?
Perhaps he just hates unelected self rightously smug tossers supporting anyone with their hand in the public trough ?
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 4 Feb 2010, 15:36, 1 reply)

You ignorant twat
Gordon Brown was elected, he is an MP. A majority of his constituents voted for him. Thus he is in no way 'unelected'.

If you are referring to him not being leader of the Labour Party when they won the last general election, so fucking what? The UK has a party based, majority government, not a presidential one. The party with the most seats is asked to form the government. That party's leader is the Prime Minister. The leader can change as many times during the life of a parliament (a maximum of five years) as need be with no need to call an election.

You vote for your local MP, NOT the Prime Minister, unless you happen to live in the constituency of a party leader, in which case it will be about as safe a seat as you can get and if you don't support that party then tough shit.

So how exactly is Gordon Brown 'unelected'?

Ignorant twat.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 4 Feb 2010, 15:59, closed)

Ah, but that's the iniquities of the first past the post system chap.
Being that only a minority of people ever actually voted for him. And right now he's about as popular as testicular cancer.

Oh sure now he wants to introduce proportional representation, establishing a written constitution and finally abolishing the hereditary principle among many other populist measures designed to appease the intelligent classes but frankly it's too little, too late. And I certainly didn't elect him. Given that he was therefore elected by a small minority in what is effectively a different country (sorry Scotland), therefore this in mine and many others is grossly undemocratic and therefore can be considered unelected. Maybe on his home ground. Not here. Add to that the man is plainly incompetent.

Another point worth considering is that his style of government is becoming increasingly presidential, despite the fact the style of government he is supposed to follow is the primes inter pares approach, he clearly isn't doing this. If he styles himself as a president (which requires a completely different vote), and acts as one, then he should be elected as one. But he wasn't.

The system we have is grossly unfair and allows for massive swathes of the country to have their votes effectively ignored. We all know how the system works, but that doesn't mean that we have to like it. Ever heard of Charter 88?

/Edit

I'm bunging this on the main page, I have my answer now.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Thu 4 Feb 2010, 17:04, closed)

Indeed, FPTP is a deeply flawed system
It's not Gordon Brown's fault though. And FPTP does avoid continual coalition governments and normally gives a working majority to governments so that they can do their job.

And I have signed Charter 88. When I was 15. 15 years ago. But thanks for drawing my attention to it and not being in the least bit patronising.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 4 Feb 2010, 17:40, closed)

Roughly how I feel about our democratic process right now...
I agree with Spider Jerusalem.

Bread and circuses for the rich. Slavery for the poor.
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 4 Feb 2010, 18:06, closed)

(coff) Touched a nerve perhaps ?
So you've no objection to the "self rightously smug tosser supporting anyone with their hand in the public trough" I take it ?

Brown is a "leader" by default, he's a smarmy little self centered roach of a man who has the job entirely due to the weakness of the Blair cabinet.
He made a good populist chancellor but wasn't even bright enough to walk away from the trainwreck he'd been allowed to create when offered the shiny shiny job of running the country into the ground.
He's the bully we've been saddled with rather than the leader we want.

I'll cough to using the wrong word in "unelected", perhaps I should say "undeserving" instead.

Oh, and fuck you. You half arsed, shitesucking, limpwristed, dicklizard.
Does that satisfy your desire for pointless insults, or would you prefer me fisting your mum with a handfull of swarfega ?
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 4 Feb 2010, 18:01, closed)

Pointless insults?
What pointless insults? I pointed out that you'd got your knickers horrifically in a twist over a rather splendid example of not knowing the first thing about the electoral system in this country, yet still having a major opinion on the Government. That little dichotomy really tickles me pink.

Offered the shiny shiny job? You do realise that he's been in the running to take over from Tony for the ten years or so he was chancellor for. Everybody else knew, were you in the toilet when that particular reveal happened? That's hardly being offered a job, it's called succession planning. Every major organisation does it.

One more thing- your little gem which is 'populist chancellor'. You weren't hating on him in the boom years were you? The global recession wasn't caused by Gordon. He's not that powerful you know.

Swarfega please, I understand necrophilia is quite the thing these days.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 4 Feb 2010, 18:22, closed)

Christ on a bike...
You're really not paying attention here are you.

1) "Ignorant twat" is pointing out nothing. If you wanted to impart information you'd have done it, and done it gently. What you wanted, and still want, is a soapbox that lets you wave your tackle at the viewing public.
Here it is, enjoy. I'm going to be eating popcorn and watching you dance dizzily around with your tiny dick out until you come down off the sugar high and puke in a corner.


2) If by "in the running" you mean "salivating at the very thought" or "hopping up and down saying 'oh, sir.! Me sir, me meemeee!!!'" until the entire country buried their heads in their hands when Blair gave the baby his cookie. Yeah in the running it is.
He was, and is, an embarrasment.
He's demonstrated over and over again that he couldn't be trusted with a Bank of Peckham credit card, never mind the economy what used to be a large country.
Spend it on toys lads. Fuck the rent and bills, we'll make people pay double next time!


