Ten year cycles: what does happen next?
May. 12th, 2007 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasseBlair to stand down on June 27 Guardian Unlimited
Blair’s speech: full text Guardian Unlimited
What strikes me most about the whole affair, right now anyway, is that Blair proclaimed that he’d serve a third term and now has been forced out which really isn’t all that different to Thatcher’s talk of the party going from strength to strength only to be ousted in 1990. Perhaps it’s the case that after ten years the public have grown weary with the same party in power as an entirely too simplistic view, though in a sense that’s exactly what the problem is because ten years is long enough to see election promises go unfulfilled and the Prime Minster take Britain down a route of their own choosing, not because the is the best choice but because the other choices look worse. I’ve joked about Gaullist legacies in France but perhaps the situation here isn’t so much better. We may shake off one government every so often but when all the other choices are either banal or just not excepted to succeed it becomes a ludicrous race. People will keep refusing to vote for the Liberal Democrats because ‘they’re not likely to win’ and Labour or the Conservative respectively due to habit or the belief that the other party is worse anyway. Which makes me wonder, since we’ve had ten years of New Labour and ten years of the Tories to try a best fit, had Poll Tax riots and the Iraq War, Britain’s first woman Prime Minster and a then young Barrister; what happens next? Will Gordon Brown actually get somewhere and prove his worth or will Cameron get the chance that he’s fairly sure he deserves or will the LibDems finally get anywhere? I’m not quite sure what to expect now though once a new Labour leader is elected that will be the real test. If they make a pig’s ear of the matter then Cameron might just benefit. And while maybe it’s due to the rain or the grey skies outside the window, right now I’m feeling a twinge of Tory nostalgia over the matter. Which I certainly hope passes some time soon because I can’t bloody stand Cameron.
What's Portillo doing these days anyway?
Labour leadership: what happens next Guardian Unlimited
Margaret Thatcher – speeches, interviews & other statements Margaret Thatcher Foundation
Blair’s speech: full text Guardian Unlimited
What strikes me most about the whole affair, right now anyway, is that Blair proclaimed that he’d serve a third term and now has been forced out which really isn’t all that different to Thatcher’s talk of the party going from strength to strength only to be ousted in 1990. Perhaps it’s the case that after ten years the public have grown weary with the same party in power as an entirely too simplistic view, though in a sense that’s exactly what the problem is because ten years is long enough to see election promises go unfulfilled and the Prime Minster take Britain down a route of their own choosing, not because the is the best choice but because the other choices look worse. I’ve joked about Gaullist legacies in France but perhaps the situation here isn’t so much better. We may shake off one government every so often but when all the other choices are either banal or just not excepted to succeed it becomes a ludicrous race. People will keep refusing to vote for the Liberal Democrats because ‘they’re not likely to win’ and Labour or the Conservative respectively due to habit or the belief that the other party is worse anyway. Which makes me wonder, since we’ve had ten years of New Labour and ten years of the Tories to try a best fit, had Poll Tax riots and the Iraq War, Britain’s first woman Prime Minster and a then young Barrister; what happens next? Will Gordon Brown actually get somewhere and prove his worth or will Cameron get the chance that he’s fairly sure he deserves or will the LibDems finally get anywhere? I’m not quite sure what to expect now though once a new Labour leader is elected that will be the real test. If they make a pig’s ear of the matter then Cameron might just benefit. And while maybe it’s due to the rain or the grey skies outside the window, right now I’m feeling a twinge of Tory nostalgia over the matter. Which I certainly hope passes some time soon because I can’t bloody stand Cameron.
What's Portillo doing these days anyway?
Labour leadership: what happens next Guardian Unlimited
Margaret Thatcher – speeches, interviews & other statements Margaret Thatcher Foundation
