Our friends in the north

[shewhomust]

Mostly I don't post about the news; I don't have inside information, or expertise, and my opinions I can mostly get off my chest by yelling at the radio. The current shambles in the Labour party, however, is generating more opinions than that conduit can handle.

It's not that I'm taking this lightly; it's just that the aspects I don't think are funny are not the aspects I'm hearing about all the time on the radio. I'm horrified by the Government's apparent belief that the way to reduce house prices is to allow developers to build as many houses as they want (with no guarantee that even the Green Belt will be exempt); whether the policy is a result of kickbacks from individual developers, a too cosy relationship with the construction industry as a whole or sheer insanity is secondary. Likewise, I'm sickened by the way restrictions on election expenditure are circumvented by spending when there is no election in the offing, and by our shift towards the US system in which only the very, very rich can aspire to the Presidency (here, it seems, you don't have to be rich, you only have to have rich friends). And this applies even in as internal an election as the deputy leadership of the Labour Party, where all the voters might be expected to know the candidates personally anyway.

That's the serious bit; from here on in, it's pure snark.

The point at which I began to boil over was Gordon Brown's statement to the press: he was shocked, shocked to learn that fundraising has been going on in this establishment. He himself had turned down a contribution to his leadership campaign - as well he might, since his appointment as party leader had been uncontested.

I came back into the bedroom yesterday morning to hear a Labour elder statesman being interviewed about the affair. Since I missed the beginning, when he was introduced, it wasn't until the end of the interview that I realised that this was, in fact, Lord Cunningham - that's Jack Cunningham, son of Andy. Nothing in the conversation suggested that he might have any personal perspective on the corruption for which the Labour Party in the North-East was once notorious, yet the press can't get enough of the fact that David Abrahams' father Bennie was a Newcastle councillor at the time.

Harriet Harman seems to be taking flak for assuming that if someone had previously been acceptable as a donor to the Labour Party, it was probably OK to take money from them. This may be too trusting, but when your husband is party Treasurer, you're probably inclined to believe the finances are properly regulated. Except, hang on a moment, didn't Jack resign as Treasurer over the loans-for-peerages row? It's hard, after all, to be the person responsible for the party's finances if other people are taking on loans of millions of pounds without bothering to mention it to you. Perhaps they promised not to do it again...

The disclaimer: since the story is slightly different every time I hear it, nothing in this post should be taken as a reliable statement of fact. Take mystery donor Janet Kidd, for example: one evening she's a lifelong Tory, who knew nothing of donations to Labour in her name, the next she's admitting that the odd cheque for £5000 might have slipped her mind...

Bonus link: The Muther Grumble archive.

Comments

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Which are you horrified by, the idea that building more is the way to reduce house prices, or the "as many as they want" part?

In the U.S., it's not so much that only the rich can aspire to the Presidency as it is that what you do that makes you a viable candidate-- your education, your life experiences, and the stable family background that made them all possible-- also tend to make you rich. If we value the wise, we've gotta acknowledge that all that rising early and going to bed early comes with a couple other things besides wisdom.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I suppose I'm stymied by the idea that building more (expensive) houses will reduce prices, horrified by the willingness to build unlimited houses on this basis. (There's another post on how the fall in house prices because of the collapse of the mortgage market is now being treated as a bad thing: but one rant at a time).

I can't answer your second point without being ruder about your President than is entirely polite, so let's just say that that's not how I see it.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

You can be as rude about him as you want; I consider him a seriously mediocre, immoral and foolish man, with few if any redeeming qualities. I won't be offended if you insult him.

Nevertheless, unless he bought his way into the Presidency with his own money, I think it has to be considered a concomitant of power, not a prerequisite. Both John Edwards and Barack Obama grew up poor, remember, as did Bill Clinton. It doesn't matter that they weren't poor any more when they technically declared themselves candidates; as I said, wealth comes with success, and their success came largely from their own efforts.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I see; but I didn't say you had to be born rich to be elected, I said you had to be rich. So we don't disagree there. But you seem to be equating wealth and success with wisdom, and I'd question that...

[handworn.livejournal.com]

You're right. I stretched a point there to make a better fit for Ben Franklin's saying, though I think he was right in that many aspects of success go together. Certainly I don't think Bush or the neocons are wise. God knows whether they go to bed early or rise early. :-)

Though to parse your original remark, you didn't say to be President, you said, "to aspire to the Presidency." This is a very apt distinction. Aspirations are, or can be, a lifelong thing, not limited to the length of a campaign. So poor people can indeed aspire to the Presidency. They just won't remain poor on the way.