[Mail and Globe] Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown faced a renewed challenge to his leadership on Monday after support for the ruling Labour Party plunged to its lowest level in a century in European elections.
And so he should do.
Compounding Labour's woes, the far-right British National Party won two seats in the European Parliament for the first time. The BNP gained the seats in northern England at the expense of Brown's Labour Party, which has been hurt by a scandal over politicians' expenses.
Consequences.
Brown, who reshuffled his government after six ministers quit last week,was set to meet on Monday evening with Labour members of Parliament, a number of whom have called on him to step down before a general election due within a year.
"It's a very, very bad defeat for us," Brown's deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman told BBC television. But Brown was "resilient" and would fight on, she said.
Political commentators said he had a desperate political fight ahead after the disastrous European poll showing. The right-of-centre Daily Telegraph said Brown was "on the edge, while the Times declared him "out for the count". The normally supportive Guardian newspaper, which last week turned against Brown and called on him to step down, said Brown was facing a "make or break" challenge to his leadership.
The turmoil rattled markets last week, pushing the pound lower. Investors are wary of uncertainty when Britain faces its deepest recession since World War II and the budget deficit has reached a record £175-billion ($281-billion).
Brown's departure would almost certainly precipitate an early election which the centre-right opposition Conservatives are expected to win after 12 years out of power.
#1
A lesson for Bambi. Keep digging. Hillary has all the shovels ready.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/09/2009 9:54 Comments ||
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#2
The problem for Britain is that the Tories do not have an answer either. They also lost votes. They are seen as birds of the same flock. That is why smaller and more liberty parties have elected MPs lately.
#5
Labour gave British sovereignty away to the EU, enshrined political correctness in the legal system, banned guns and self-defense, and spent the country into bankruptcy. And not a peep from the Tories. Hard to believe that the Tories was once the party of Margaret Thatcher.
Biden Mistakenly Claims New Hudson River Tunnel Project Will Accomodate Cars
Avid train rider and Vice President Joe Biden, on a conference call Monday with reporters, mistakenly claimed that the planned Hudson River tunnel between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan would provide a much-anticipated route for automobiles.
Problem is, it's for trains.
The $8.7 billion tunnel is among the largest new projects to be funded in the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus package.
"Look, this is designed, this totally new tunnel, is designed to provide for automobile traffic," Biden said, according to The Record of Bergen County. "It's something, as you know, up your way, that's been in the works and people have been clamoring for for a long time."
The Record, which asked Biden the tunnel-related question on the call, called the vice president out on the error. The north Jersey newspaper noted that the tunnel would accommodate more New Jersey Transit trains during peak hours -- cars are not part of the equation.
The mistake is notable given the former Delaware senator's well-documented affinity for trains and frequent Amtrak commutes between Washington and Wilmington during his Senate years. Biden also inadvertently irked public transit when he warned Americans in late April not to travel in "confined places" for fear of contracting swine flu
#6
$8.7 billion doesn't buy what it used to. In 4 years it won't even buy a model railroad tunnel.
Posted by: ed ||
06/09/2009 11:09 Comments ||
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#7
Biden's not only a clown but a serial plagiarist. Can't say anything about this bozo though...might affect the war on terror. You have got to be kidding!!!
Posted by: Art ofWar ||
06/09/2009 11:30 Comments ||
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#8
$8.7 billion? Who are they kidding? It would cost twice that.
And why are we paying to cram more commuters into Manhattan? Just build some office buildings in New Jersey.
#9
it's ok to demean the prez when he is a republican and ACTUALLY fighting the war on terror and not bowing to the enemy...but god forbid a repub to be critical of a dem -- who is a clown...so much for the opposition being patriotic..
i look forward to 2010 when this madness we have elected gets stopped
Posted by: Dan ||
06/09/2009 11:40 Comments ||
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#10
When the guy who's supposedly overseeing this stimulus thing doesn't seem to know what one of it's largest new projects is actually supposed to do, I wouldn't call pointing that out "nit picking".
