador John Bolton as well as the Poodle. Overall, a lot of new faces without the stench of Blair and his failures in foreign policy and submission to the Bush agenda.
