Oh yes he will, oh no he won’t – the political pantomime season started early!
The weeks of will he, won’t he are over… Gordon bottled it and has weakened himself temporarily.
Anyone unfamiliar with British politics must have been amused by the sight of politicos and journos working themselves up into a frenzy about a complete non event.
If it had been a few weeks later, they could have been forgiven for thinking they were witnessing a pantomime!
Will Gordon Brown call an election? Oh yes, he will! Oh no, he won’t! Well now the issue is behind us for now… but for how long?
While there are not many things that the Americans do better than us, I do think they have a better way of dealing with elections.
Fixed terms of four years means that the politicians in power do not have the opportunity to choose the time of the election to suit their needs.
It means that the charade that we have witnessed over the past few weeks would not happen.
And if we follow the Americans and only allow a prime minister to serve two terms (eight years), it means we would have been spared three years of Thatcher and two years of Blair.
Who could possibly argue against that?!
Brown made a boo-boo yes, but the people elected a Labour govt. and the term doesn’t need to end with PM change.
I think he got moxie with David Cameron’s cries of “let me at ‘im, let me at ‘im!” And it unfortunately fell at an artificial high for the Conservatives when George Osborne talked about inheritance tax. I really think Brown has a passionate plan he wants to dish out.
If Brown does a good job over the next few years – in fact just the next few months, no one’s going to mull over this embarrassment in future.