He's A Survivor, He's Gonna Make It

Prime Minister Gordon Brown must have the Destiny's Child hit 'I'm a Survivor' on heavy rotation on the Prime Ministerial iPod, because after the most harrowing week in British politics ever, he somehow is still employed as PM. For now, anyway.

His week last week was well, disastrous to say the least. Labour failed to win ANY local councils in local elections- zero, zip, nada- not a council was won. That has never happened before. EVER. And then they went on (for an encore) to have the party's worst performance since World War II in the European elections- coming in third behind the Conservatives and the UK Independence Party. So bad was Labour's performance that the far right British National Party managed to snag two seats for the very first time ever. (And far right in Europe doesn't mean a love of guns, a hatred of government and an unfortunate tendency to view Sean Hannity as the source of absolute truth in the sad, mortal world we live in. No, instead far right in Europe means, 'fascism' and 'we hate all non-white people and wish they would go home.') Happily, BNP leader Nick Griffin was greeted with lots of voter approval at his first press conference outside of Parliament today. And by voter approval, I mean eggs were thrown at him. Lots of them.

Does the bad news for Labour stop there? Alas, no- the trainwreck only gets better. We're talking like 'The Fugitive' here- massive-ass trainwreck... Labour finished fifth and sixth in the Southeast and Southwest of England, being beaten out by the Greens and the Cornish Nationalist Party. (Yes, they want independence for Cornwall. Why, I'm not exactly sure, but more power to 'em I guess.) For the first time since 1918, the Tories won the popular vote in Wales and the SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party) won the popular vote in Scotland, again for the first time ever.

Tiny parties everywhere picked up votes, including the English Democrats, who upped their vote totals by 2%. (The English Democrats formed around a particularly knotty constitutional problem for the UK. Wales and Scotland have their assemblies/parliaments and send MPs to London. Welsh and Scottish MPs can vote on matters pertaining to England, but because of the Welsh and Scottish governments, English MPs CAN'T vote on matters pertaining to Wales and Scotland. It's called the Mid-Lothian Question, I believe and the English Democrats want to solve it by giving England it's own Parliament/Assembly.)

So given all this bad news, why does this guy still have his job? Well... that's a good question- partially because there are no obvious or good replacements out there and partially because no one wants to be the first one to push him out. He or She who stabs first never gets to wear the crown, after all... and if he's got some panache, he could buy his way out of the doghouse.