UK Government Problems...

After Prime Minister Tony Blair left office a few weeks ago, an era came to an end. Very charismatic, with radiating optimism, he brought a "new deal" to stuffy old England, and in most issues his government seemed to have been quite successful. Except with that story about Iraq. The biggest mistake that Blair made, was to follow US-Bush into that desaster that has evolved over the past 4 years. There seems to be no way back anymore, but this mistake taints the whole Blair era.

Now a new period has come - Prime Minister Brown calls the shots here. If this will be an era, or just the intermediate period between the Blair era and the upcoming Cameron era, is to be seen... initially Cameron seemed to get quite a momentum, appearing to be the Blair of the Tories. But surprisingly, Brown made quite a good figure. Not so much on the outside - he just does not radiate the same charisma as Blair of Cameron. But in substance - he immediately put his own style forward, introduced a new way of dealing with politics, and this appeared quite refreshing.

But in the past few days, this new fresh government has already strayed into an array of incompetences, and it is not sure if they will be able to recover from that. One of those things is the heavy-handing of the Russia-UK relation: in response to the slow process in Russia re. the Litvinenko murder, the UK expelled 4 Russian diplomats. Just like that. Now this just is quite a measure: these diplomats had nothing to do with the murder, they are expelled just on grounds to show Moscow that UK does not accept Putin's playing on time. This is not diplomacy; this is not how to deal with the Russian bear. Nothing will come out of this - or will president Putin now be scared by the UK and will give in? No way. So this UK action was just one of those things, done out of principle, righteous, but completely pointless and without any effect. It gives now Putin the upper hand, in retaliating as he wants to. Well, done, Mr. foreign secretary master-diplomat Miliband. You could not have done any worse than that.

And another thing that counters the initially positive perception of this government, as it set out to do things differently: today Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that she "exempts" a privacy law which prevented toll collection cameras being used for counter terrorism searches - she just declared that an existing law does not apply anymore for this specific case, and that data from those cameras can now be shared among government agencies. Now this might be a good things - but who is she to just bypass an existing law? Isn't there a separation of power in this country? Can the executive just declare void certain things that the legislative has passed? It would now be time for the judicative to interfere and make a case in defending the existing law... but only silence. This is how far we have come in this country - laws that have been passed do not matter anymore - the government can at any instance decide to ignore them, bypass them. Like in the case of the corruption allegations against BAE, where the government just could decide to stop the inquiries, against all common sense and law conscience.

No wonder, that nobody gives a damn anymore about politics. We are moving back from the era of enlightenment, where people fought for lawful constitutions, for due-process. Instead, we move towards an arbitrary interpretation of the law by those who govern us, who make the laws.

And on the other hand, those idealistic world-improvers in the government want now to impose on their citizens other measures, to make life harder: garbage collection only every 2nd week (if this becomes law, then I will half the council tax that I pay. Why should I get a reduction of services and pay the same price?). Road tax in addition to the existing car tax and gasoline tax. All these are just ways of getting additional taxes into the system.

Libby's Sentence "Commuted"

So the president of the US thinks that the sentence against the former aide of Vice-President Cheney, "Scooter" Libby, is too harsh... and he simply commutes it. It seems that the US administration no longer even pretends to be based on the principles of justice, fairness. A band of crooks, sworn to help each other out in case of trouble. The mob is governing the most powerful country on earth. No longer is any facade being kept to show at least an appearance of impartiality.

This will be bad for the Republican Party at the next election. The voters will (hopefully) not forget this.

Why not abolish the democracy there alltogether? It seems that it already is no longer functioning. First there seemed to be a glimpes of hope, that actually someone is being sued for crimes and misdemeanors, as Scooter Libby committed them (by covering up and obstructing justice in the Valerie Plame case). He gets a trial, and gets a sentence. All according to the official procedures, due-course. But then, the ruler of the country just overrules... what example does this set? This US government no longer has any credibility left. No moral leadership. Nothing.