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Austen IvereighJune 04, 2009

I was at Lambeth Palace a few hours ago, hearing the Archbishop of Canterbury introduce a lecture by dramatically describing the "chaos" and "failure" of the current political moment. 

Then I returned home and switched on the News to catch a breaking story that a third minister has resigned from Gordon Brown's cabinet.

The departures of the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith (leaked Tuesday), and the Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, who stood down yesterday, were not fatal. They were tainted by revelations about their expenses claims, and  were expected to be sacked in an upcoming cabinet reshuffle.

But the Work and Pensions Secretary, James Purnell, is quite categoric why he is leaving. As long as Brown is in charge, Labor has no chance of winning the election.

"I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more not less likely," he said in a letter to the prime minister.

It is a devastating blow, which -- judging by the shocked reactions tonight -- has caught the Government completely by surprise.

He was acting on his own, and not as part of a rather feeble backbench plot to unseat Brown. But that doesn't matter. Purnell is effectively declaring Brown unelectable.

If others follow his lead, the prime minister could be gone very soon. Labor MPs know they can't win the next election. But they want to hang on to their seats, and most think that's more likely if a new leader takes over and announces an early poll.

But none of them has wanted to make the first move. Now Purnell has.

Never has Gordon Brown been so close to losing office. Anything can happen now.

 

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14 years 10 months ago
Just like here in the States, and just like any government and people that collapse, the problems in Britain can be traced back to their permissive stance on moral evils and their compromise with sin. Here in the States, we backslap a President for his blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life-at a Catholic university.  'Catholics' chide other Catholics for speaking out.  God forbid anyone is 'offended'. T.S. Eliot famously said the world will end not with a bang, but with a whimper.  That whimper didn't begin with the 'Catholics' who flaunt their faux-charity 'dialouge' nonsense (read: compromise with evil and permissive cowardice), but their voice sure will contribute to the fall of our nation. Never, in my memory, has the salt of the earth-or, what should be, the salt of the earth-been so flavorless and bland.  We Catholics, both here and elsewhere, will need to answer for love affair with worldliness.

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