Politics Index

I decided not to post over Christmas this year; seemed a little sad to do so really. Anyway, there’s now less than an hour left of 2006, so I thought I might as well post some thoughts on the year as a whole.

On a personal level, it was a good year (although at times it certainly didn’t look that way) with several things that have been a cause of great frustration in my life ceasing to be so. I’m both suprised and glad at that.

Politically, it’s been a mixed year, but better than I’d expected and with some genuine highlights (especially the U.S and Austrian elections) here and there. Even the local elections here went better than I thought they would. Away from elections, things become quite depressing, with British politics apparently being dominated by a series of trivial scandals, vile personality politics, dumbing-down, bigotry and inertia… time and time again the Establishment unwittingly demonstrated just why so few people bother to vote in elections these days. Hopefully things will improve in 2007.

Things have ended (for us; for them ’tis a beginning) on a high though; Romania and Bulgaria have just joined the E.U. I can’t say I’m a fan of how the E.U is run, but I’m something of a believer in what could be thought of as the, or a, European Dream.

Yet more vague rumours about a possible snap election sometime soon after the Thane of Fife ascends to his rightful place as leader of the Labour Party (oh and P.M as well) are doing the rounds, and while many of the arguments that accompany said rumours are just absurd*, the idea of a new P.M calling a snap election a few months after kissing hands is hardly a new or especially shocking thing.

I don’t personally see the point in Brown calling a snap election as, unlike Harold Wilson in ‘66 or ‘74, he will have a solid enough majority in the Commons to get through pretty much any legislative programme that pleases him (that’s presuming he has a better relationship with the backbenchers than Blair does, which would hardly be a tricky thing to do). Arguments about “mandates” and so on are, in the end, neither here nor there; the point of politics at this level is (or at least should be) to govern and to legislate, not to risk everything for the sake of personal glory.

*Especially this, bizarre, nonsense:

“He’s off. Someone new is coming. They need a mandate”

Is English even his first language?

I think now is the time to quote a quote on my old blog:

3. I think I’ll just quote Tony Wright here: “And finally, the police said whatever the outcome of this investigation they’d be very happy to share the lessons of it with us and to do that in public evidence session“.

This was back in July, back when it was also indicated that said investigation would be over by September or so. I’ve been sort-of looking forward to seeing what the lessons of the investigation are since then, and think it’s a shame that we’re now going to have to wait until the New Year to find out.

If these lessons involve pointing out serious flaws in the way both the honours system, and the House of Lords in general, operate, then these lessons really couldn’t come soon enough, could they?

Oh well. Only a few months to go. Again. 

In other news, the Dear Leader was interviewed by the police as, presumably, a witness of sorts today.