Brown Studies

This is more of an open thread than 'proper' Aaro watching. I submit the following:

WHEREAS the Decents, while extolling 'democracy' tend to ignore the actual political process, and where they acknowledge it, you'd think we were still in the dying years of John Major, where the democratic machinery is ranged against brave little fringe groups, and poor Alan 'Not the Minister' Johnson's voice is all but gagged by despots in Parliament and their henchpersons in the mainstream media;

WHEREAS one-man Decent think tank Oliver Kamm called the Labour Party (which he insists he supports) a "Farcical grotesquerie" stated Brown has behaved appallingly in the last week, but then he has behaved appallingly throughout the life of this government, and beyond. Matthew Turner has more;

WHEREAS David Aaronovitch thinks Gordon Brown is wonderful and should therefore call an election soon, while his erstwhile colleague Martin Kettle* thinks Gordon Brown is wonderful (I know, this surprised me too) and there should not call an election soon;

WHEREAS Gordon Brown mentioned Iraq only once in his conference speech;

This blog resolves that Gordon Brown's position as leader of the Labour Party and his standing in the polls is/is not a situation desired by the Decents.

You decide. (FWIW, I think David Miliband is the closest thing to a Decent in Parliament, and that rather than spending their days fisking Madelaine Bunting and complaining about Muslims under the bed and writing silly documents nobody cares about, the decent agenda would be better pursued by actually getting their hands dirty in Labour party politics, and not sticking to fringe meetings. In short, I think that they'll ignore the real world, just as they always did.)

*"In the past three months, Brown has brought back dignity and balance to our politics and has won deserved approval for doing so." I can't remember Martin Kettle bemoaning that these were ever missing when he was praising Blair.