Uk Election

The victory speech is probably the easiest of any politician’s career. The fight’s over. All you need to is be gracious and deliver some - let’s face it - platitudes, such as: “Now it’s time to go forward, together.” As opposed to backwards, separately.

So it was as Conservative leader David Cameron, Britain’s new Prime Minister, stood outside 10 Downing Street overnight and delivered his victory speech. “And I think the service our country needs right now is to face up to our really big challenges, to confront our problems, to take difficult decisions, to lead people through those difficult decisions, so that together we can reach better times ahead,” he said.

As opposed to not facing the challenges, and taking easy decisions, so that as a rabble we can wind up in a total dystopia. The full text of Cameron’s speech is below, and you can read about it here and here. But can you improve on the victory speech? What should politicians say when they win? What’s really on their minds? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Continue reading "Cameron is Britain’s PM: Improve the victory speech" »

As a contemporary British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was always a bit of a misfit. The dour Scot always looked a little awkward in the place of his immaculately presented and well-spoken predecessors in Tony Blair, John Major and Margaret Thatcher.

Can changing the leader somehow make a government legitimate when it has been so comprehensively beaten at the polls? Former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown may have said, “The people have spoken, we just don’t know what they’ve said,” but in handing the Conservatives more seats than Labour, the only discernable message from British voters seems to be that the government’s time is up.

Brown’s surprise announcement that he will resign by September is a win-at-all-costs strategy. He’s willing to sacrifice himself to keep the Tories out of office. What’s unfolding now in Britain is an increasingly unseemly bidding war for power. The end result, if Labour manages to form a government, will be Britain having a Prime Minister it didn’t vote for.

Continue reading "People sometimes get the leaders they didn’t vote for" »

If you weren’t aware it’s big day in the UK today. It is general election day, and will see eith Gordon Brown ousted as Prime Minister to be replaced by the first Conservative Prime Minister in 13 years, or see Labour given an unprecedented fourth term in Government.

London’s two big tabloids have backed different parties.

The Sun, a newspaper who backed Tony Blair 13 years ago, is now firmly behind Conservative David Cameron, the man who has painted himself as Blair’s natural successor.

Meanwhile the Daily Mirror has continued their support for the Labour Party, making Cameron’s privileged upbringing the focus of the attack. They make it more explicit in an alternate front page you can see below the fold, which reminds readers he was a member of Oxford’s famous Bullingdon Club (along with London Mayor Boris Johnson) that would go around trashing pubs and writing cheques for the damage. 

Continue reading "Big day in little Britain" »

The British Prime Minister’s description of a voter he had just met as a “bigot” when he thought the microphone was off has been described by London’s Daily Telegraph as “the most damaging off-mike remark in modern politics”. There is talk that it may have destroyed any chance he had at re-election.

It’s a disaster because it confirms some of the voters’ worst suspicions about Brown’s character: that his true personality is dour and cranky, that deep down he probably just doesn’t like people. Brown was forced to visit the woman - a Labour supporter - at her home to apologise. But it a catastrophic turn in a general election campaign in which Labour is already sliding in the polls.

The timing makes it all the more damaging, but how does it rate among the long list of political gaffes when people thought the mikes were off? Here’s Brown’s - watch him squirm as the tape is played back - along with nine more in no particular order. Let us know what you think in the comments - and add your suggestions.

Continue reading "Brown’s disaster and the top 10 biggest microphone gaffes" »

Politics here has become quite addicted to managing our lives for us. Fat taxes, internet filters, incentives to have babies, disincentives to drink too much, bonuses for being green, you name it, a politician has promised it, and we’ve come to expect it.

But in the UK yesterday Conservative leader David Cameron pulled the trigger on a completely counter strategy, promising to not only leave Britons alone to run their own lives, but basically telling them to get off their sofas and start administering things themselves.

“Sack your MP, chose your own school, veto council tax rises, vote for your police commissioner, save the local post office - so many things to do.” Goodness, that sounds tiring.

Continue reading "Where’s Nanny? Tory leader tries a little tough love" »