I don’t generally comment on politics and current affairs, but I’m going to offer the following two (probably unpopular) thoughts.
Thought 1
The author of The Empty City Blog contends that:
Getting rid of six Prime Ministers in ten years is a sign of a working political system. It is that we keep appointing poor Prime Ministers that is the problem: an input issue not an output issue.
Wrong!
It is the product of relatively unthinking, sheep-like MPs not understanding enough of the system**, naïvely believing the grass is always greener on the other side, and being preyed on by self-serving commentators and billionaire media owners with their own divisive agendas (after all it sells copy and makes them money). The media have forgotten what their role is: to report what’s happening, not to wage personal vendettas.
[** Unless they’ve worked very closely inside Number 10 no-one has any idea of the complexity at that level. And no new Prime Minister has a flying clue what’s hit them.]
We’ve lost the understanding of peoples’ role and place in the system (and that doesn’t have to mean rigid, traditional roles); the ability to see beyond the brick wall; and the confidence to allow people to get on and do the job they’ve been entrusted with. Meanwhile the media have run off with the sausages.
But this isn’t new. Just in my lifetime we did it to, inter alia, Alec Douglas-Home, Ted Heath and Jim Callaghan.
And it is stupid that we have eight (soon to be nine) living former Prime Ministers. Two or three maybe, but nine shows just how dysfunctional the system is.
FFS grow some spine and learn to tell the media to f*** off.
Thought 2
If Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister it will be a disaster and he’ll not last two years.
He’s out of touch with Parliament, and will effectively have to relearn the ropes. Most new MPs seem to have a tough time adjusting to the role and finding their place in the system. He should not, and should not expect to, walk straight in and carry on as if he’d never left.
This means that should he become Prime Minister in short order, he will have even less clue than most as to what has hit him when he walks into Number 10.
But worse …
He seems to be divisive (which is what’s got him here). He’ll overtly favour the North with no thought about the South – regardless of the fact that the South is well over 50% of the population and GDP. And it’ll be all about his ideas – aka. the only right ideas – with little or no regard for advice or experts.
So it’ll be another government along the same lines as Boris Johnson – somewhere between farce and fiasco.
Plus watch the vanity projects for the North.
All of which could just result in a backlash in favour of Farage and Reform, which will be an even bigger disaster.
A good Mayor, doesn’t ipso facto make a good Prime Minister!