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Online these days all you hear about is Trump, Trump Trump. While the Donald is an interesting sideshow here that we can laugh at with impunity, the United Kingdom has its own primary sideshow, and it's pretty serious for us. Of course, I refer to the primary election for leader of the Labour Party. (Declaration of interest: I am a member of the Liberal Democratic party here.)

There are four candidates: Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper, and Jeremy Corbyn. I have provided links to the Wikipedia articles on each candidate, but I don't vouch for the authenticity of all the data in these articles.

The first three candidates are mostly "mainstream" Labour. That is, they were nurtured in their political careers by the likes of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They were electable, the Labour Party had huge majorities in Parliament, and they were used to winning. Corbyn, on the other hand, is a self-styled democratic socialist. I would describe him as a more radical Bernie Sanders.



The problem came after the pasting that the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties got in the general election in May. There was a sentiment that the Conservatives would lose some seats, Labour would gain some,the LibDems would lose about 1/2 their seats, and some kind of Coalition would take over. In the event, Labour lost some, the Conservatives won some, the LibDems were almost wiped out, and thus the Conservatives formed a majority government (12 seats).

The LibDem leader, who had been Deputy Prime Minister, resigned from the leadership of his party, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, also resigned. Thus was this contest set up.

Labour decided that, besides all their current members, people who registered as supporters for £3 could vote in the leadership election. The first three candidates above quickly threw their chapeaux into the ring. None of them are on the old left-wing of the party, so some MPs stumped up their votes to nominate Corbyn at almost the last minute.

Burnham was considered the front-runner at the beginning of the contest, but it quickly became apparent that a rush of new supporting members (something like 300,000+) was intending to vote for Corbyn. His rallies were overbooked, and Corbyn had to address the overflow crowds that had gathered outside while standing on a fire engine.

Corbyn's public stances were predictably left-wing: ease the legal restrictions on labour unions, continue quantitative easing by telling the Bank of England to print more money, and other policies aimed to ease the lives of the 99% by removing austerity economics from their backs. He would end the British government's Trident nuclear submarine deterrent (a very popular view among the young, the older Labour voters, and many Scots).

These policies alarmed the "New Labour" candidates for leader. Most of them were old enough to remember the 1983 election, or at least to have studied it in school. They recall the crushing defeat that Labour suffered under Michael Foot in that year. The Labour party manifesto that year has been called "the longest suicide note in history" It took nearly 15 years for Labour to regain power. They then went on to govern in the longest streak for the party ever: 13 years. They have attributed that to the charisma of Tony Blair, prime minister for 10 out of those 13 years. They are frightened witless that a Corbyn leadership would doom them to another 9 years in opposition.

So their first step was to question the loyalty of many of those who had joined in the past couple of months since the General Election. Some who had been Labour party members for years and who had resigned or drifted away came back, only to find that Labour had looked at their voting history and had invalidated their membership because they weren't considered real supporters. (Canvassers go from door to door here and record your sympathies for a party or candidate, if they can.) The fear was that numbers of Conservative party members and supporters would register as Labour party supporters to tip the election to Corbyn.

Corbyn, meanwhile, has galvanised people, especially young people and students. They have registered in their droves, and have become active in politics to an extent not seen before. This in and of itself should give the Conservative party chills, as their own policies have disadvantaged students and young jobless people. They do not have to hold an election for 4-1/2 years, however, so they feel they have time to neutralise this movement. Old Labourites, too, have rallied to the Red Flag in their thousands. Tony Blair repulsed them, with his refusal to renationalise the railways and especially his perceived lying to bring the UK into the Iraq war. Now they see hope that traditional Labour is back, with a vengeance.

The labour unions of course are all behind Corbyn, leaving the party open to the accusation that it's in the pockets of the unions. (The Tories of course deny that they are in the pockets of big business and big finance.) Several hundred thousand members of labour unions are also supporters of Labour, and several of the biggest unions have endorsed Corbyn. At the present time all the opinion polls suggest that Corbyn will win and assume the leadership.

