Faceblog
Ok, I admit it. I am a slave to fashion and have jumped on the passing bandwagon that is Facebook, and consequently have been ignoring my blog. I guess I have been seduced by its easy interactivity neat design, not like the do-it-yourself chaos of blogger. But I doubt my facebook pals (some of whom are real friends) are terribly interested in my various ramblings so here is my composite entry on the current political scene.
Gordon Brown - it is all very weird. Why is he not yet PM? He can command a majority of the House of Commons - and he is de facto leader of the Labour Party. This slow handover is yet another constitutional outrage and pure indulgence. For what? So 6 non-entities can indulge in a deputy leadership contest. Surely a strange and pointless Labour Party quirk if there ever was one. In most political systems, a potential leader and deputy present a united ticket and stand together - e.g. President and Vice-Pres in the USA. What is the point in foisting a deputy on Brown who he might not even have in his cabinet - a deputy party leader on the backbenches would be the equivalent to the Tory chairman of the 1922 committee - influential, maybe, but hardly worth the national attention it is being given.
And like many others, I live in constant wonder every time Hazel Blears comes on television: how on earth did she make it past security - surely she is masquerading as an MP, otherwise standards are even lower than I feared.
On the opposition benches, and in the letters pages of the Daily Telegraph, there is much excitement about the "abandonment" of Grammar Schools. I recall that Maggie closed more of these in the 1970s than anyone else, but clearly this is a conveniently forgotten fact. Is anyone seriously considering turning the clock back to the old two tier state education system? Apparently so. There I was thinking that Cameron would have difficulty finding a policy on which he could make a stand in favour of progress and thereby add some substance to his image. Speaking of which, I have been told about half a dozen times recently that I look like him (wrong colour hair, of course, and I didn't go to Eton, oh no, actually I did), including by a wedding singer in Torquay. I guess I will have to keep out of trouble in case it hits his poll ratings.
