Derek Brokway Forecasts Brown's Downfall

Derek Brokway is the nearest we have to a modern day prophet in Wales. He Forecasts the weather with 99% accuracy on BBC Wales on a daily basis.

Last August I published this post:

Toque believes that Gordon Brown holidaying in Britain, this year and last, has put a curse on the weather. Apparently, Mr Brown use to go to Cape Cod for his holidays before becoming PM, Toque thinks that the weather might improve should Gordon Sod off back to Cape Cod.

Derek has said that this summer is going to be a good one. That must mean that Gordon Brown will be out before summer begins on the 21st of this month!

If Mr Brown hasn't left Downing Street by June 22, don't bother rummaging for your bucket and spade - Derek has got it wrong and it it is going to p**s down until next May!

Rhodri is, probably, right.

Still on the subject of President Obama.

It's not often that I disagree with Damon Lord. It's not often that I agree with Rhodri Morgan either, but I think that Damon's condemnation of Mr Morgan as an ignorant, racist twat is unwarranted.

Rhodri has many failings, but being an ignorant, racist twat isn't one of them. I have known Rhodri for many years. I knew him before he ever became an elected politician and I know that his first hand experience of segregation in the USA, when he was a student there in the 1960's, has had a profound and influencing affect on him and his world view. Rhodri is not a racist and has never, ever, supported any racist view. To claim otherwise is very disingenuous!

As far as Rhodri's comments are concerned I tend to agree with him.

The first point to make is that Barack Obama is the Head of State of the USA, the equal to Her Majesty the Queen in the UK. If the monarchy survives, I can't see an heir apparent marrying a black person or a person of mixed race for at least another four generations. If the UK survives me, I will never see a black head of state. If the UK and its monarchy survive my great grandchildren the likelihood of them seeing a person of colour as head of state is minimal.

Electing a black Prime Minister is a lot more complex than electing a black president.

Four years ago Barack Obama was a newly elected junior senator. Regardless of age, gender, sexual preference or race, no newly elected British MP can become PM in 4 years, rarely is a PM selected before he or she has had 16 years of service as an MP under the belt (I know there have been odd exception). I don't see, at the moment, a "probable" Black or Asian PM amongst those in the Commons now, so it's down to the next tranch of MP's.

If he made a claim, Gordon Brown would be entitled to Disability Living Allowance, and could be noted as our first registered Disabled PM. Having a registered disabled person as Prime Minister would be such a boon and encouragement to the many young people who live with a disability and feel hindered. But Mr Brown chooses to hide his affliction rather than registering it - why? Because he is embarrassed by his disability and he doesn't think that Britain is ready to accept a disabled PM! - Prat!

I honestly don't think that a Black or Asian MP has any chance of being Prime Minister before 2025. If we have our first Labour female PM or the first openly Gay PM before then the black lad's chance will be indefinitely postponed! I can't see it happening in any legislature in these islands in the next 50 years.

I hope that I am wrong - but I doubt it!

Disability Discrimination

A couple of points relating to disability discrimination.

First of all many congratulations to David Allen a 17 year old Shefield man who lives with Muscular Dystrophy on winning a legal challenge against the Royal Bank of Scotland for failing to provide access at one of their Branches in the city. The bank had argued that by providing access to other branches and providing internet and telephone options that it had fulfilled its obligations to provide access for customers with a disability. Sheffield County Court disagreed and awarded Mr Allen £6,500 in damages and has instructed the bank to rectify matters at the branch in question before next September.

The bank is to appeal, but whatever the outcome of the appeal it will help businesses and people with disabilities to understand what obligations businesses have to meet the "reasonable adjustments" provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act. Definitely a landmark case, so well done and thank you David!

The second point relates to Gordon Brown. Mr Brown is totally blind in one eye and has poor sight in the other. Given this, is it really appropriate for leading Tories to make fun of his eye hand co-ordination whilst attempting to hit a ping pong ball? Whatever political differences exist between those of us of different political persuasions surely none of us need to stoop so low as to take the P out of our opponents physical afflictions.

Thatcher to lunch with Brown again

Considering that some have claimed that it marked the beginning of the end of Gordon Brown's honeymoon period, and the picture of the event was said to have been influential in the Glasgow East by-election, one would have thought that the chances of Mrs Thatcher being invited to lunch with the PM again were fairly slim.

According to the Guardian however Mrs T and the PM are due for another get together this weekend:

Margaret Thatcher is to return to Chequers on Saturday at the invitation of Gordon Brown, the Guardian has learned. The prime minister is expected to discuss the global downturn with the woman who dealt with some of Britain's toughest postwar economic conditions.

They way in which Mrs Thatcher dealt with those tough economic conditions is not remembered with affection by many Labour voters, but the guardian thinks that:

The meeting at Chequers is likely to be seen as a sign of the humble approach Brown plans to adopt during the political conference season as he tries to save his premiership by acknowledging the depth of the current economic difficulties. A one-to-one meeting with the Iron Lady, whose premiership was almost derailed by the dramatic rise in unemployment in the early 1980s, will show that Brown is prepared to take advice even from someone who remains highly controversial on the left.