So what is likely to occur if that happens? First, Corbyn will have difficulty assembling a Shadow Cabinet. It will end up being stuffed with left wingers while the rest of the MPs stew in their own juice. Second, the New Labourite MPs may vote to eject Corbyn as their leader and trigger another leadership election. The Tories will sit back with self-satisfied smiles on their fat-cat faces while Labour destroys itself in very slow motion. In this situation the new members and supporters will roar and Labour will tear itself apart.

One of the key requirements of a parliamentary democracy is both a Government that can command a majority of MPs and a Loyal Opposition that can hold that government to account. If Labour splits or becomes consumed with its own internal ructions, there will be no ability to hold the government to account. Thus the things that the Conservatives will do in the next 4-1/2 years will go unexamined and we will have only part of a parliamentary democracy. At the end of it we may end up with a Far Right party (UKIP), a near Far Right party (The Tories), a centre-left party (the Lib Dems), and a far left party (Labour).

The big issue in this parliament will be the referendum on our membership of the European Union. When there is no effective opposition, the Conservatives tend to fight among themselves, with the Looney Right moaning about Europe, the Centre desperately trying to neutralise the right, and a Relative Left that would like to go back to the 1900's with warm beer, village greens, and little old ladies cycling to Evensong. The Conservatives will be unable to present a coherent front on the question of Europe and thus we might find ourselves out of the EU in spite of ourselves. And so it goes.

This has been a pretty bleak week-and-a-half in politics. It started on Wednesday 21st April, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne (a millionaire and the heir to a baronetcy, eventually) gave his third Budget speech.

Budget Day in Parliament is surrounded by traditions dating back to the 19th Century. Up until relatively recently the details of the budget were kept secret until the Chancellor started speaking at 12:30pm, after a somewhat anemic Prime Minister's Questions, for on Budget Day the PM is definitely second-fiddle. This time, though, some of the details of the Budget were leaked beforehand, but not the parts that have caused the Government the most grief.

First was the so-called "pasty tax". There has been an anomaly in the VAT (value-added tax, a kind of sales tax on steroids) for hot food. VAT was charged on restaurant meals, but not on hot food to be taken away to eat elsewhere. Osborne announced that, from the beginning of the fiscal year (I believe it's April 2nd this year) VAT would be charged on food from shops and stalls which was served at a temperature "higher than the ambient temperature". This was meant to catch items like Cornish pastys which are normally served up hot at a stand, or sausage rolls sold at chains such as Greggs the Baker.

As soon as the Chancellor was finished speaking, questions began to be asked. "Ambient temperature" was thought to be quite an odd definition, as if it were a hot day it's likely that the sausage rolls might be cooler than the outside. Did that mean that the VAT should be charged or not depending on how hot it was outside? Cornish pasty shops (which have proliferated in the past ten years or so) warned that they would be forced to close if VAT of, say, 50 pence (around 75 cents) were to be charged on a £2.50 pasty.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, tried to defuse the situation. When asked when was the last time he'd eaten a pasty, he replied that he'd recently had one at Leeds railway station, and very good it was, too. Of course, the local press went to Leeds station and discovered that the last pasty shop in the station had closed months ago (and Cameron hadn't been to Leeds in a while) and the last Cornish Pasty stall had closed several years ago. So, in his attempt to be seen as a man of the people, Cameron actually revealed that he wasn't very populist after all.

It seems likely that this charge will be disputed. It seems that if the pasty is sold cold, but facilities (such as a microwave) were available in the shop to heat it up, VAT won't be payable. So all the money that Cameron and Osborne counted on to come in from hungry working-class Brits may be lost if the pasty shops and stalls invest in a small microwave.

Second, Osborne forgot Rule #1 in politics: Do Not Increase Taxes or Reduce Payments to Old People. As in the US, there has been an increased exemption on income taxes for old age pensioners here. Osborne promised to increase pensions and remove this exemption. Of course, the newspapers correctly divined that this was a slight on older people, and started to call it the "Granny Tax". When Rule #1 is broken, the oldsters stop voting for those who broke it. I suspect that Cameron, Osborne, & Co. are betting that enough oldsters will kick off or be forgetful by 2015, when the next election is due. I also suspect that the news media won't allow the oldsters to forget it (they can't do much about old people dying, of course…)

Third, the top tax rate for people making over £150,000 a year was reduced from 50% to 45%. As Cameron, Osborne, & Co. are fairly wealthy, this was correctly diagnosed as taxing the poor (pasty-eaters and poor grannies) to give tax-breaks for the rich (who wouldn't know what a pasty looked like, keep their grannies well out of sight, and make squillions). The newspapers were chortling in their joy.

