Gordon Brown is having a poor war in Afghanistan.

Folllowing the recent dreadful casualties suffered by the British Army, Gordon Brown is having a poor war in Afghanistan. In a trenchant article in the Independent, Bruce Anderson accuses the UK premier of corporate manslaughter. Brown has not spent the money required on helicopters and armoured vehicles. Anderson argues, however, if the West pulls out then the Taleban would regain control.
I remember reading that UK forces would sometimes pass by Victorian memorials to earlier campaigns in Afghanistan.
In the Times Matthew Parris simply says we will not win. The tribal politics are too complicated for a start.

I suppose the Afghanistan campaign has suffered from mission creep. The initial plan from what I gather was to kill Bin Laden and wipe out as much as the Taleban as possible. Then, the objectives have been expanded to introducing development and Western-style democracy. These are very expensive. Now, another objective is to protect Pakistan through our presence in Afghanistan.

Fighting wars (and not paying for them) is not very good for currencies, interest rates etc. The UK will probably run out of money to fund its involvement in Afghanistan.

One of my readers says I go on about football too much.

One of my readers has told me that I go on too much about football in this blog. Well, I am going to try and diversify the topics I cover rather than go on about the golden age of Manchester City and players such as Bell, Lee and Summerbee. I should try and be more considered about British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who gets sliced up by Matthew Parris in his Saturday column for The Times.
For instance, interesting things are happening over the border with the SNP going steadily towards his goal of independence (Would the passport have a Saltaire?). The party is hoping to get North Sea oil revenues/European Union to finance their socialism in one country. Scotland could make it as an independent country but a lot of businesses, which have substantial interests in England, such as Standard Life might have a tough choice whether to relocate. This is if businesses don't decide to move to Dublin to benefit from lower taxes.
www.searchaccountants.co.uk.
Alex Salmond, SNP leader, is playing a canny game and the latest move towards a local income tax rather than have council tax is very interesting. The Lib-Dems want to cooperate while Labour, which has run parts of Scotland as a rotten borough, is looking lead-footed.

Matthew Parris says Gordon Brown could go sooner than expected.

The Times columnist Matthew Parris, and not a fan of our British Prime Minister, predicts that Gordon Brown could go sooner than expected. However, Tory leader David Cameron and his allies should make the running so as to diminish the reactionary,
right-wing section of his party. This section is a minority but is very vocal.

Well, if the general election does not have to take place until 2010, Gordon Brown has plenty of time to recover. He can start adopting popular policies and a Democrat might win the White House. While still Prime Minister, Mr Brown has awesome powers of
patronage. He is very interested in global concerns but I don't think these play very
well domestically. We have already got Bono. I think if he just withdrew the troops from Basra his popularity would recover in a single moment. The fact that Gordon Brown can't make such a move shows us the state of geopolitical issues.
www.searchaccountant.co.uk


PS> with hindsight Gordon Brown is still in office but obviously not governing. It seems to be Peter Mandelson (August 2009)

Gordon Brown got some terrible press this weekend.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown got some terrible press this weekend and Downing Street blamed ex-ministers. In the Saturday's Times, Matthew Parris really put the boot in saying again that the Prime Minister has no big idea and is not courageous.
Mr Parris again uses the "Wizard of Oz" description for Mr Brown and thinks the UK prime minister could go before the next election.

What is interesting is the number of ministers, both junior and senior, disagreeing with government policy such as the elimination of the 10 per cent income tax band for low earners. They don't seem to care whether the Prime Minister bears a grudge or not.

I think Mr Brown is very talented. He made Prime Minister and he also has a vision.
He wants to turn England into a version of Sweden with its expanded socialist welfare state. Mr Brown wants to dismantle the British armed forces and plans to conduct foreign policy via institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union. Obviously, this would be cheaper than having troops in Iraq, Sierra Leone etc.

Whether he succeeds in his aims we will have to wait and see. Mr Brown needs to win
the next election for his plans to bear fruit.
www.searchaccountants.co.uk

Matthew Parris has another go at Gordon Brown!

Saturday Times' columnist and former Tory MP, Matthew Parris, has had another go at
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In the affair of Peter Hain, elsewhere described as the Cuprinol kid, Parris claims that Brown seems to be franchising out his moral compass to contractors (Electoral Commission etc). The columnist contends that the Prime Minister should have either backed or sacked Hain, who overlooked
£103,000 in donations.
U.S readers might start giggling at the small amount given the massive amounts that
slosh through their democratic system. Anyway quite a few Labour MPs are having to explain themselves for infringing rules they actually brought it such as Harriet Harman, who actually beat Hain amongst others to become deputy leader of the
Labour Party.

Matthew Parris does not like Gordon Brown (part 2)

Dear Reader, I have said before that Matthew Parris, a former Tory MP and
a current columnist on the Times, really does not like British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown.

In his Saturday column, Parris again compares Brown to the Wizard of Oz. The
journalist says "the chief economic wizard who has succeeded him (Tony Blair)
appears a shrivelled figure as the curtains are pulled back".
Then, later "After the effective disintergration of command at the very top of the Government......"

I suppose this is quite incendiary stuff. Although we all mock John Major, he did
win a general election on his own merits. It seems that Major had more bottle than
Brown, who would have surely won a poll in November, even it was with a reduced
majority.
I am not the only blogger in the UK quoting these Parris articles.
A "mea culpa" for my international readers for going on about Gordon Brown,
who is apparently British, but wants to sell us down the river with the forthcoming
European Summit.

Is Gordon Brown in the mucky stuff?

In this morning's Times, there is a brilliant cartoon of UK Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown. It is basically showing him putting on some brown trousers. The first stage of the cartoon bubble has "A Brown Vision", "For a Brown Future" and "In Brown Trousers".

Matthew Parris seems to be spot on about his criticisms of Gordon.

Matthew Parris really does not like Gordon Brown!

Former Tory MP Matthew Parris did not like the Labour Conference speech of British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown. For instance, Parris noted the promise to build a
network of state youth centres and to impose fines on parents of disruptive
children. The former MP wondered if the fines were going to pay for the
youth clubs.
In his article in the Times on Saturday (29/9/07) Parris says the Prime Minister
"is emotionally the opposite of what he pretends" and then later comments
"Pull back the curtains guarding this latter-day Wizard of Oz and you will find
a crafty but unimaginative 20th century Labour Politician: a bully with a big
ego, a yellow streak and nothing to say"
In the same edition of the Times, Janice Turner takes the opposite tack and is
fulsome in her praise of Gordon Brown. Turner says that the Tories will "get
nowhere trying to challenge Gordon Brown's authenticity."
She praises his recent pledge to review 24 hour drinking legislation and to sidline
supercasinos.
What is my view? I suppose it is interesting that a lot of people, who know
or worked with Mr Brown don't like him. He was described as Stalinist by one
civil servant. I like Mr Brown's love of football but it was telling that
the prime minister's office rejected taking part in the debate proposed
by Michel Platini of UEFA about the growing influence of big money in the
game. I suppose Mr Brown is too scared to take on Mr Rupert Murdoch and Sky Sports but you have to wonder when a Thai fugitive can buy Manchester City. Apparently,
coming up on one weekend there will be just one Premier League game at 3pm on Saturday.