#16
They told me that if I voted for Sarah Palin we'd get an idiot just a heartbeat away from the presidency. I voted for her anyway--and look what happened!
Posted by: Mike ||
06/09/2009 13:56 Comments ||
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#17
:)LOL. This story and these posts lifted my spirits today. It's almost like Billy Carter got a little sophistication, went to law school, changed his name and became VP.
#24
even better- he get's ridiculed by the Sierra Club: HT to Jammie Wearing Fool For the record, the tunnel is for trains, and its completion would allow for more NJ Transit trains during peak hours and one-seat rides into Midtown Manhattan on lines serving Bergen and Passaic counties. Currently riders on those lines must switch trains.
Biden's office did not immediately respond to a request to clarify his comments.
Jeffrey Tittel, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, renewed his criticism of the tunnel. Rather than go to Penn Station and connect with Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad, NJ Transit will build a new station built 180 feet below 34th Street, or, as he calls it, Macys basement.
Its going to be hard to get those cars up 180 feet of escalators, Tittel said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/09/2009 20:39 Comments ||
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Republicans apparently seized control of the New York State Senate on Monday, in a stunning and sudden reversal of fortunes for the Democratic Party, which controlled the chamber for barely five months.
A raucous leadership fight erupted on the floor of the Senate around 3 p.m., with two Democrats, Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, both these guys are under investigation, one for fraud; the other for criminal assault
joining the 30 Senate Republicans in a motion that would displace Democrats as the party in control.
One source of contention among Democrats recently has been Mr. Smith's support for same-sex marriage. Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., a Democrat from the Bronx, has been outspoken in his insistence that legislation allowing gay couples to marry not be allowed to come to a vote. Some had speculated he might leave the Democratic Party if Mr. Smith were to allow a vote the NYC Hispanic community is anti same sex marriage but requires loyalty to the Donks who are pro same sex marriage - bummer.
But Mr. Díaz did not join Mr. Espada and Mr. Monserrate in the leadership vote on Monday. It was not immediately clear whether the same-sex marriage legislation played any role in the leadership dispute.
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/09/2009 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
I'm not sure I like this. I suspect it's "republicans" like those democrats that helped cost the party so much in the years subsequent to the takeover of the house in '94.
#2
But this and the revolt that is beginning to rear it's head in the land of fruits and nuts -CA- has to be raising a "red" flag to those blue state miscreants.
Are we sure that people aren't beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and beginning to realize it's not the promised land that Bambi's pearly whites proclaimed but in fact the quickly approaching bullet train of national wanton waste and despair?
I for one would love to see the conservative movement regains it's footing, remove the a$$-hat it's been wearing for too long now and actually LEAD us....
#3
It is not what you all think. This was a revolt led by a Rochester billionaire, Thomas Golisano, who ran for governor 3 times as a fiscal conservative. He is a tax-cut, spending cut type guy but a little confused since he gave the Dems $5 mil last year thinking they would bring some sense to Albany and cut taxes. Now he is a Floridian (no income taxes and homestead law). Espada and Moserrate have voted with the Republicans before and both are in ethical or legal trouble. There is chaos in Albany right now but the guy who really caused all of this is the ex-Senate majority leader Malcolm Smith of Queens. They gained control after 43 years as minority and started firing every Republican staffer (lots of experience there) and then slashed the Repubs budget for committees. But it was their capitulation to the Governor on raising income taxes on the highest earners that steered Golisano toward Espada and Monserrate. Even though this thing was in the works since December it took the Dems completely by surprise. It was pure chaos yesterday in Albany. Lets hope it stays that way.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/09/2009 10:02 Comments ||
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#4
One Democrat is under investigation for campaign fraud. The other is under indictment for assaulting his girlfriend with some broken glass.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Avid train rider and Vice President Joe Biden, on a conference call Monday with reporters, mistakenly claimed that the planned Hudson River tunnel between New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan would provide a much-anticipated route for automobiles. 
