The International Writers Magazine: New Labour Pains

---

James Ryder's post-election rant Well I’m jolly glad that the sun decided to come out today otherwise we would be in all sorts of trouble. The sun may have single-handedly prevented Britain from being forced into the largest mass lie-in in its history. The entire nation too de-motivated and depressed to climb out of bed.

And the winner is...

It happens every 4 years or so, on the day of the general election results. It’s a regular problem. Less than 24 hours beforehand every one marches down to their local town hall, polling card in hand. Intent that this time their vote will mean something and things will change. Oh how deluded we have become. Our goldfish memories make us forget that whatever we try and do we still seem to be picking from the best of a bad bunch.
And so it is, Tony Blair is in again. The historic 3rd term.
The question on many people’s lips is ‘just how much damage can he do in the next few years?’…. Actually no that’s not the question, the question is in fact ‘is assassination a viable option?’
Initially there does seem to be various merits to this scheme but with further thinking I realise one major flaw. If Tony were removed then Gordon Brown would run our country. Ok, yes it could be argued that he already does and that Mr Blair is just a smiley-faced arm waving puppet leader. But think what would happen if the puppet was removed. The great beast of a puppet master would step forward from behind the screen. The days of fake plastic smiley politics would be over, Gordon Brown would run the country like a retired east-end bouncer, maybe even using John Prescott as his sidekick. John has already shown himself pretty nifty in a fight and so together they could highjack British politics like a couple of hired thugs. Let’s see if Bush still thinks he’s leader of the global police gang with those two heavies involved. Dark thoughts now, must be the desperation taking hold.

On a far lighter note, some good has come out of all of this. Every cloud has a silver lining and in this case it is the impending retirement of Michael Howard as Tory party leader. The man who represents all that is wrong in British politics is on the way out. This I can only see as a good thing, although I am not overly impressed by the shortlist of people to take over his role. In my personal, and warped opinion what the Tory party needs is a charismatic leader, someone who actually possesses some kind of a personality. And yes this man is Boris Johnson - editor of the Spectator Magazine. Ok I know he’s a bit of a blundering fool, but he has a sense of humour, which would be nice change from that Howard bloke. Party leaders don’t need to be perfect, they need to be characters. They have an entire party behind them to deal with the details. Think of Reagan, he had charisma and personality, which is why he was loved as a leader, not just tolerated.

Anyway as this election has proved to so many, personal opinions seem to make very little difference.
I am going back to bed, wake me when the blonde floppy haired ones in power.
© James Ryder May 2005

James is a Creative Arts student at Portsmouth University


Home

© Hackwriters 1999-2005 all rights reserved