To me it seems a bit like Einstein's definition of madness to do the same thing, hoping for a different outcome. ... All Brown will get is another hammering from the right for using a frail old lady for political advantage and another hammering from the left for asking economic advice from what they see as a personification of evil.

Brown's British Values

When one hears of reporters being manhandled and assaulted by undercover police for asking awkward questions of leading politicians, one usually thinks of places like soviet Russia, Communist China, Zimbabwe or some tin pot fascist dictatorship.

This couldn't happen here, after all freedom of the press is one of those Great British Values that Gordon Brown is so fond of reminding us about. Or is it? Apparently not according to this report in The Times:

Gordon Brown dodged reporters’ questions about his leadership when he arrived in Liverpool to address the North West Economics Conference before heading to Scotland to talk to the Scottish CBI tonight. A reporter was repeatedly manhandled away from Mr Brown by undercover police officers.

And later at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool a Special Branch officer and two uniformed police officers interrupted a reporter’s interview with Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport. Mr Burnham said he was unaware of Mr Clarke’s comments so declined to respond. The reporter was forced to give his details to the police.

Despite being accredited for the event, the reporter, John Fahey from the Press Association, alleges he was forced away by Special Branch and members of the COI, the organisation which handles regional media events. He claims he was "belted in the solar plexus quite forcefully" after confronting Brown with questions about Charles Clarke's comments this morning.

If his account of events is correct, it seems extraordinary that special branch should interrupt an interview with the Culture Secretary...

Poems and Politics: Leisure W H Davies

Toque believes that Gordon Brown holidaying in Britain, this year and last, has put a curse on the weather. Apparently, Mr Brown use to go to Cape Cod for his holidays before becoming PM, Toque thinks that the weather might improve should Gordon Sod off back to Cape Cod.

Others have suggested that the reason why Gordon holidays in Britain is his inability to relax and take a brake from the pressures of office. A few months ago Ian Martin in the Telegraph suggested that Mr Brown should return to Cape Cod in order to have a proper break from office and gain the benefits that a proper holiday should give any hard pressured worker.

Apparently Mr Brown holidays in Britain now because he can't abide the idea of being too far away from the office in case a crisis brakes, and he takes a load of civil servants and advisers away with him so that he can carry on with the job throughout his family's holidays!

So this weeks Poems and Politics is a bit of sage advice for Gordon Brown from the Welsh poet and Supertramp William H Davies:

LEISURE

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep and cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Bank Holiday Joke

As Valleys Mam says that Bank Holidays are for jokes*, and as I am a good boy who always does what Mam says here is a Joke (thanks to Tommy English):

Gordon Brown and his driver were driving along a country road one
night when all of a sudden they hit a pig, killing it instantly. Gordon told
his driver to go up to the farmhouse and explain to the owners what had
happened. About one hour later Gordon sees his driver staggering back
to the car with a bottle of wine in one hand, a cigar in the other and his
clothes all ripped and torn.

"What happened to you?" asked Gordon.

"Well, the Farmer gave me the wine, his wife gave me the cigar and his 19-year-
old daughter made mad passionate love to me."

"Gosh! What did you tell them?" asks Brown.

The driver replies, "I'm Gordon Brown's driver, and I just killed the pig."

*Update
Somebody seems to have taken offence at Mam's jokes she has now deleated the post - shame!

Brown Doomed

It's not name dropping or pretending that we are bosom pals, but I have been a nodding acquaintance of Peter Hain's for over 30 years, since we were both members of the Young Liberals in the 1970s. (When my sister had a poster of Donny Osmond on her bedroom wall I had a poster of Peter Hain on mine !!!! )

Political differences apart, Peter has always stuck me as a genuinely honest person. Since he was fitted up on a false charge of robbing a bank Peter has known that you don't just need to be honest in public life, but you have to be able to prove that you are honest too. Therefore, if Peter Hain says that not registering a donation to his deputy leadership campaign was a genuine oversight caused by an administrative error then I believe him 150% without any margin for doubt.

I have never met Paul Flynn MP, and I have never had any dealings with him. However, from what I have seen of him on TV, heard of him on the radio, read about him in the press and read by him on his blog, he has always struck me as a genuine sort of man who tends to put truth, conviction and his constituents before petty party political point scoring.

The downfall of the Conservative party in the late 1990's came about when those who we had always suspected of being smarmy, dirty dealing bastards were caught out. The fact that, now, the good guys like Hain are caught in the cross fire of sleaze accusations and solid blokes like Flynn feel the need to spin the truth, make me feel that Gordon Brown's premiership is in a much, much more disastrous position now than John Major's ever was.

Referenda

We may make strange bedfellows, but Normal Mouth and View from the Glen agree with my view that a referendum on the next step for the National Assembly is unnecessary.

I can't see the constitutional value of a referendum based on the Government of Wales Act 2006, because the result of the referendum won't change the powers that the Assembly has. A yes vote will just simplify the way that those powers are accessed. A no vote will keep hurdles - it won't change powers.

As a general point, Gordon Brown has said that he wants to review the Union's constitution. In doing so he would be wise to consider passing a Referendum Act that makes it clear when and why referenda are called.

An ad-hoc use of referenda for political expediency isn't democratic. If referenda are to be used at all in the political process, then consistent constitutional law, rather than a government's fancy should trigger them.