...these gentlemen approach American standards of political looniness...almost:
Blair Curses, Brown Rages in Damning Political Portrait
Review by George Walden
March 10 (Bloomberg) -- As a U.K. general election nears, London newspapers are serving up juicy morsels from a scabrous new book on politics. The extracts, from Andrew Rawnsley’s “The End of the Party,” brim with men behaving badly behind the walls of the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street.
The book describes how former Prime Minister Tony Blair held foul-mouthed shouting matches with his chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. And how Brown, after becoming prime minister, stalked No. 10 in a black rage, throwing solid objects as well as injurious words at long-suffering aides.
The fact that Rawnsley is a political columnist for the left-leaning Observer makes things worse. Should Labour lose the election, the book could prove a sordid epitaph to 13 years in power, which began with Blair’s landslide victory in 1997.
Leftists at the time viewed Blair as a Christ-like figure sent to banish the satanic era of Margaret Thatcher. Yet he was never a true man of the left, and his conservative instincts soon showed.
In touchy-feely speeches worthy of Princess Diana, he fretted about the chasm between rich and poor but did little to close the gap. Nor was he in any hurry to complete the reform of the House of Lords, a risibly dated institution where ancient bloodstock continue to lord it over humbler citizens.
Modish Monarch
Like some modish monarch, a tieless and jacketless Blair dispensed decisions from a sofa in No. 10, surrounded by cronies, notably his neurotic press officer, Alastair Campbell. Meanwhile the civil service, an ornament of the British constitution famed for its neutrality, was downgraded and ignored, Rawnsley shows.
Least socialist of all was Blair’s religion -- or religiosity, as it has been called. It helped Blair to overcome his horror at the election of George W. Bush, inspired a sense of mission in the War on Terror, and enabled him to say he would answer to his Maker for the deaths in Iraq.
The invasion terminally soured the easy-going atmosphere on Downing Street. Brown’s un-sunny disposition didn’t help, creating “a depressive, introverted, dysfunctional coterie,” as one No. 10 official puts it in the book. Brown was seen as a disaster -- a gloomy, nail-biting intellectual and master of emotional malapropisms.
“Enjoy the rest of the summer,” the book quotes him as saying while waving goodbye to troops in Afghanistan.
‘Born-Again Keynesian’
Rawnsley is nonetheless generous on Brown’s role in stabilizing the world economy, as was President Barack Obama, who spoke of Brown’s “energy, leadership and initiative.” Never mind if the cure meant turning his own principles on their head and spending billions of pounds he didn’t possess.
“The man who put Adam Smith on the banknotes became a born-again Keynesian,” Rawnsley says.
Political junkies will relish this gossipy, entertaining saga. The public will find is less amusing, I suspect. This is a book about British politics that, strangely enough, tells you nothing about Britain. Sexual and other scandals are generously covered, yet mass immigration, which for good or ill has transformed the country, gets less than a page.
Other social issues scarcely feature. After massive new spending on the overstretched health service, deaths from the drug-resistant MRSA superbug remain higher and cancer cures lower than elsewhere in Europe. Expenditure on education has doubled, yet more parents than ever send their children to private schools. As the rise of the old Etonian clique around Conservative leader David Cameron illustrates, social mobility has actually gone into reverse under Labour.
National Hubris
None of this stopped New Labour from echoing Tory boasts that Britain had regained its greatness, with London as the center of the world and its financial district, the City, as the country’s turbocharged engine.
“There’s nothing in the world to rival it,” crowed New Labour’s architect, Peter (now Lord) Mandelson.
And so the national hubris continued. The Conservatives had liberated the City’s energies, and Brown had supposedly abolished boom-and-bust economics, inaugurating a golden era of growth. Warnings about public spending and personal debt were denounced as doom-mongering.
Seldom has a generation of politicians of all persuasions gotten things so stunningly and comprehensively wrong. It’s not just New Labour, but an entire era of national self-delusion that is crashing and grinding to a close.
...majestically enthroned amid the vulgar herd...
Wow....what a load of HORSESHIT.
---Update---
Tomcat the eternal Brit hater...if only we have politicians as dumb as yours mate...
Barack Obama Quotes - American Politicians
LGBT rights in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nice to know America shows up first on anti gay laws.... NEXT!
TC you were hurt by a brit, we understand, we feel sorry for you..... really we do.
---Update---
The most impossible thing ever.....getting TC to bite lol, I give up
Daniel Bedingfield claimed that his new album is what it would sound like if Sting, Stevie Wonder and Micheal Jackson were in a basement together - I haven't got the album so I'll have to imagine the sound of a blind bloke and a Geordie kicking the shit out of a pedophile.
Once again TC, thanks for the review.
Sounds like another book I'll be giving a pass to.
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
―
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And the Nobel prize for stating the bleeding obvious goes to... I'd like to thank the members of the committee, my family and... Wake up Donnie!
"Always forgive your enemies -- Nothing annoys them so much !"
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In this thread: Cream takes on the role of nuckingfutz.
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...I'm so envious of the money you save on books...Originally Posted by russellsimpson
...the book's reviewer: George Walden, a former U.K. diplomat and Conservative member of Parliament, is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.
^ Even that bit???
Riddle me this brother can you handle it
Your style to my style you can't hold a candle to it
Equinox symmetry and the balance is right
Smokin' and drinkin' on a Tuesday night
It's not how you play the game it's how you win it
I cheat and steal and sin and I'm a cynic
...pls clarify post, ken...
And then...even that bit
Robi takes on the role of Mr. Mister and shows what a wanker he can be
rawnsley has been called out for being a liar with this one. admitted that much of the evidence for both his book, and his accusations against mr. brown, came from indirect sources that he refused to name. seems they might well be figments of his imagination.
i have little doubt that mr. brown might well be a grumpy old fuck with a temper. and?
"vast and black. the thing that was poised, like a crow over the moon. round and smooth. cannon balls. things that have fallen from the sky to this earth. our slippery brains. things like cannon balls have fallen, in storms, upon this earth. like cannon balls are things that, in storms, have fallen to this earth. showers of blood. showers of blood. showers of blood. " c.f.
Well done hales you're not bright enough to read the last line either.....fucking hell...
I used to have quite a lot of time for Andrew Rawnsley's stuff, but this book has very little credibility as far as I can see. He's proven himself to be pretty opportunistic, peddling a tissue of fabrications.
As with the story about a member of UKIP abusing the main man at the EU that TC posted last week, this really does very little to back up TCs trademark 'waspish' one liner introduction.
All the story about UKIP showed was that UKIP hate the EU. The nonsense added by TC about it being at all relevant to the interactions of Brits either at home or on this board was just that - nonsense. Though it was perhaps also suggestive of a poster who really doesn't grasp UK / EU politics very well.
All this shows is that Andrew Rawnsley's credibility has taken a major hit.
Nobody seems to be buying his version of events, either figuratively or literally.
i've no idea what this is meant to mean, anything to do with your post? i was acutally agrreing that it was 'horseshit', that was you point yes? thanks for being a twat about it tho...
yeah...that's what i was trying to say!
I enjoy stirring some shit now n then
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