on May 4th, 2008Cartoon of the week - 5/4
It’s been a horrid week for Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose Labour party was routed and repudiated at the polls in London’s mayoral race. Eight-year incumbent Ken Livingstone is out, Conservative Boris Johnson is in and is already calling for Labour to remove Brown.
Brown, for his part, called it a “bad day.” Bad day? It was Labour’s worst showing in local elections in four decades. When all was said and done, Labour lost more than 300 council seats around the country. Brown’s busy giving interviews today while British papers thrash out his future. Bad day indeed.
Rainer Hachfeld of Neues Deutschland summed up Brown’s plight without a word of dialogue.
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Boris Johnson is a climate-change denier, whilst Conservative leader David Cameron has committed his party to leadership on green issues. Johnson has committed to removing high capacity buses in London and to removing increased congestion charges for highly polluting vehicles.
Meanwhile, Johnson has supported an amnesty for illegal immigrants of over 10 years’ standing. Given London’s population mix, this is a popular position. But Cameron has denounced it - since any move which even remotely favours immigration is bound to be condemned by grassroots Tory support out in the shires.
It’s going to be interesting to see how (if) these different agendas can combine. Pity though that we will now have the chance to find out.
Roads’s last blog post..181. The Ophelia of Suburbia – Hogsmill River, Ewell
As always, thank you for your insight and perspective, Roads.
Those different positions between Johnson and Cameron seem telling. In the first case, I would consider Johnson to be politically tone deaf. In the second, in which Cameron is obviously playing to his base, I am reminded why I could not be a Tory.
From my limited exposure to Johnson, he strikes me as an empty suit, but of course, I might well be totally off base and I hope I am.
I’m still somewhat aghast at the nationwide clobbering of Labour.