So the newspapers were full of this for a few days, with the commentators slavering over the budget. Then Sunday rolled around.

The Sunday Times reported that the Conservative Party treasurer, Peter Cruddas, had been stung by people posing as wealthy UK expat representatives of a foreign company. He had said that a donation of £100,000 was chicken-feed, while one of £250,000 (US$393,116 at current rates) would get you a private dinner in the Prime Minister's flat at Number 10 Downing Street, with pictures and perhaps with Mrs. Cameron there as well whipping up the potatoes.

What a gift, not only to the newspapers, but to the Labour Party. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, immediately demanded a list of those who had had dinner at the PM's flat. The Conservatives wanted a list of all the labour union leaders who had access to Ed Miliband and who donate millions to Labour. The PM bleated that most of his dinner guests, while being donors, were also personal friends, and wasn't he entitled to have friends over for a pasty or a sausage roll? Oh, and Peter Cruddas resigned on Monday. The damage had been done. Fat cats were paying for access to the Prime Minister. Worse, the contribution that the stingers proposed would be highly illegal under UK election law, but Cruddas told them that there were ways of getting around that requirement. How many other contributors had given money illegally, asked Labour.

And this was only five days. Worse was to come.

This week the UNITE union, which represents drivers of petrol delivery tankers (=US gasoline tankers), voted to strike. The leadership of the union was leaning towards a strike over the Easter holiday. In the UK, the Easter holiday is a traditional travel time, with people visiting their grannies (who will be so impoverished by their tax increases that they won't be able to offer them a pasty) and driving a lot. The possibility of a strike raised the spectre of people not being able to drive to their granny's place, or to the airport to catch a plane to see Granny.

The Government put forward Francis Maude, the Cabinet Officer minister, to speak on the problem. Mr Maude told motorists they should keep a jerry can in the garage to cope with a potential fuel shortage, and top up their gas tanks. This was widely reported in the newspapers.

The fire brigades were aghast. The rules on keeping gasoline on private premises are strict. A jerry can holds around 20 liters of gasoline and is made of metal. However, if you want to keep gasoline in your UK garage you are allowed only two plastic containers holding up to 5 liters apiece. The fire fighters went public with their information and the government hastily amended its advice. Too late.

A 46-year-old woman, who was trying to help her daughter who was out of money and gasoline, tried to decant fuel from a jerry can into a glass jug in her kitchen. The oven was on at the time. You can guess the rest. The woman suffered burns over 40% of her body when the gasoline fumes ignited and set her clothing on fire. She is now in hospital, and we hope she will recover fully.

The Government was caught napping on this one. Besides the duff advice on storing gasoline, long queues formed at gas stations, which promptly ran out of fuel, even though the strike hadn't even been called yet. Fights broke out in places. Keeping gas tanks topped up meant that, two days ago, the UK pumped 150% of a normal day's supply of gasoline.

The newspapers and some politicians yelled for Francis Maude's head. The Government rescinded its advice. Worse was to come—the UNITE union called off any potential strike over Easter.

The Conservatives tried to get Labour to condemn the strike, which was unlikely given the fact that UNITE is a large bankroller of the Labour Party. Ed Miliband said that a strike would not be a good thing and urged both sides to get around the negotiating table. Grown-up words from Lbour, for a change.

The news was not all rosy for Labour, however. Elections here are normally on a Thursday, and a byelection in Bradford, a northern city that has a large number of Muslim residents, had been called to replace a Labour MP who had to resign on health grounds. The seat has been a Labour one for more than 40 years.

However, George Galloway, a maverick politician here in the UK who was kicked out of Labour for protesting against the Iraq war in 2003, and who beat a Labour candidate in East London in 2005, stood for the Bradford seat. He turned a safe Labour seat into a huge Labour rout. He won by more than 10,000 votes.

