New British PM!

[SteelersMongol]

I just wanna say congratulations to all my SF British members on your having new Prime Minister. Hopefully this one will keep the tradition of working closely with the US government. And I also wanna know what your expectations from him and some insights.

[SteelCityMan786]

Good Luck Gordon Brown(I believe he is the succedor). Hopefully he does as well as Tony Blair if not better.

[Crushzilla]

Tony Blair looked like he was burnt out. When I was in Europe I saw a photo exhibit of Tony Blair at War. It was pretty intense, especially one of him when he came into his office one morning, still looking groggy and was told about multiple English casualties the night before. He looks absolutely defeated.

He served during a tough time. England was PRIME for a change. Haha... Puntastic...

[Cape Cod Steel Head]

Hopefully he won't be kissing a certain part of our current "Presidents's" anatomy show some balls and withdraw the British forces from Iraq.

[Livinginthe past]

Originally Posted by Cape Cod Steel Head

Hopefully he won't be kissing a certain part of our current "Presidents's" anatomy show some balls and withdraw the British forces from Iraq.

I wouldn't hold your breath.

Im hoping he wont be quite as egotistical as his predecessor - less spin and more substance would be nice also.

[X-Terminator]

Originally Posted by Livinginthe past

I wouldn't hold your breath.

Im hoping he wont be quite as egotistical as his predecessor - less spin and more substance would be nice also.

What issues did he run on? Was the war one of them?

[X-Terminator]

Originally Posted by Cape Cod Steel Head

Hopefully he won't be kissing a certain part of our current "Presidents's" anatomy show some balls and withdraw the British forces from Iraq.

Blair actually started doing that a few months ago.

[SteelersMongol]

Originally Posted by Cape Cod Steel Head

... show some balls and withdraw the British forces from Iraq.

Well, hopefully he won't do that cuz that could mean more blood from the others, especially the Americans. They started this together, they are in this thing together, they SHOULD FINISH this together! If they pull out they should all leave at once that ugly country.

[Livinginthe past]

Originally Posted by X-Terminator

What issues did he run on? Was the war one of them?

Well its very difficult to say exactly where he stands on alot of the big issues.

He has been bound by party loyalty (and his own ambition) to show solidarity with Blair in the Iraq issue.

We have a strong economy - and as Chancellor of the Exchequer he is going to take alot of praise for that - though in truth his best decision was to delegate decisions on Interests Rates (and therefore the rate of inflation) to the Bank Of England.

Unfortunately, Brown wasn't actually forced to suffer the inconvenience of any type of democratic election - there were no other candidates willing to run against him (and take the chance of getting on the wrong side of the future PM) for leadership of the Labour Party.

My main sources of optimism lie in the fact that he is a very blunt, straight forward type of guy - he wasn't blessed with a great deal of natural charisma and is viewed as a bit 'bland' by political commentators.

For me this a welcome alternative to Blair; who was short on meaningful substance.

Brown is also very much 'old Labour' (or at least he was) in that his views are socialist in nature - hopefully this will help the 2 main political parties to stop scrapping over the 'middle ground' and actually represent alternatives in political philosophy.

I regard Blair as a manufactured product of spin doctors and image consultants - rather than sound values and fundamental political ideologies.

Im hoping he will be a little less prone to allow personal beliefs ie Religion to encroach too much on his view of the world and it how it works - as opposed to Blair who used his devout Christianity to try (with increasing futility) to mould the world into the shape he felt it should take.