The Economist, in trying to help Brown, condemns him

There is currently an over supply of lefty journalists doing their bit to save their party.

Every so often they are unable to deny any more the disaster that Labour have been and the clear a present threat that Gordon Brown's premiership is to our country and especially the Labour party.

But they can' get out of the habit of trying to urge their side on and provide Brown advice on how even now he could hold onto power.

A good example of this is Bagehot in this weeks Economist,"There is a mood of penance in Britain. Gordon Brown can make use of it". He suggests a course of action from Gordon Brown of trying to take advantage of the current crisis to change the terms of the political debate. ( I'm sure Brown will, but it will have the usual naked aggression and viscous political tactical calculation that have so much characterised No 10 along with the New Labour bullying spin machine since Brown won power through the gutless coup).

The advice from the Bagehot column is
"Henceforth, Mr Brown could say, I will be franker about the economy. I will answer interviewers’ questions. I will scrap the ID-cards scheme and other costly fixations. I will be less partisan. It isn’t only the expenses, he could declare: I understand the mood; politics must change."

Or to put it another way Brown should:

• stop lying about the economy;
• accept that he has to answer questions and that is is rude and boorish to do his famous tractor production statistics on a separate issue and Kirkcaldy telephone directory sort of evasions to anyone who dares to question him;
• stop burning great piles of cash that he has enslaved the nation into debt to acquire on schemes that nobody wants and are very likely to fail just because he can't admit making loads and loads of very costly and irresponsible mistakes;
• stop treating the country like it was solely there for the Labour party and the Labour party like it was solely there for his personal gratification of his massive and insane ego;
• act like he understand other people - fake it if absolutely necessary, and;
  
• change - which really means leave, preferably calling a general election first.

Why could even the most trendy lefty and self deceiving intellectually dishonest journalists not see that the answer is far more simple:

Brown and the Labour party are unfit for high office and must go and go now.

The Economist brands Brown's budget dishonest

I have long read and enjoyed the Economist and have been a subscriber for over two decades, even though it is the voice of the continuing SDP.

But I have noticed over the last day the sound of the patience of many on the soft SDP / New Labour groupie left snapping with this budget. ( The Economist doesn't even pretend to ascribe the budget to the hapless Alistair Darling ). I saw Janet Street Porter on "This Week" clearly still in shock as the real implications of Labour mismanagement and destruction of our economy have been sinking in since the budget. Grey Dyke, always an outrider for the Labour project, tried some guff about US capitalism but nobodies going to buy that excuse.

But oh the strength of the words from the economist. They have called the budget dishonest in their leader. They details the deceptions and political tactical decisions Brown has made at the expense of the country.


This weeks UK edition has the strap line "Desperate Measures" on the front and its leader finished with these words "The public is losing patience with him, and so is this newspaper".

Its time for those in Labour to admit they are not up to the job and resign and let those who could save our country try.

Update: It seems there's a petition ont he No10 web site to get Brown out. Sounds like a worth cause to me ! Go here.....

Poll defies the Economist's Chirstmas wish

Man in a Shed, who has been reading the Economist for about 23 years, has detected that their journalists have started to really buy into the New Labour project - just at the point that its going out of fashion.

The problem may be generational as journalists who started at the end of the Major years and beginning of the Blair years start to dominate our press. Only those with a strong stomach for be denounced could have maintained a Conservative view point in those days.

Economist article talk about "the Tories" - with the easy going disdain that was so prevalent in those days when no trendy student would have been seen dead putting the interests of their country in front of personal popularity. ( I'm not talking down the genuine socialists - but those who travel with the crowd and take the path of least resistance. )

Today the are saying that "the Tories" ( the Conservative party ) hasn't really succeeded as their poll rating aren't high enough. This is standard Labour disinformation and spin right now - to try to undermine the idea of the Conservatives as a potential government. To say they don't have the talent (like Labour does ! ) and to hint at a hung parliament which all trendy lefties know means the Lib Dems propping up Labour.

