Billy Connolly used to do a routine about a Saturday night drunk in Glasgow staggering to the all night bus stop but only striding forward with one leg and so going round in circles. In bringing back the universal sleazebag Peter Mandelson to mainstream politics, Gordon Brown is, is he not, at risk of turning the reinvented Labour Party (NuLab) into a pastiche of that comedy routine.
As if to underline the point Mandelson’s first pronouncement on rejoining the government concerned the economic crisis. The man who once wore a dead slug on his top lip (the gayest moustache east of San Francisco) informs us the only way to get out of the mess that has caused meltdown in financial markets around the world is MORE globalisation.
Is this political homeopathy I wonder or is it the alcoholic’s hair of the dog approach to curing hangovers. I lean toward the hair of the dog myself (it could actually have been a dog turd Mandy had on his top lip) because Mandelson is a hooked on power as any alkie is on booze.
Solving the problems of globalisation by pushing more globalisation is not an answer for the simple reason that China and India rather than the western economies are in the driving seat now. Advocates of globalisation claim it has reduced poverty but that is just spin and statistical trickery. Which is probably why Mandelson is a fan.
Since 1981 which was about the beginning of globalisation addiction among politicians and economists the number of people living on less than a pound a day has fallen. This is not due to the opening of third world markets to the west but to industrialisation in China and India. The measure of poverty is spin also. Since 1981, despite inflation statistics being rigged by spin doctors the cost of living, particularly of basic items like food and fuel has risen astronomically. People now living on £2 per day are now poorer that people who were living on £1 a day in 1981.
So Mandelson has not even taken his seat at a cabinet meeting yet and already he is peddling the lies of his corporate paymasters.
Good work Mandy, keep it up. Single handedly you could ensure Labour is totally wiped out at the next election.
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technomist
I think its a good thing that the rump of the New Labour gang are all now in one place again. It'll make it so much easier to round them up when the time comes.
I am looking forward to watching them all pretending they don't have millions stashed away in numbered Swiss banks and arguing at the Old Bailey for their right to a legal aid lawyer, appearing in person now the Bar no longer has to represent them under the cab rank rule. The judge raising his eyebrows but keeping quiet at the sight of the nearly healed purplish yellow old mens' bruises after their 42 days in Paddington Green. They would not be fool enough to hire Cherie Booth, of course, and she wouldn't give them credit anyway. The cut-throat defences will make wonderous sport for all: as they try the patience of the jury cross examining each other, desperately trying to get their old comrades in spin to answer yes or no.