Rachel from North London and Kitty Killer have recently posted on the Blair-Brown "succession" controversy. My position on this has long been very simple: Brown is not fit for the job, because he considers himself somehow entitled to it by virtue of having made some sort of deal with Blair in some Islington bar in 1994. The fact is that they did not clear this deal with the voting public, or even with the Labour membership, which means it is not binding on anyone else. The notion of a divine right for kings and queens was abandoned several centuries ago, and there never was one for politicians.
Rachel also has a whole load of links regarding the transition, including Bliar's recent appearance at a school where he announced his impending departure. It was noted that someone shouted "murderer" while he gave his speech, it being noted at Blairwatch that a third of the school's students came from Afghanistan and Iraq.
In fairness, I think the Granita deal was that Blair would stand down after one term, not that there would be an automatic unelected handover to Brown.
I'm one of those people who cynically believes that if voting actually changed anything they'd make it illegal. Bliar, Brown, Thatcher, Bush.... what's the difference?
I think the real point of elections is that it makes it less likely for authoritarianism to arise. I don't think it's principally about the public getting what it wants.I think the promise of policies is just a way of luring people to vote and so keep the machine working.
More precisely, elections provide a government with legitimacy. This helps to distinguish between "rightful ruler" and "usurper".
An illegitimate government (for example, that of a dictator who shot his way into power) is inherently vulnerable to coups and civil wars. Illegitimate rulers often cripple their own armies to forestall this possibility, which of course makes their states vulnerable to foreign invaders.
It seems to me that for a very large part of its history, the Islamic world has been held back by the illegitimacy of its rulers. Think of how newly crowned Ottoman sultans murdered all their brothers out of fear of succession wars - there is almost no way for genuine reform or technological progress to happen in a regime where rulership is determined by lethal palace intrigue.
More recently, Saddam Hussein was so fearful of a coup against him that during the Iran-Iraq war he murdered all his best generals! Fortunately for him, the Iranian army was equally crippled by the purges of the Shahist officer corps.
Assalaamu alaikum,
Yusuf, I had to laugh when I came here to read the comments, and the first "ad by Google" on the right was asking me to "say thanks to Tony Blair: send a thank you note to the British for helping the USA in Iraq" (at www.thankyoutony.com).
Thanks, but no thanks.