Well the news today is the polls have reached 45% for the Conservatives . Its the tipping point. organisations that have provided cover and support for the Labour government are now going to have to think about which side their bread is really buttered on - perhaps this is the underlying message of David Cameron's wish to consider using the licence fee for broadcasters other than the BBC. The BBC is, by its own somewhat unique guardianista standards, trying to think wider thoughts, but keeps reverting to type.

It also means that all those soft left journalists, the like of which seem to know work at the Economist, are going to have to learn to think for a living.

I'll give you a brief extract from the toe curling New Labour toadying article in Dec15th's Economist ( UK edition ):

The state of the Tories - Coming ready or not.

DAVID CAMERON, who marked his second anniversary as leader of the Conservative Party on December 6th, knows the wisdom of at least one of Westminster's ancient maxims. A week really is a long time in politics: at the start of his party's conference in October, he looked likely to lose the snap election that Gordon Brown, riding high as prime minister, was expected to call; by its end, he had regained a momentum that has yet to desert him.

He must now hope that another grizzled saying is true: that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them the implication here - before its justified - is that it can't be anything the Conservatives have done - like their tremendous party conference where Gordon Brown's bluff was truly called by nerves of steel David Cameron - backed to a man and woman by the party and strong performances on all subjects by the shadow cabinet. Recent events have compromised the government's claims to competence (the taxman lost the personal data of millions of citizens) and probity (a party-funding scandal forced the resignation of Labour's general secretary). Labour's support has fallen to about 33% (see chart) - New Labour spin/Meme - if they're not doing well enough now - how could they ever win ?. Yet the Tories have not pulled away decisively: they are polling at around 40%, which is short of both the 45% mark that Mr Cameron has made his party's target and the 60% that Labour scored under Tony Blair in 1995 its just gone to 45%. Labour then was more than 30 points ahead of the governing Tories these were whole exceptional conditions - which shows the lack of experience of the journalist writing this stuff; today the Tories are less than ten points ahead of Labour.

Conservatives note that they face a stronger government than Sir John Major's. None of its recent mistakes has been as ruinous for voters as the recession of the early 1990s Do you think the Economist journalist has seen what's coming round the corner in 2008 ? . Neither is it as exhausted of ideas: Sir John never produced anything as vaulting as the children's plan unveiled on December 11th.The journalist who wrote this should receive immediate drug testing as they must be the only person, not a paid up supporter of Gordon Brown, to believe such a thing.

.....

To see the full thing in its, ahem, glory see here.

Reading The Economist has been one of the regular pleasures of my adult life. It really upsets me to see how the woolly and dishonest thinking and practices of the New Labour project has corroded its standards.

The Economist doesn't understand the English Question

Like much of the old establishment The Economist just can't really get its head around the English Question. There is an article here titled "Handle with care". As has often been the case its suggests that recognising the English nation, in the same way that the Welsh, Scottish and Irish nations are recognised will destroy the Union. See below for a extract:

Polls suggesting that two-thirds of the English support an English-only parliament may be flawed (the questions are often leading), but support is definitely up from the 17% registered in the early years of devolution. The proportion of English people who define themselves as “English, not British” has risen from 30% in 1992 to 40% in 2005. English MPs report that voters nobbled on their doorsteps complain increasingly about England's subsidy of the Celtic fringe and the “Scottish Raj” that dominates Westminster.

Notice that the journalist can't bring themselves to use the same formation for the English Parliament support 67% as they use for the less favourable measures. The whispering "leading question" smear is used - can any of you remember seeing that about any other referendums ? (By the way the Campaign for an English Parliament use professional polling firms for these surveys - ones the government knows and trusts as they need the figures to be credible ).

The Economist has become increasingly close to New Labour over the last 10 years and I suspect its journalists are finding it hard to think outside the New Labour silo they now inhabit. They are continuing the English Nationalism bad - Celtic Nationalism good double think group think. (There are signs that the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph have also succumbed to New Labours total politics. They have many journalists who will now never have worked under any government than a Labour one - and their lack of imagination shows.)

And of course the article ends with what will probably be the MacLabour way of keeping the English down - claiming equivalent power has been devolved to councils or such. Expect this to be Gordon "sworn to put the interests of Scotland first" Brown's ploy to con the English next.