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by Sandia
He's hardly had time to move his belongings into the PM's residence.

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think ill deal with this one first, as its a bit... bizarre...

the official PM's residence is at No 10 Downing Street - the chancellor lives at No 11.
however, when tony was in office, gordon was the chancellor - but No 10 wasnt designed for a family, most of the space inside was taken up with function rooms and offices rather than residential space.
No 11, on the other hand, was mostly residential space and offices - so they swapped, seeing as tony had 3 kids, and gordon, at the time, had none.gordon has, therefore, technically had plenty of time in the PMs residence.

as for the rest, its because certain thyings have been going on that the public has, so far, been seemingly willing to overlook, but things are coming to a head.
when the last conservative government was voted out of office, the incoming labour government was basically elected on an "anti-sleaze" basis - certain members of the conservative government had been abusing power, the labour party declared they would rid politics of all forms of corruption.
that lasted precisely as long as it took them to change the letterheads on all the stationary - thisa is pretty much the most corrupt government the UK has ever seen.
at least the tories were fairly open about anything - these guys have their snouts in the trough, but they automatically declare their innocence when found out, somehow they always manage to find a scapegoat.
the current donations row isnt even the first time this has happened since '97 - there was a massive row several years ago when tony and co threatened to bring in a ban on advertising cigarettes @ sporting events - one sporting body donated a large sum of money (think it was £1 million) to the labour party, the ban was rescinded - and then the donation was declared illeagal, people lost their jobs over it, the money was returned - and the ban didnt go into place til much later.

the current problems with shed loads of private data on millions of people being lost in transit - a certain person on here could tell you more about what led up to this, all ill say is that if they cant securely deal with our confidential information (incidentally, the way the data was formatted meant it was being transferred illeagally, even if it didnt go missing!), then how are they going to be able to secure our data if they introduce identity cards?

immigration is out of control - no-one knows how many people are in the country illeagally, and no-one in government seems to care - and if any one dares to ask the question, they are accused of being racist.
related to this - the f***wits in power claim that immigration is good for britain - people coming in to the country are taking on jobs that no-one else wants.
but how can this be good, when we have an entire underclass who have never had a ajob, whose parents have never had a job, and whose entire way of living is to sponge off those who actually go out to work and pay taxes?
the labour party used to represent the working classes, now they seem to represent the idol classes and the chattering classes - the mugs who go out to work are getting screwed left right and center, while those who are on massive salaries are using the system to get away with paying bugger all, and those who have decided not to work are getting everything handed to them on a plate.

add in road charging, the automatic fuel escalator, the erosion of family values, the state of the NHS and the armed forces, the education system, iraq and afghanistan, political correctness gone mad, and a million and one other things, and its not surprising that the people in this country are unhappy with gordon and his mates.

**and breathe**

oh yeah - should i mention the east lothian question, and the fact that the PM, not to mention a load of his ministers, are actually scottish and therefore shouldnt actually be making some of the decisions they are making?

Dont hold back mad tell us what you really thing

The central irony is that virtually nothing thats worth moaning about right now is of Gordon's making. Hes just the man at the top, and the buck stops there.

Meanwhile Tony Blair, who oversaw the last 10 years where a lot of the problems arose, remains the (relatively) golden boy... Id say old Tone timed his escape pretty well!

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by Wobag
The central irony is that virtually nothing thats worth moaning about right now is of Gordon's making. Hes just the man at the top, and the buck stops there.

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lets not forget that good ol' gordo is the guy who stuck the pension funds for a #5 billion windfall tax - thats EVERY BLOODY YEAR!
and suddenly, theres a #50 billion hole in the pension funds, and the ordanairy bloke in the street is going to have to work til they drop before claiming their pension, while gordo and his cronies have cast-iron, index-linked pensions they can pick up anytime.
hes the guy who ponied up the cash for the massive wage increases given to doctors, without asking for any increases in productivity, meaning that productivity has gone DOWN,
he pumped billions into the NHS - most of which went on employing massive numbers of middle mannagement, whose only job is to fudge the figures to amke it LOOK like they are achieving targets set for them, rather than actually working to achieve those targets - meanwhile, patient care has received next to nothing extra, cleaning has been outsourced to the lowest bidder resulting in an explosion in the number of infections contracted in hospital, and nurses are talking of striking again because they arent getting the money or supoport they need.
and all this (and more) from his time as chancellor - he held the purse strings, yet isnt to be held accountable?
and now hes in power, and his minions are having to find new scapegoats virtually every single day - hes supposed to be in charge, yet he knows nothing of whats going on?
sheesh...

