A New Dawn Has Broken...

Other side of the world
but the same tired agenda

...has it not? Well perhaps not such a new one from a more global perspective.

Amongst the news stories I had clipped away during my hiatus from serious blogging I found quite a lot on the aftermath of the sad demise of John Howard's administration in Australia.

It's not worth revisiting them in detail a week on but from a bird's eye view there is something very tiringly familiar in the the tone of the various headlines that Kevin Rudd's camp have managed to generate in the international press after their election success about the direction he wants to take his country.

Take this, from Sky:

• "Rudd To Apologise To Aboriginal People"

Yes, a new administration, elected promising real change for ordinary people in fact focusing first of all on a politically correct, but fundamentally meaningless gesture. Yes, treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia was appalling, but Kevin Rudd didn't do it, nor for that matter did John Howard.

Then there's this from the Telegraph:

• "Calls for Australia's Rudd to hold referendum"

This of course refers to calls for a referendum on becoming a republic. Frankly this is a matter for Australians on which I have very little in the way of opinion. Rudd is a keen republican, which is fine, but, in common with most other leading Australian republicans, he seems to be a little bit reticent about his views on the details of how a democratic presidency should work. So then, a personal commitment to constitutional reform with out clarity on the end point of the changes. Sounds familiar?

Other stories have commented on the firm commitment to remove Australia's welcome, but small and non-critical contingent of troops from Iraq, an issue that is doubtlessly popular with much of the Australian public, but is hardly an earth shattering act of political leadership. On the environment he has promised much the same line on climate change that our own politicians have been asking us to swallow for a few years now. Yes, I'm sure action will be taken, and the changes Australia will make will have the same effect on the the climate as our own, none whatsoever.

Rudd seems like a nicer kind of human being than our own revolting Prime Minister and that may secure him a longer tenancy in Canberra than it looks like Incapability Brown might be offered of Number 10 by the British People. It still looks though, very much the same threadbare, visionless modern left agenda of our own government.

The old left was something I always disliked, but at least they had a substantial dream of the sort of country they wanted to create. It is true that the same critique could be applied to the modern right in our own country to some extent, but at least the core values of the value of individual freedom against an over mighty state guarantees them some relevancy long in to the future. With their former economics thoroughly discredited by the realities that history teaches us, and the idea of campaigning for a bigger state, at least overtly, something of a bygone age it's pretty hard to understand what purpose those that describe themselves as left of centre serve any more.

Sadly my Australian friends, I suspect you are facing just what we have had for more than a decade. More tax for little more benefit than covering up the inadequacies of your ruling classes and ill considered gesture politics. I think Rudd does have a role model for matters more serious than emptying bodily orifices in Parliament and I'm not convinced he has picked wisely.

Hero Worship

It would seem that our somewhat beleaguered Prime Minister has at least one fan who believes that Gordon knows what it takes to exercise high office.

It appears that the front-runner to be the Australian premier after the country's next general election, Kevin Rudd, seems to be determined to ape Gordon in every respect:



Of course he didn't quite get it right. Let's remind ourselves of how a all too real Prime Minister (then in-waiting) does it:



I was going to entitle this 'The Wrong Orrifice' but I thought that some might have got the wrong end of the stick.

Some Things Never Change

Fighting...but which cause?

As I wrote, as slowly and drunkenly as I write this this, my previous post, the news came in that John Howard had announced the date of the Australian General Election, November 24th, showing guts that our own Prime Minister so clearly lacks. OK he had to go soon anyway, but his demeanour was so different to the skulking Brown.

Sadly though, I was listening to News 24, who yet again trotted out the predictable line that it Howard's electorally precarious position was entirely due to Iraq and climate change. It might not fit with the opinion of any anti-Howard Australian I've ever met who generally just feel "it's time for a change" or any more methodical polling which tends to rate these issues as being pretty low down the priority list, but I suppose it fits better with the BBC agenda and I guess that's what counts.

How weird it would feel in these days of a spin, to hear a voice that reported the news as it is, rather than the news as those reporting it wished it was.

Oh Me of Little Faith

Inaccurate I know...Even in death,
this wallaby has secured possession.

England 12 - 10 Australia

I'm not eating humble pie on this particular outcome as even having looked at the prospect of England being on the plane home from the Rugby World Cup tonight, I know the game well enough never to completely write off an England team with its back against the wall. England had few options but played every one they had to the absolute best of their ability. It wasn't pretty, but it was exciting in its own brutal, tense, terrifying way.

Out in the Village I've never seen so much gold disappear so quickly since Brown's knock-down bullion sale, though much to his credit Doktor Doob has taken it on his chin even if his Australia shirt has too disappeared.

A fantastic effort by everyone from 1-15 but especially those in the single digits. I'm sure the outcome will have given a big boost to France in tonight's other game, given that a similar Aussie scrum gave the All Blacks a lot of trouble this year. It's still unlikely, but it's a timely reminder that anything is possible if you can do the basics right and give it 110%.

Even the what I have read so far of the Australian Press seems to admit the better team won after some of the mud slinging of the last week, galling though it must be to see England eject the Wallabies from the World cup for the third time in six World Cups and take, if my memory serves me rightly, a 3-1 lead in World Cup encounters.

For months I've been saying that getting to the semis would be a fantastic, if unlikely, defence of the world title for England, so obviously I'm pretty happy (not as in p***ed - it was too tense to drink!) right now.

Timing is Everything

Timezones apt to confuse

Writing my last post left me feeling the need to do a bit of a mea culpa over an earlier Australian general election.