Galloway was carried in trumph on the shoulders of his supporters out of the counting hall at 3am. The Labour candidate, who had taken victory somewhat for granted, left the counting hall without making the traditional concession speech. He hasn't surfaced since; I'll bet he's stinging a bit. Galloway took a victory tour the next day in an open-top double-decker bus, where the good citizens of Bradford West cheered as he passed. This is the first time that the official Opposition has lost a byelection for decades. Now Galloway, who has been on Big Brother, and was famously filmed in a leotard pretending to lick cream out of a woman's cupped hands, and who was suspended from the House of Commons for unparliamentary behaviour a while back, will return to London as an MP. (US readers may recall that Galloway appeared before a Senate committee that had accused him of oil profiteering in Iraq and wiped the floor with them.)

Labour hasn't come up with a good reason for losing yet. The Respect Party, which Galloway founded, is now represented in Parliament once again. They are unlikely to gather more MPs, as I believe Galloway's larger-than-life persona is responsible for his big win, rather than any organised opposition to the Government. But Gorgeous George will enliven the House of Commons more than even Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover, has done for the past 42 years.

What's next? Who knows? Parliament is in recess now for Easter, but the crises will still roll on. I shall be in the US from Wednesday until the 19th of April, so I hope nothing important happens until I'm back. I'd hate not to have a front seat for the festivities.

The current controversy surrounding Foreign Secretary William Hague and his (now resigned) special adviser, a 25-year-old young man of no special international experience, will, I think, continue on for a while, despite his denial last night and his revelation that he and Ffion, his wife, had tried and failed to have a child several times over the past years. There had been rumours for years that Hague might be gay, fuelled by the fact that he married late, when he was Welsh Secretary in the Major Government. Those rumours swirled away at the marriage, and had not surfaced again until now. In my opinion, Hague showed poor judgment in ignoring how the situation would look (for example, they shared a hotel room during the campaign—if the special advisor were a woman, Hague would instantly have known that such an arrangement would be inappropriate) and that alone raises questions about his position in Government. I do not accept that being gay is a slur (the way the Daily Mail seems to), but I do think that demonstrated poor judgment in a politician should relegate that politician to the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

A parable: Lyndon Baines Johnson, President of the United States from 1963-1969, was a tough and dirty campaigner. You had to be to get elected in Texas in those days. During one particularly difficult and filthy campaign, Johnson and his campaign staff were sitting around the conferene table throwing out ideas for the campaign. Johnson suddenly said, "Hey, I know. Let's put out a rumour that my opponent fucks pigs!" The staff were puzzled and horrified. One said, "But Lyndon, we can't say that! You know it isn't true!" Johnson grinned and said, "Yeah, I do. But let the sonofabitch deny it."

Last year I totally missed the fourteenth anniversary of my arriving at Heathrow and beginning my life here in the UK.

Yesterday I marked the fifteenth anniversary.

And forgot.

AGAIN!

I am grateful that the UK has accepted me here, allowed me to become a British citizen, and given me the opportunity to meet and to marry HWMBO.

Well, yay for Australia! Hopefully there are only two reactionary conservative parties left to be swept out of power in the Western world: Republicans, and Labour. It will be even better if Howard lost his seat (I think it's still in doubt at the moment). Of course, he'll then do a Tony Blair and give speeches to rooms full of little old blue haired ladies at $100,000 a pop or so. They can have him. Now we'll see whether Prime Minister Rudd will do a good job. I'm hoping so; I'd like to visit Australia and it would be nicer if a good Government were in place.

Singapore is mourning the loss of the 5 men from the crew of a dragonboat that was racing in Cambodia. Please pray for the repose of their souls. I believe that some of my LiveJournal friends knew these men personally and to them I offer my condolences and e-hugs.

The big news here over this week is two-fold. First, the England national soccer team was beaten by Croatia 3-2 and thus is no longer in the European soccer championship tournament. There has been much recrimination, the manager has been fired, and the poisoned chalice that is the managership of the England squad has been turned down by two very senior experienced managers from commercial soccer teams.

I'm happy as it will mean a quiet summer, with few if any drunken louts either celebrating the national team's wins or drowning their sorrows over the national team's loss.