Wow. That's quite a list of charges. Thanks for the detailed reply. I didn't know half of the stuff you mentioned. I really do have to read up on what's happening domestically in the UK. The BBC radio programs I hear are from the World Service, so although they touch on what's happening inside the UK and will report major events, they concentrate mostly on "world" news. I need to start skimming a couple of British papers regularly online to find out more about domestic politics.

It's funny though. Some of the things you listed could be applied here as well. The immmigration situation is one. Illegal immigrants flooding in, no on knows how many, can't talk seriously about stopping it cause people call you racist. Yep, sounds familiar.

So what's the upshot of this anti-Brown sentiment? Is he in any danger of losing his position within the Labour Party or as PM? I mean, could what's happening now result in new elections being called next year? (Excuse my ignorance on the subject, but is that even possible under your system?) Or would things have to get a LOT worse--meaning a couple more absolutely horrible scandals that could be laid at Brown's door--for anything major to happen? Meaning, it's just a lot of sniping and name-calling right now, but Brown suffers no real consequences and nothing much changes.

(Hmmm. That last sentence could be applied to political leaders here as well.)

the position of Prime Minister is held by the Leader of the Party holding the largest number of seats in the House Of Commons - traditionally, this leader is always an MP, although its technically possible for a non-MP to lead a party in this way (shades of alan b'stard, anyone?).
so, really, the only way he can be removed from the position of prime minister is if either members of his own party mount a campaign to have him replaced, or if Labour were to lose a General Election - both currently seem unlikely.
theres also the possibility of having him brought up on criminal charges - i seem to recall that being about the only other way of removing a prime minister - although treason charges would be nice **eg**.
the only reason tony wasnt brought up on criminal charges a while back was because the police officer leading the inquiry into the sale of Peerages (funnily enough, one of the things he was elected with a promise to stop!) was, erm, a good mate of his...

the only other option would be for the queen to dissolve parliment and remove him - the PM is, after all, the First Lord Of The Treasury, and is technically employed by the queen to run the country.
however, in this modern, "constitutional monarchy" we live in, this would be seen as an abuse of power by the queen, with the result that the labour party (traditionally opposed to the monarchy, and looking for an excuse to get rid of it) would ignore any royal decree, and force the royal family out into exile.
so THATS not going to happen.

there WAS talk of gordon calling a snap election to cement his power base after he took over (uncontested) from tony, but that was called off after a resurgence in the polls by the tories - IIRC, the next general election doesnt HAVE to be called til 2010.
so we could be stuck with him til then.

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by SandiaIllegal immigrants flooding in, no on knows how many, can't talk seriously about stopping it cause people call you racist. Yep, sounds familiar.

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oh yeah - thats something else.
we've had a problem with illeagal immigration for years, particularly from africa, the middle east, and what the brits refer to as asia (fairly different from what you colonials call asia!) - the indian sub-continent, rather than the far east.
the problem we have now is with LEGAL immigration, from the new countries in the EU, particularly poland - basically, any citizen of any EU state has the right to live and work in any other EU state AND CLAIM BENEFITS IN THAT STATE - without having to pay anything into the system
with the UK having one of the best benefits systems around, we've had hundreds of thousands of people flood into the country (thats the ones that el gordo and his mates admit to - the real figure is in the millions), in places stretching the benefits, health, and education systems to breaking point.
meanwhile, back in poland, there is such a chronic shortage of workers that unemployment is rapidly approaching zero, wages have gone up to meet the needs of supply and demand (with a limited supply of workers, if you want people, you have to pay more), and their benefits system is paying out only a fraction of what it was.

but back to my point.
if anyone dares to question the wisdom of this policy, they are labeled as "racist".
please, people - at least get your terms right.
from a racial point of view, the anglo-saxon majority populace of the british isles is pretty much identical to the caucasian populace from the furthest reaches of eastern europe - therefore, how can that be racism?

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by Wobag
Meanwhile Tony Blair, who oversaw the last 10 years where a lot of the problems arose, remains the (relatively) golden boy... Id say old Tone timed his escape pretty well!

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Mr. Blair's done extremely well for himself, but as a Chancellor with an unprecedented degree of independence, Mr. Brown is in it up to his neck. (And if rumours are to be believed, he was virtually co-prime minister.)

But yeah, I agree with the gist of what you're saying. This resentment's been brewing for years -- the change of prime minister is apparently the catalyst that brought the resentment into the open. For Sandia's infomation, this is perhaps because Mr. Brown was absurdly touted as being more "left-wing" than Mr. Blair. Now he's in power and people can have no illusions that he's anything but a gloomier version of elitist authoritarian Blair.

Well, most people have no illusions. For a fascinating trip into denial-land, check out the articles of one Polly "Politburo" Toynbee, arch Brown apologist and a very endangered species indeed.