Politics

So 1 year of Gordon Brown in office as Prime Minister and everyone's looking at the Henley by-election. The big fuss is, of course, that Labour placed fifth after the BNP though this isn't what should be making waves in the party. The fact is they lost their deposit; one of the top three political parties in the country couldn't scrape in 5% of the vote. I'm not going to say this is unprecedented, but seriously - wow!

Sadly I'm sure the party dictats will console themselves that this election had the lowest percentage turnout since 1910 and that this difference was caused by Labour voters not bothering to vote in what everyone considered a one-horse race (Conservative-held since 1910). However that's the small point, despite me not liking national politics getting involved in local politics (yes I know it's an MP they're electing, but I'd still prefer to know what they're going to do for this area rather than what party they belong to) this has to be taken in that light.

Even knowing that they're going to lose Labour still managed to get at least 10% in every election bar one (1983 - 9.5%) so this shows a dissatisfaction with core Labour voters not just floaters. Cameron of course what's Gordon to stay, which should be reason enough for the party to replace him, but they won't because they have no-one credible to replace him.


On to the joy that is Zimababwe. That bastion of bias-free reporting the Daily Express ran about four pages on Monday about what was going on. An article I can't find online (the physical version being recycled) stated that 'we' discovered he was a dictator when he 'stole' land from the white farmers and left his people agriculturally poorer.

I'm sure the emphasis you should be reading is the bit about leaving the people poorer (thus a dictator boo hiss), I'm sure the emphasis that was placed was on the fact that they dared take the land from white people (boo hiss), but perhaps what should have been emphasised was that he 'took' land from a minority and 'gave' it to a majority (though if you read more he supposedly gave it all to his own followers and cronies).

Now had Mugabe taken the land (from whoever) and then sold it to a bunch of multinationals, I'm betting that the people would still be poor and hungry but the MDC would be reported as a bunch of rebels attempting to overthrow the democratically elected leader who has led his country with his sound economic plans and that as such he's entitled to protect his people against these 'terrorists'. Instead we get the Western world decrying Mugabe's actions and have to listen to Nelson Mandela coming out against him, yeah Nelson three words The Freedom Charter.

You wait. Zimbabwe will either fall under Mugabe in which case businesses, sorry concerned governments will step in to help; or a new leader will be elected and find the country broke (in many senses) and find that many businesses, damn done it again sorry concerned governments will be happy to step in and lend a hand. They'll just need to be a few itsy bitsy changes first in how the economy is run.