If You Want Blood (You've Got It)

While everyone over here has been freaking out about swine flu, there's a titanic political crisis that's been unfolding in the UK that's about to go nuclear- and has the potential to re-write the electoral map over there in a fairly major way (at most) or at the very least, take down the Labour Party and bring the Conservative Party back to power for the first time since 1997. Either way, Britain's getting a new government- probably by the end of the year, if not a heckuva lot sooner.

So what happened?:

1. Well Tony Blair happened. There's a book that I'm going to be bumping up on my list of 'books to read' by a guy called Peter Osbourne called 'The Triumph of the Political Class.' Basically, Blair wasn't as revolutionary as everyone thought he was- his model of the 'Prime Minister as President' has turned out to be a total disaster. Before Blair, the fascinating thing about the British executive was that it tended to shift a little with each Prime Minister- style and personality played a part for each, which is why the Premiership under Thatcher looks different from the one under Heath, Wilson or Churchill-- but the underlying foundation of the British executive has always been this idea that the Prime Minister is 'first amongst equals.' Answerable to their cabinet and party-- people hailed Blair as something fresh and different because he was the first Labour Leader in about twenty years who actually didn't talk complete rubbish. (To be totally fair to Neil Kinnock* the Labour Leader who lost the 1992 Election, I'm not entirely sure why he lost, given how insipid John Major was and how unpopular Conservatives were at the time. I shall have to investigate this further.)

But any-hoo: under Blair, everything became slick and pre-packaged and there was a tendency towards centralization that was previously unseen in the British executive. If you like, I can probably find reams of papers from British constitutional scholars all very concerned that this dive towards centralization was nothing more than a drift towards presidentialism and they'd been warning of the potential ill-effects for years.

2. Gordon Brown happened. Gordon Brown is hardly the most charismatic of figures and I just don't think he was up to snuff. He certainly didn't do anything drastic to rollback Blairism or shift the changes in the political system back to where they were before Blair. Maybe that's asking too much of the guy, but he was set up to be John Major to Blair's Thatcher--- he got to be Prime Minister, but at the end of the day, people are going to remember Blair. Some of them may spit or curse after they say his name, but they'll still remember him.

3. The Political Class: Britain is tricky for a lot of people over here to get their heads around. There's more to it than just Spice Girls, Fish and Chips and funny accents... there's a little thing called 'The Establishment' and class issues still rear their ugly heads now and again in ways that they don't over here. If you want a full report- dig up Osbourne's book and read it. I'm going to. But basically: back in the day, there was a very real 'Establishment' of people who went to certain schools, took certain classes with certain professors and met the right people as a result. It's the 'old boy's network' and it could get you a very cushy job in government very quickly. It was bullshit, of course-- and Blair and company wanted to change that. Unfortunately, but dismembering the old Establishment (or at least neutering it. I seriously doubt the British 'Establishment' will ever really die) they essentially set up a new, entitled Political Class to take its place.

4. Which leads us into step 4-- the scandal... In my book Woodward and Berstein ain't got nothing on these folks at the Daily Telegraph- who uncovered a scandal so big that it's got it's own damn page that gets updated regularly! Short version is this: the Telegraph in probably one of the most kick-ass coups in political journalism anywhere got a list or something of the expenses for every MP in Parliament and found out that there was a titanic misuse of funds going on- across all three of the major parties! So far, it's taken down 15 MPs, and it's estimated that maybe up to a third of Labour MPs won't be standing at the next election as a result of this. In American terms- imagine a scandal that took down 15 members of Congress and had 85 members not running for re-election. That's not just big, it's titanic.

My favorites:
One MP continued to claim for a mortgage he'd already paid off.
Another claimed roughly $30,000 over 18 months on a mortgage that didn't exist.
One claimed 140 cherry trees and 75 red cedars. Why? I don't know.
Claims for about $40,000 to treat dry rot at an MP's house.
$100,000 for extensions to a constituency flat and $1000 for pictures in front of hay bales.

$2000 for a duck house. (This is worth seeing)

$4000 for moat cleaning!!! (No, really. Moat cleaning.)

And you know what's really crazy? This isn't done yet-- they're digging up more every single day. If you want to see some of the crazier misuses of British taxpayer money, click here.

5. And thus we come to step 5. BOOM! How do you overthrow the British government? Well, do the above four steps, take two aspirin and get ready. 'Cuz I think there's gonna be an election coming soon.

*American Political Nerds may remember Neil Kinnock because our dear Vice-President plagiarized parts of one of Kinnock's speeches back when he was running for Prez in 1988.