An Open Letter to the UK Parliament.
Look, I know you're on your hols, but damnit, something has got to be done.
You know he's got to go, I know he's got to go. The whole country, indeed the whole freakin' world knows he's got to go. There are probably alien tribes inhabiting nearby star systems banging their heads against walls because he hasn't gone yet. Everybody but Mr. Tony Blair himself knows he needs to be spending more time with his family. A lot more time. Starting yesterday.
So DO something already.
Please.
Yes, it's unfortunate that the byzantine internal wrangling of the Labour party doesn't seem to be cutting it on this one, but there it is. Time to stage an intervention.
Sure, a no-confidence vote that actually succeeds is completely out of the question, I understand that. Too much of a nuclear option -- christmaselections! scary! me turkeybackbencker! party broke! expensive! -- okay fine. But can't you come up with something else? I don't know, something like:
'Notwithstanding our utter confidence in Her Majesty's Government, honest guv, and in order to prevent the country's tarnished reputation being even further dragged through the mud, and to avoid us all waking tomorrow to find we've been signed up for whatever lunatic military or foreign policy scheme President Bush has cooked up over the barbecue this week, and so we don't keep having to disgust our foreign friends by confessing that no, Tony's not gone yet, and no we don't know when he's going; this House requires and expects that the Right Honourable Anthony Blair MP resign the office of Prime Minister (or First Lord of the Treasury, or whatever we're formally calling it these days) and hereby petitions Her Majesty the Queen to appoint some other qualified MP-like-dude-of-the-majority-party to the above office.'
...only more Parliamentary and possibly using actual real sentences. Yes, I realise that mostly likely means Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, and he makes you and all the pundits and a bunch of people out here in the country cry, but we'll all deal with it. I know we will. We survived the Earl of Bute as PM. We can weather Gordon for at least a while. Some people even like him so I hear, and he does have the small slight advantage of never having been Home Secretary, so we may hope he doesn't bear the ancient curse of insane evil that afflicts all that have touched the eldritch dread of the Government Department that Drives Men Mad.
If you have to get Mr.Speaker liquored up to rule that sort of thing in order, then do so. Or, if you can't stomach that one, think of something else. Anything else. For crying out loud you've got a whole unwritten constitution and all that 'parliamentary sovereignty' stuff you keep boring on about whenever anything to do with Europe comes up, work with me here.
I mean, you used to be good at this sort of thing, you even got rid of Kings you didn't like and everything. Okay, I admit a Civil War or asking Holland to invade isn't exactly ideal -- though come to think of it, is their PM any good? Would they need additional naval transport to get to Westminster? -- but you got smoother at it. Go and suddenly discover that Tony's girlfriend is divorced and an American or something. Or have him disastrously invade a country in the middle-east on dubious grounds and completely screw the whole thing up...
...Oh, right, sorry.
Just DO IT, and do it NOW, give him the ol' heave ho, before we all become so ashamed to admit our British citizenship that we start pretending to be Canadian. You wouldn't like us when we're Canadian. Don't make us pretend to be Canadian.
C'mon UK Parliament, you can do it! Get yourself out there on that field and make our country proud! We're all rooting for yer!
...
Yes, I even emailed it to The Times, sans linkage, just call me disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. Completely the wrong length, format and style to ever be printed of course.
You know he's got to go, I know he's got to go. The whole country, indeed the whole freakin' world knows he's got to go. There are probably alien tribes inhabiting nearby star systems banging their heads against walls because he hasn't gone yet. Everybody but Mr. Tony Blair himself knows he needs to be spending more time with his family. A lot more time. Starting yesterday.
So DO something already.
Please.
Yes, it's unfortunate that the byzantine internal wrangling of the Labour party doesn't seem to be cutting it on this one, but there it is. Time to stage an intervention.
Sure, a no-confidence vote that actually succeeds is completely out of the question, I understand that. Too much of a nuclear option -- christmaselections! scary! me turkeybackbencker! party broke! expensive! -- okay fine. But can't you come up with something else? I don't know, something like:
'Notwithstanding our utter confidence in Her Majesty's Government, honest guv, and in order to prevent the country's tarnished reputation being even further dragged through the mud, and to avoid us all waking tomorrow to find we've been signed up for whatever lunatic military or foreign policy scheme President Bush has cooked up over the barbecue this week, and so we don't keep having to disgust our foreign friends by confessing that no, Tony's not gone yet, and no we don't know when he's going; this House requires and expects that the Right Honourable Anthony Blair MP resign the office of Prime Minister (or First Lord of the Treasury, or whatever we're formally calling it these days) and hereby petitions Her Majesty the Queen to appoint some other qualified MP-like-dude-of-the-majority-party to the above office.'
...only more Parliamentary and possibly using actual real sentences. Yes, I realise that mostly likely means Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, and he makes you and all the pundits and a bunch of people out here in the country cry, but we'll all deal with it. I know we will. We survived the Earl of Bute as PM. We can weather Gordon for at least a while. Some people even like him so I hear, and he does have the small slight advantage of never having been Home Secretary, so we may hope he doesn't bear the ancient curse of insane evil that afflicts all that have touched the eldritch dread of the Government Department that Drives Men Mad.
If you have to get Mr.Speaker liquored up to rule that sort of thing in order, then do so. Or, if you can't stomach that one, think of something else. Anything else. For crying out loud you've got a whole unwritten constitution and all that 'parliamentary sovereignty' stuff you keep boring on about whenever anything to do with Europe comes up, work with me here.
I mean, you used to be good at this sort of thing, you even got rid of Kings you didn't like and everything. Okay, I admit a Civil War or asking Holland to invade isn't exactly ideal -- though come to think of it, is their PM any good? Would they need additional naval transport to get to Westminster? -- but you got smoother at it. Go and suddenly discover that Tony's girlfriend is divorced and an American or something. Or have him disastrously invade a country in the middle-east on dubious grounds and completely screw the whole thing up...
...Oh, right, sorry.
Just DO IT, and do it NOW, give him the ol' heave ho, before we all become so ashamed to admit our British citizenship that we start pretending to be Canadian. You wouldn't like us when we're Canadian. Don't make us pretend to be Canadian.
C'mon UK Parliament, you can do it! Get yourself out there on that field and make our country proud! We're all rooting for yer!
...
Yes, I even emailed it to The Times, sans linkage, just call me disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. Completely the wrong length, format and style to ever be printed of course.