John Avison: It’s another fine mess we’re in

Sep 25 2008 by John Avison, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THESE are hard times for Western politics. In the United States, an extremely unpopular presidency is coming to an end amid a so-called economic downturn that is spreading consternation across the globe.

Barack Obama or John McCain will be elected president next year if things go to plan, but how either might put this mess right is debatable.

Here in the UK, Labour has lost the chrome and sparkle it exhibited back in 1997. The engine’s knocking and its exhaust is blowing. Gordon Brown, who is neither a bad man nor a particularly bad politician, is Britain’s most unpopular PM since Neville Chamberlain. The Labour Party is thinking of chucking him.

It’s true that Labour has failed to keep its promises. It threw billions at the NHS and education but failed to ensure that the money was well used. In cleverly buying up the middle ground and rebranding itself as ‘New Labour’ it lost the trust of the unions and isolated the socialist Left.

It took us into a war in Iraq we didn’t want and don’t want and which was, according to international law, illegal. If that wasn’t bad enough, we are making a dog’s bowl of Afghanistan too. History shows that everybody does.

Now, to make matters worse, house prices are taking a dive, food and fuel prices are rising and the economy is juddering to a halt. Who’s to blame?