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Reply With QuoteThis is truly staggering, how he managed to get away with it.Originally Posted by Raul
They were only rescued when one of the children had to go to hospital and slipped the staff a note with the burglar alarm door code.
I am not one for retribution, but sometimes cannot help smiling when natural justice fights back in a very public way. There have been three very public examples recently.
Austrian father who abused his daughter for decades and kept half of the children she conceived through rape deprived of "normal life" and sunlight. The others were allowed "normal life" under his control upstairs.
Self proclaimed "Father of London" who divided the city between those he favoured and those he taxed punitively. Elected to represent the whole city he imposed his left wing treatment on all including visiting "dignatories" representing democratic countries.
Non elected Leader of the United Kingdom who turned against the weak and defenseless with his 10p taxation after he has squandered the result of 10 years of tight fiscal policy on everyone on a single bet at the City Casino on a lame horse called Northern Rock.
Well they all got a big public kick in the backside.
This is truly staggering, how he managed to get away with it.
They were only rescued when one of the children had to go to hospital and slipped the staff a note with the burglar alarm door code.
Sorry Raul, he's still in his very well paid job and is guaranteed his gold, ring fenced pension no matter what he does or what happens to his political career in the future, the losers in May 1st's election are the hundreds of councilors (some, very good at their job) and their staff.
Doesn't sound that way to me. What is "natural justice" anyway?
Are you referring to the person who is leader of the UK by virtue of being the leader of the Labour Party which was elected to power at the last election, less than 5 years ago? He has every right to be in the job even if you don't think he is doing it well. Would you prefer a system whereby a General Election was automatically called whenever a Prime Minister left the post? Could be expensive and disruptive to the smooth running of the country.Non elected Leader of the United Kingdom
We had a similar situation in New Zealand in the 90's with Jenny Shipley. She had obtained her position by coup when the elected prime minster was overseas, and then made a big fuss for the next few years about how she was the country's first female Prime Minister.
When the opposition leader Helen Clark was asked if she regretted that she wouldn't be the countrys first woman prime minister if she won the next election, she simply replied that she'd have to settle for being the first that was actually elected.
She won. Easily.
I don't know how it works in NZ, but in the UK, the public don't elect Prime Ministers, we elect MPs who (usually) represent a particular political party.We had a similar situation in New Zealand in the 90's with Jenny Shipley. She had obtained her position by coup when the elected prime minster was overseas, and then made a big fuss for the next few years about how she was the country's first female Prime Minister.
When the opposition leader Helen Clark was asked if she regretted that she wouldn't be the countrys first woman prime minister if she won the next election, she simply replied that she'd have to settle for being the first that was actually elected.
She won. Easily.
Love dance, will travel
Well she was, wasn't she? Although I can't help but admire Helen Clark's witty riposte, clearly a born politician.We had a similar situation in New Zealand in the 90's with Jenny Shipley. She had obtained her position by coup when the elected prime minster was overseas, and then made a big fuss for the next few years about how she was the country's first female Prime Minister.
When the opposition leader Helen Clark was asked if she regretted that she wouldn't be the countrys first woman prime minister if she won the next election, she simply replied that she'd have to settle for being the first that was actually elected.
She won. Easily.
I don't think this is a parallel with the UK situation. Gordon Brown was entitled to become Prime Minister on acceding to the leadership of the elected party - there was nothing shady about this, it was the correct procedure. He is also exercising his prerogative to choose the time, within 5 years from May 2005, to call an election to seek re-election of his party and underpin his own leadership which is already perfectly legal. Whether he can ever find that exact moment is not what I'm discussing here. Clearly, the longer a PM remains in place without a personal mandate from the electorate the shakier his/her government becomes so it's in her/his interests to call it sooner rather than later but there is no obligation to do so before May 2010.
I didn't think NZ was the sort of place that had coups. How exciting - tell us more.
Oh I'm sure it's all very legal and necessary, that wasn't my point.
I think it's pretty natural though for the public to be more critical of a Prime Minister who wasn't in the picture (at least in that role) during elections. I don't know what the UK election system is like, but I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that the voter are putting a fair chunk of their faith in a party based on it's leadership. When that leadership is replaced mid-term then you're left with a lot of people thinking that the new government isn't what they signed up for when they choose it.
It was mearly an internal political one, so no bloodshed or mass media attention outside NZ. And now that I think about it - the old Prime Minister may have been in Scotland rather than America at the time. I think I'm getting confused.I didn't think NZ was the sort of place that had coups. How exciting - tell us more.
In Jenny Shipleys case the (constant...irritating) claim that she was the first female Prime Minister rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way, as it became obvious fairly quickly that if she was the party leader at the time of the previous elections - she would not have been voted in. I agree it isn't the same case as the UK's, where the leader stepped down rather than got ousted, but she attracted much the same attention as Gordan Brown because she wasn't the leader of the party that was elected into power when it was elected. Legally there was nothing dodgy going on but the public have a right to feel cheated.
We have two votes here. The first vote is for your electorate representive and the second is for your polictical party of choice.
All electorate winners have a seat in parliament, and they comprise just over half the seats. The rest (ignoring the Maori seats for the sake of simplicity) are allocated to the parties based on their proportion of the national party vote. The government is formed by whoever can cobble together a majority in parliament. Given the nature of the system it's very rare for any one party to have a controlling majority, so governments are usually coalitions.