The second big piece of news, closer to my own specialty, is the fact that two CDs containing Child Benefit information with names, account numbers, bank names, National Insurance numbers, and children's names was mailed by regular intergovernmental post from HM Customs & Revenue in Washington, Tyne and Wear, to the National Audit Office in London. They never arrived. They were not encrypted, but were password protected. There is now a frenzy at the banks, with people calling to change their account numbers.

Child Benefit is paid to all families with young children in the United Kingdom. So even very wealthy people may have their details on that list.

The government's line is that a junior clerk (pronounced "clark" here) did this without authorisation. This clerk, a 23-year old man, has been moved to a room in a hotel with a 24-hour guard^Wminder to keep him away from the media. I expect that the newspapers this week will find out both who he is, and will get him to talk. The National Audit Office told the HMRC that they didn't want account numbers and such, only a few non-specific details. Someone at HMRC replied that it would be too expensive to remove the superfluous information. The head of HMRC has retired/resigned to take responsibility for this. The government says that the banks will cover any losses traceable to fraudulent use of this information. The banks are saying, "Hold on just a minute, you caused the problem, perhaps you should pay." It's all good fun.

The Brown government seems to be made up of stumblebums, always falling over another crisis and not quite being able to handle it. I look forward to the next one that will come along (perhaps another tranche of Northern Rock banking money going down the toilet) I rejoiced when they said to me, "Gordon Brown is having another crisis he can't handle." I expect he'll blow up at a reporter in his next news conference, or be reduced to showing himself to be the stuttering stumbling packet of hot air that he has so far been able to hide at Prime Minister's Questions.

The LibDem leadership ballot came through the letterbox this week. I voted for Huhne. The better of the two, in my opinion. Much better than Ming the Merciless.

I ordered a cassock and cotta this afternoon. The Vicar of St John's Larcom Street has been saying that my monastic alb looks like a sack of potatoes when I'm wearing it. I disagreed, but broke down and decided to get measured for it. Our friend Simon, who is an honorary curate there, did the honours and hopefully I'll have it before Christmas, or at least before the end of January. It has no slot at the front for a collar, as I'm not entitled to wear one, but otherwise is identical to a priest's cassock. The cotta is long, trimmed with braid. A cotta is a surplice with a square collar that's usually used at the Eucharist (whereas the surplice, with a round collar, is used at the Divine Office). I have been wearing my alb with a biretta when in the sanctuary for a preaching assignment, and that looks rather bizarre. Cassock and cotta will look much better with a biretta. It was about £280. for both.

Now to do some other stuff, and to bed.

...and many happy returns of the day. The BBC sends birthday wishes to some members of the Royal Family, and one knew when the Queen Mother was about to croak when the BBC changed from wishing her "many happy returns of the day" to "a very happy day".

For non-Brits, local elections in part of England were held on Thursday. Labour took a drubbing and Blair, to show that he wasn't worried, reshuffled his Cabinet so hard it screamed for mercy. In Southwark, the council has no party in overall majority: 28 seats each for Labour and the LibDems, 6 Tories (from Dulwich and that doesn't count much) and 1 Green. Labour lost all three seats in my ward (which is fine with me as I'm a LibDem). However, I got a hint of why that was this morning.

I got stuff from the LibDems in my mailbox (I'm on their mailing list natch), I got a leaflet from an independent candidate. But nothing from Labour. I thought they'd decided (from the frosty reception I gave them when they called me a few years ago) that I was a lost cause to them.

So the elections were Thursday; I emptied my mailbox on Friday. Saturday I opened the mailbox and what did I find? The leaflet from Labour urging me to vote Labour in Thursday's election!

Better late than never? I think not!

The General Election is mostly over (Northern Ireland results won't be known until later today but as they have an entirely different election over there with local issues predominating they can safely be ignored). Labour has been returned with a 66-seat majority, thus making this the first time that Labour has won three consecutive General Elections.

Labour, of course, is harping on that record: three consecutive terms. They are (conveniently) ignoring the fact that Labour has gotten a pasting at the hands of the Liberal Democrats, the Tories, Respect, and any number of independents.

So what do the numbers mean, in my humble opinion.

( See behind the cut. )