3) The fucking boom years. Fuck off, fuck right off.
The "boom years" saw me digging my chums out of economic holes that the benefits system suddenly wouldn't cover because they weren't disbled _enough_ any more.
Saw my girlfriend's paranoid schizophrenic* mother moved from a tiny flat in a quiet north London suburb into a larger flat in that lovely area of Brixton where even the drug dealers walk around in pairs. For reasons of "efficiency".
Saw my local police station closed and the officers scattered around the Borough to the extent that a patrol car can take 25 minutes to get to the scene of an oops now fatal, stabbing.
Saw me, lazy arse that I am, actually writing to my fucking MP (Andrew Dismore, a chap I would _not_ buy a used car from) after having my bike stolen for the Nth time by the local kids who had _nothing_ to do since the budget for the youth center had been spent on such delights as planting fucking daffodils across the Borough and graffiti removal.
Saw Best Beloved, come home from school with tear tracks down her face because one of the bastard kids had brought some of his dad's mates round to the school with bits of scaffolding pole and 2x4 to settle a score and now one of the other teachers who tried to intervene was in hospital with a shattered skull and might or might not live.

The boom years only counted as a boom if you already had your stack of bloodstained Thatcherite cash by that point. To a lot of people they were the uncertainty years, followed swiftly by the fear of leaving the house years, and we're now languishing in the Oh fuck we're screwed years.
For Yae, though Gordon giveth with the left hand, he taketh back twofold with the right...


4) The global recession ? The one that's been caused by idiots in the banking sector buying penniless chavscum 52" plasma TVs that the illusion of "boom" had allowed them to seem like they'd be able to pay for. Then when the lovely rose tinted bubble burst being given an eye wateringly large wedge of _my_ cash on the basis that they might give it back one day, if they feel like it, because the post Thatcher economy relies so heavily on the financial sector that we can't even _think_ of letting anyone** take their own losses ?
Aaand breathe

5) I'll get my marigolds.


You seem to like Gordon Brown. You seem to like what he and his government have done with the country.
I don't.
I think he's exactly as corrupt, conniving, and dishonourable as Blair was and Cameron will be. He's not honest enough to admit his fuck ups and not competent at hiding them.

But fuck, this isn't about Brown, economics, or politics is it.
This is about your opinions and your desire to shove them in people's faces.
So go on, dance monkeyboy, dance. Everyone's watching, and we all care _so_ much.


*An actual one, very mental, with paperworks and nurses and everything
**Except the small investor of course, they knew the risks when they gave us their money...
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 4 Feb 2010, 19:40, closed)

Calm down dude
I don't love Gordon Brown. You're making a lot of personal points about the country. You've embarassed yourself already with your low level understanding of the subject at hand.

What I will say is that one man's personal experiences do not accurately reflect the actual situation between 1997 and 2010. It's like people saying that global warming must be a load of nonsense because we've had a particularly cold winter.

None of the points you made in your original post on this page were correct and as such are invalid. The willy waving is taking place solely on your part, not mine.

But, as you've so kindly numbered your responses, allow me to do the same:

1) It is pointing out that you were displaying a fair degree of ignorance in your original post and proudly displaying that ignorance as the basis of your discontent with the Government.

2)I don't see what you mean by 'used to be a large country'. The geographical area of the United Kingdom is more or less the same as it was when John Major moved out of Downing Street. The UK is also substantially richer than it was then.

3) By 'boom years' I meant the longest period of uninterrupted economic growth that this country has enjoyed. That is a fact, look it up. Granted we have just had a recession, but 97-2007 to all intents and purposes were boom years. Just because things were bad where you lived does not mean it was like that everywhere else. Get some perspective.

4) Nobody forced people to take out credit they couldn't pay back. And your understanding of the causes of the recession are very, very basic. US bankers created financial instruments that, like all such instruments, rely on risk to generate a return. What they did was sold mortgages to people in the US who could not pay them back, spreading the risk around (as one should) and then selling these packets of debt on at a profit. When those people who were mis-sold their mortgages couldn't pay them back in droves, the whole thing came down. Nothing to do with 'penniless chavscum' and 52 inch plasma TVs. Nice classism there to go with the general ignorance.

Highly amusing that you state that it's all about my opinions. Mine are based in fact. Yours appear to be rehashed versions of tabloid misunderstandings and hysterical flag waving.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 4 Feb 2010, 20:15, closed)

(eyeroll)
Your croissant and wineglass are on the table over by the window.

You'll have to provide your own newspaper.
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Fri 5 Feb 2010, 10:11, closed)

That's an excellent response
There's nothing smug about knowing facts and using them to back up reasoned arguments. Was that really the best you could come up with?
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Fri 5 Feb 2010, 11:49, closed)

Point 3
Agree totally.

Boom year? Boom created by 1 in 4 people paying for utility bills on credit cards. Boom for the banks and no-one else. The only reason the country had *growth* is because it was being boyed by credit - hence the cretinous state we're in now.

As to Brown's "No-one could have seen this coming..." bollocks, utter tosh. I saw it bloody coming and sold my house and many other things at exactly the right time. How did I see it and he didn't? Easy, things like this go in cycles (gold prices for one thing), I simply created a graph showing house prices against inflation and interest rates since the end of WWII and you could see clearly where it was heading. Add into the mix, the fact that at that time 1 in 4 people were paying household bills on credit cards (according to Which!), and you have a very serious recipe for disaster.

So, I believe your point 3 is spot on. The 'boom years' were nothing but a statistical illusion, an illusion that we are paying for now.

There's little difference between that and the shafting that Thatcher gave us in the 80's; and yet, the parties involved are supposed to be poles apart.
(dchurch bah, Mon 8 Feb 2010, 9:51, closed)