On the 26th January two things will happen. Well two things that are relevant to my point will happen but that sounds less impressive. Anyway the first of these is that the ONS will release their figures for the last quarter of 2009 which are expected to show that Britain emerged from recession. The second is that you will wake up for your 945th day in office. 945 days in charge of this country, not one of which has he been elected to by the population of it. Now I accept that the way our democracy works means there is nothing wrong with you staying in office for this long. There are no rules against it and you are perfectly entitled to see out this term. The Great British public voted for your party and your party can remain in power under any leader they want without breaking a single law. However it is not law that you should be considering. It is convention.
I suppose it should come as no shock that your party are ignoring parliamentary convention. It was convention not to use the Parliament act in cases other than national emergency and yet they used it to ban fox hunting. It was convention that Speakers alternated between Government and opposition and yet they elected Martin to follow Boothroyd. Even after that it is convention to hold a by-election for a vacated seat as soon as possible and at most within 3 months and yet Martin's former constituents were left nearly 5 months without an MP.
I could go on but I'm at a serious risk of losing the point of this letter. That point is that you have defied convention by not calling a general election. On Boxing day you passed the two and a half year mark. In the last 100 years there have been (by my count) 6 PMs who took over without being elected. Of those, two called and held an election in under a year. John Major stayed on for a year and four months. If you stay on until May 6th you will have managed more than twice that. In fact if you stay on until then you will have the ignominious honour of being the second longest serving, unelected Prime Minister of the last century. You will be second only to Callaghan (pattern emerging of unelected Labour PMs crashing country and party into the ground?)
However you have had your excuse:
"We will see Britain through this difficult time. In the past we were first in and last out of a recession" (15/05/08)
Aside from being tickled by the lack of foresight in the second sentence it is clear what you were trying to say. A recession is not the time to hold an election. In your own words:
"Do you really want to see tomorrow, in the midst of a recession, while the Government is dealing with this, the chaos of an election? There will be an appropriate time to have an election, but at the moment I think people want us to get on with the job" (21/05/09)
Frankly I don't agree with that but I'm willing to let it go. The point is that it was your excuse and you stuck to it. However on January 26th the legs fall of that excuse. Either the ONS announce the end of the recession in which case democracy can be taken off hold (although I'm disgusted that it ever was) or they announce we are still in it in which case your attempts to "get on with the job" will be given a final and irrefutable stamp of failure and you should, with head bowed, resign and allow someone with fresh and competent ideas the opportunity to fix this god awful mess.
No more excuses. No more second chances. No more ignoring convention and democracy. The time has come and I can see no reason why this parliament should survive the 26th. You have 10 days.Tory Outcast
(Apologies to A. Tory for stealing his post format)
2 comments:
Well put.
Gordon has made such an awful hash of being PM, that his trial period must end. Time to have him in for a little chat. Ask him how he thinks everything has gone? Perhaps mention the Olympic Torch debacle. Then the more serious Lisbon Treaty failure to keep a promise. Hear his explanation and then ask about his leadership style. How do his coleagues see him?
Blears? Purnell? Flint? Smith? Watt? Alexander? Hoon? Hewitt? Darling?
Then a quick flick through his performance evaluation and goals set/goals achieved targeting matrix and finish with sadly on this occasion he has not been successful in the role of Prime Minister and the country must regretfully terminate his contract immediately.
However his C.V. will be kept on file and if a vacancy more suited to his abilities arises we will not hesitate to contact him again.
Call security and have Mr Brown escorted from these shores and job done.
Thanks. Hehe also well put.
Reminded me of this letter in the Telegraph last month:
SIR – Moments of national celebration, such as the monarch’s coronation or jubilee, are often commemorated in the names of British hotels and inns.
With this tradition in mind, I am most impressed by the foresight shown by the owners of the “Brown Leaves Country Hotel”, on the A59, north of Blackburn.
Christopher Wood
York
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