Time for a change?

In the latest polls, Labour has slumped to 16 points behind the Tories. As The Times notes, this is their lowest since the disastrous year (for Labour at least) of 1983. It appears that nearly 50% of people think that Alistair Darling is a crap Chancellor and Gordon Brown has his lowest rating since becoming PM. Vince Cable has accused Gordon Brown of making a transformation "from Stalin to Mr. Bean" and I'm beginning to wonder whether it's time for the government to go.

Back in June I was quite the support of Gordon Brown - I was somehow under the impression that he'd be a good PM and better than Tony Blair. I think now I'm being proven wrong.

When Blair first became PM in 1997 progress was made quickly. We had the referendums and subsequent devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, along with the London Assembly. There was progress in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement was reached. We had the Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act. The House of Lords reforms began and some control over monetary policy was handed to the Bank of England. On top of this, Tony Blair was (emphasis on was) charismatic and popular.

Contrast this to Gordon Brown and we have the Northern Rock crisis, several episodes of large scale data loss, the row over the new EU treaty and now a disappointing budget. To top it off, we've got some idiotic nationalistic policies suggesting that children should swear allegiance to the Queen and citizenship tests for immigrants that the average Brit would struggle to pass. Gordon Brown was first compared to Stalin but is now seen to be more like Mr. Bean. He's a boring bloke and can't relate or capture the imagination of the public. People look at him and think back to the failures of the past 8 months and the final years of the Blair era.

Many of the recent fuck-ups could be pinned down to the Chancellor, but people aren't stupid enough to see him as the cause of the problem. Gordon wasn't compared to Stalin for no reason. Each and every minister is a puppet of his and he is in control of policy. To sack a minister for a fuck-up would be pointless as people associate the problems with Brown.

I'm not a fan of the Tories at all and I'm not at all comfortable with the idea of David Cameron as Prime Minister but I'm beginning to think that few years of Tory rule wouldn't be a bad thing. If anything it would give Labour the chance to sit back and sort themselves out, regrouping under a new leader (read: David Miliband).

Prince Harry in Afghanistan

Over the past few days, the media has been full of the stories about Prince Harry secretly serving with the Army in Afghanistan. His deployment was kept secret and he was pulled out when a US website (the Drudge Report) leaked the information.

Many aren't happy about the decision to send him to war and have been completely against it since he joined the Army. Last year, it was decided that he wouldn't serve in Iraq as it was too risky. There was the fear that he'd become a target and put others in danger. Some thought that he, as a royal, was too important to send to war.

In my opinion, Harry should have been sent to war a long time ago. It's what he joined the Army for and the public speculation simply made it impossible. There's a risk of any soldier getting killed and that should be no different for Harry. You simply don't join the Army if you don't want to risk that.

The other point that irritates me is that some people seemingly believe that he should receive greater protection purely because he is a member of the Royal Family. This should not be the case - the lives of the Royals are just as important as everyone else in the country (and specifically, every soldier in the Army). If the Royal Family is to cling on to whatever shreds of legitimacy it may have left, there needs to be no debate over issues like these - Harry should have been deployed with the rest of his troops. End of.

Unfortunately, if Harry was killed or injured, the political fall out would be huge. The Conservatives, the right-wing press and a vast proportion of the people would blame the government (and more specifically Blair and Brown). Although most have said that he should serve, that statement is probably often made on the condition that he doesn't get killed or harmed.

What does scare me is how long media hysteria and the disgust of the people would continue for if anything had happened to Harry. Princess Diana died over 10 years ago and we still hear about that everyday. Her death is still regularly making the front page of the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the other nationalist fascist newspapers. I don't think I could stand it if we had to go through that all over again.