With Australia's compulsory voting rules I managed to cause panic in the Village, by reminding the Australian contingent of the day at the Mother Ship that polling day was upon them, causing hasty travel plans to Australia's busiest polling station, at Australia House in the Strand, to be arranged. I guess I could have pointed out that other Aussies had told me that the Federal Government didn't waste too much time chasing people overseas. I certainly should have pointed out that due to the vagaries of time zones the poll had, erm, actually already closed.

Me bad.

If they had happened to be American I might have felt less guilty, in view of the number of work related telephone conferences I've ended up participating in, in bed, usually at around 1AM. You'd think in a country with several internal time zones that the idea of this trend continuing across the Atlantic wouldn't be too much of an intellectual leap.

Crossing Continents

Down and out down under?

I've ended up in quite a few conversations over the last week about the prospects for a general election in the near future where the Labour party looks to be in the ascendancy. No surprise there, except that all but one of them have been with Australians and related to their own forthcoming election which must be held no later than January 19th.

Things are not looking good for John Howard's Liberal/National coalition with Kevin Rudd's Australian Labour Party in the ascendancy, despite eleven years of economic growth and a generally positive feeling about the state of the country.

Howard supporters point to the fact that he has bounced back from worse positions in the past, and in this I do hope their optimism is justified. For a long time Howard has been the one Conservative leaning world leader who has had any real stature on the world stage. Sure it's a country with a small population, but under Howard they have punched above their weight on the world stage despite their own involvement in issues like Iraq. Also, he's been far too astute a politician to allow the type of cheap shots, so beloved of the left, that have plagued the likes of George W Bush, to land on him.

Only of late have the likes of Sarkozy emerged who may be able to challenge to be the face of the international centre-right, and even in Sarko's case it depends on him not being led astray by the likes of Merkel with their old fashioned Christian Democratic Conservative traditions.

What I found interesting in the discussions was that every time I've heard the state of Australian politics is mentioned in the British media, the same list of reasons for Howard's poor poll showings is trotted out, especially by the BBC. It is all down to Iraq, immigration and climate change apparently. It is certain that my own polling is unscientific but I've got a feeling certain outlets are reporting the news as they would like it to be rather than as it is, and some polling data supports this.

Iraq was mentioned by the people I spoke to as was occasionally climate change, but they seemed to very low down the list, and not issues that counted entirely against Howard. Immigration policy actually seemed to be generally thought of as a plus point for the Liberals, perhaps somewhat ironically as much of Australia's controversial immigration control was a legacy of the last Labour administration. Other issues were raised, but the overriding sentiment was simply that it was time for a change, with no particular issues of ill-will towards Howard policies. Even those that declared themselves anti-Howard seemed to be so more on issues of personality than policy.

More scientific polling of the issues in play seems to suggest that the traditional big three, of economy, health care and education are what are exercising Australian minds most, along with a controversial industrial relations act. A quick look at this latter item, locally called WorkChoices, reveals a fairly sensible set of laws, such as mandating secret ballots for industrial action, akin to the changes in this country in the eighties which though controversial at the time are now pretty much mainstream thought no matter what Bob Crowe may fantasise. Only the Environment, of the British media's key issues, features highly as an issue, and then only at the same level as national security, an area where Howard scores well.

It should be also be noted that the media's top issues are all classic 'seal clubbing' issues where poll numbers are likely to be overstated, but ones where I'm sure when the election is called, our own media's antipodean outposts will be able to find plenty of 'typical Aussies' to put these issues at the top of the agenda.

As to why there has been no discussions locally about election matters closer to home, sadly there just seems to be stunningly little interest beyond the odd expression of loathing for Brown, disappointment with Cameron and derision for Ming.

While I'm sure where I live is no more typical than any other place I do know people of quite a cross-section of political views, and perhaps the most remarkable thing I've noticed is that I haven't met a single person who does not detest the Prime Minister. Where are the masses of the Gordon Brown fan club who give him such high poll ratings? Or are the alternatives really that bad?

Liberty's Requiem Miscellany No. 1

True Acts of Leadership

The first in what, considering the charisma bypasss most of our polititians seem to have undergone to achieve high office, is likely to be a very occasional series.

Many know that behind the grey, in all senses of the word, image of Sir Menzies Campbell lies a colourful sporting past. As unlikely as it may seem, he was once a fine athlete, holding the British 100 meter record for over six years, captaining Scotland in what is now the Commonwealth (don't mention the E-word) Games and representing Britain at the 1964 Olympic games. The problem is that it all seems so unlikley now in the face of the Menzies we know on the political stage that I don't think they can make use of this once dynamic side of Ming.

The hero of the latest bit of political trivia I stumbled across is the former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. As someone who is far more in tune with the ideas of John Howard, the current incumbent of the post, and who I consider a bit of a role model for sensible, progressive (in the real sense of the word) centre right leadership, it pains me to say that I am impressed with this little factoid,

'His academic achievements were possibly outweighed by the notoriety he achieved as the holder of a world record for the fastest consumption of beer: a yard glass (approximately 3 imperial pints or 1.7 litres) in eleven seconds.

In his memoirs, Hawke suggested that this single feat may have contributed to his political success more than any other, by endearing him to a voting population with a strong beer culture.'

Source: Wikipedia

Listen and learn Mr Cameron, perhaps those days of the Bullingdon Club could actually pay off. Stuff calling for debates on the BBC where, if they happened, Ming, the dour one and yourself would just p*** everyone off by parroting the usual lines.

Challenge them to a proper drinking contest and the Child of the Manse would stand no chance whatsoever. Ming could be a risk but age is on your side. It looks like a dead cert to me.