So, we elect MP's (who again, are usually members of parties themselves), but we also elect parties. We don't elect Prime Ministers directly but as they're virtually inseperable from their role as party leader the party vote amounts to much the same thing in practice.
No it isnt, its not natural. There was no comments on being "unelected" when John Major took over from Margaret Thatcher, any comments were directed at the Tory's themselves - as it should be. The idea of a "president/emporer/big cheese" figure head is more an american concept surely ?
The leadership is not just one person, and it is not fixed until AFTER the elections - and it often changes. Thats the way it works. The general public vote for a party and they have a right to feel cheated with "New Labour" adding the "New" to hint at the fact that its a completely different right wing party, but keeping the "labour" so they keep (read "con") their traditional voters. People are started to wise up to this now thoughI don't know what the UK election system is like, but I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that the voter are putting a fair chunk of their faith in a party based on it's leadership. When that leadership is replaced mid-term then you're left with a lot of people thinking that the new government isn't what they signed up for when they choose it.
When does the PM leave mid term ? Once every hundred years ?
However I dont suggest a new election if it happens for other reasons stated
Blair, Thatcher and Wilson in the last 32 years
MacMillan in 1963 - although that was due to poor health i believe
Hmm.
You are no doubt aware that we do not elect the Prime Minister in this country. We elect an MP, and the monarch appoints a prime minister to advise her, and the latter appoints a number of ministers to assist him (or, in one disastrous era, her), hence we end up with a PM and cabinet. By convention the monarch appoints the leader of the party that wins the majority of seats in the House of Commons (or, where there is no outright majority, the person who leads the largest party in any coalition of parties that forms after a general election).
The process of the majority party electing a new leader in mid-term is bound to happen from time to time and there does not seem to be anything particularly questionable in that person becoming and continuing to be Prime Minister until the term runs out.
Don't bother arguing, Raul is clearly an immigrant name - I'm off to contact the Daily Mail
News headline -
“Gordon Brown will have a year to show that he can turn around Labour’s fortunes after its drubbing in last week’s elections, senior ministers said yesterday.”
Is that a threat or what?
Don't bother arguing, Raul is clearly an immigrant name - I'm off to contact the Daily Mail
Not as immigrant as a blue Belgian fictional character.
Even his own “compatriots” are not helping him.
“The prime minister is under growing pressure to support a referendum on Scottish independence after an unexpected volte-face by the Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander in which she supported nationalists' demands for a vote on Scotland's independence.”
In my own opinion he should simply reverse the stupid decision to scrap the 10p rate instead of dancing around it and just look at the mandate on which his party was voted in.
Speaking of dear Mr Fritzl...
...it seems that he is a much maligned man. Turns out that in the rush to judgment we have all failed to give him the credit he deserves for not actually killing his daughter and - um - grandchildren. He points out that if he had murdered them, no-one would be any the wiser, and he wouldn't now be facing charges.
How can we have been so churlish? Clearly far too much emphasis is put on the fact that his daughter's eldest daughter had no teeth at 19, that his sons have a permanent stoop and that all four 'captives' have a Vitamin D deficiency from which they may never recover.
I also think he should claim credit for bringing these lucky children into the world. After all, if he hadn't raped his daughter, they would never have been given the precious gift of life.
Once again, truth proves stranger than fiction.
Yes, indeed. I read his comments out in the office - we all agreed that indeed he was not a "monster" as he failed to kill everyone involved when he clearly "could have". He has never attempted genocide on even a small scale, sold plutonium to terrorists, or released a truly awful Eurovision song entry - so we should really give him credit for those too. When you think of all the awful things he has failed to do, he's almost a saint.
I suggest putting him in charge of the International Space Station as an ambassador for humanity.*
* due to cutbacks, fired by circus cannon in roughly the right direction.
First, I saw interviews with various Austrians which suggest that the incarcerated children do not stoop, and the thing about having no teeth may have been exaggerated. Furthermore, the eldest daughter, once thought to be about to die at any minute, is now up and about and getting better. So - even Austrian journalists can't help gilding the lily, it seems: the details of this bizarre event are apparently insufficiently horrifying and salacious so better make up a few more.
And next:
...just to prove it isn't just Austrians, nor just men, who get up to these ghastly shenanigans.
The Czech Republic has its very own unbelievably sick and brutal parents.
I await further details and information about this 'Grail movement'. (You're not allowed to take it out of the cave or else you die, right?)
As I recall it there were plenty of calls for John Major to call an election when he took over - though he naturally ignored them, just as Gordon Brown is doing.
As for the president/emporer/big cheese figure, that was once an American concept (that they adopted from our monarchy) but the role of British PM has been drifting towards a presidential style for some years - to some extent with Margaret Thatcher, but even more so under Tony Blair. Rather than government by a cabinet headed by the PM (as had historically been the case since Lloyd George) Thatcher gradually developed a so-called 'kitchen cabinet' of a close advisers during her time as PM. Blair relied even more heavily on a similar system throughout his term and was also accused of bypassing both the cabinet and parliament by making major announcements direct to the press. The old jibe that we have an 'elected dictatorship' in the UK does seem to be increasingly apt.
Last edited by RedFox; 23rd-June-2008 at 02:05 PM. Reason: mention Lloyd George
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