There’s a episode of Fawlty Towers in which some of the guests are German.

“Don’t mention the war,” Basil insists. Naturally, the war comes up again and again through cracks in the script.

Most people groan now when they think about Gordon Brown. “Is he still there?” The sheer dismality of the man makes us want him to go away.

So I tried addressing yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions without using the GB words — Great Britain excepted, of course.

It shouldn’t have been difficult. He never answers the questions asked, simply making his point in a language best described as Robotic.

In the event, my wheeze fell at the first hurdle. Brown was so true to form he had the Tory benches rolling in the green-carpeted aisles. You can’t ignore such merriment.

After the calamities of 12 years in office, and the recent wipeout in nationwide elections, Grisly Gordon has decided to reform the Constitution. And, believe it or not, in ways that would scupper an outright Conservative victory in the next General Election.

When David Cameron asked if this package was intended to be pushed through before the next election, Brown accused him of playing for personal advantage.

Cue helpless Opposition laughter.

If ever a man deserved a long stay in a darkened place that dispenses drastic mental curatives, it is he who should never be obeyed.

Apart from a dig or two, Cameron was not at his best. I suspect he has tired of shooting helpless turkeys week after week, which says a lot about his character.

But really, this is no sport for a gentleman of his calibre. Bring on some nippy grouse or a decent flight of pheasants, for heaven’s sake.

Parliament was never so boring.

Syntagma’s Verdict:
Cameron, 7
Clegg, 5
Brown, unmeasurable

It really was that awful. Truly pointless.

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There comes a moment in the fight game when an old boxer refuses to give up out of misplaced pride, but everyone present can see he’s taking too much punishment to continue. At that point the referee steps in and declares an end to the fight.

I never thought I would feel sorry for Gordon Brown, given the weight of punishment beatings he’s dished out over the years, but inexplicably I almost do.

This is not a time to gloat over his demise. For demise it is. Deservedly, he will be cast into the outest of outer darknesses, more so than that other failed Prime Minister, Edward Heath.

He’s the worst there is, has been, and maybe even ever will be. His tragic baggage is that he doesn’t yet know it — or the bit of his mind that pokes out of the top doesn’t.

Gordon Brown has presided for 12 years over the destruction of everything we prize and hope to pass on to future generations.

His personality is so unsuited to high office only the Labour party would think of offering it to him.

Today at PMQs, Nick Clegg got it right. The choice is now between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. “Labour is finished.”

People and parties have a habit of hanging on in there even when there’s no hope left. Some thread to the past convinces them they can repeat what has gone before.

At some point, though, even they stop believing and contemplate throwing in the towel. Yet, if the smallest fragment of hope remains, and no-one intervenes to put them out of their misery, the agony goes on. Known pain is better than the unknown and total oblivion.

What Gordon Brown needs now is to be fished out of the drowning waters, and a kindly fisherman administer the gaffe with the necessary force.

Hazel Blears seemed to know that today. So do the other top Labour women. When the crones pronounce you dead, you are deadly dead.

Who will fish Brown out of his homemade hell? It’s time for the Queen to step in and represent the nation’s most ardent wish to be rid of this man.

May he rest in peace, but let it be quick.

John Evans

PS: Yes, politics is back here in Syntagma. Death is too weighty a subject not to pronounce upon.

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We’ve been beavering away at this for quite a while. Our new company, Local Ventures Online, will launch Devon & Cornwall Online around June 15.

Designed by Swedish web maestro Thord Hedengren, the site is a hybrid between a local newspaper and a classy weblog.

It’s also an advertising vehicle across a number of local and national fields, concentrating on familar categories, like Holidays, Property, Finance, Professionals … and many more.

There are some great deals for advertisers in the first three months, while we tweak and add complexity, so get in quick before all the prime positions are taken. We’ve already got banners for Sainsbury’s, Scottish Widows, World Vision and, yes, Syntagma Media, among others.

Don’t lose out on our bonanza introductory offers. In the first instance, contact: john@syntagmamedia.com for an electronic ratecard.

From the heights of our self-imposed ordinance of “No politics”, you might be led to believe that there’s very little else to write about.

I’ll admit the air is very thin up here on the moral high ground, but there really is something to get worked up about apart from the dismal state of the nation. What, you may ask?

Why, the Archbishop of Canterbury, of course.

I’ve written a few pieces recently on the state of the Church and of Christianity (see the footer of this article), suggesting that the Gospels are allegories of a process used by early mystics with a universal truth for us in our scientific age.

The texts suffered the indignity of being converted into quasi-historical documents for the political purposes of the Roman Empire.

Rowan Williams, the current incumbent at Lambeth Palace, often gives the impression of being a thoroughly wet liberal who takes the soft option on every issue of our age. His undoubted intellect is seen as a barrier to both truth and communication — Gordon Brown in a cassock.

But wait, who is this speaking from the pages of Friday’s Daily Telegraph?

Addressing the Hay Festival of Literature on author Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, the Archbishop says, “First of all he takes the Christian myth, or a version of it, seriously enough to want to disagree passionately about it.”

Leaving aside the impression of clutching at straws, look at the words: Christian myth. Slip of the tongue, perhaps? Or the realization that a modern audience simply won’t take the infantilized story presented to us as fact any more?

I believe many theologians in the Church, whether of England or Rome, know this to be true. One historical Cardinal is said to have remarked, “The Jesus myth has served us well down the years”. Is Rowan Williams echoing that sentiment, but in a less cynical way?

Williams continues, “It’s not just dull or remote, it’s dangerous. You’ve got to tussle with it. It’s still alive.” The words of a mystic indeed.

But he’s not a pushover. He disagrees with Pullman’s atheism, but likes his “search for some way of talking about human value, human depth and three-dimensionality, that doesn’t depend on God.” By this he means Blake’s and Michaelangelo’s depiction of the Creator as an old bearded man looking down on us from a very great height. Inner resources can carry us much farther than a rigid anthropomorphism.

Then, something very intriguing: religious authorities shouldn’t “silence the demons” that people carry with them, the essential internal conversation between good and evil. C.G. Jung could not have put it better.

“The threat in Pullman’s novels,” he goes on, “is the Authority — people like me in his imagination — which wants to divide the human spirit and cut off and silence that demonic voice, that voice of the imagination.” Or even that voice of experience, he might have said.

I think this is a very significant moment for the old Church of England. Coming close to pantheism, or at least panentheism — where everything is God, even our enemies — the Archbishop speaks with the real voice of mysticism.

In these dark times, the inalienable lightness of darkness does need to be explained. Rowan Williams may well be its establishment prophet.

Who would have thought it?

John Evans

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I’ve decided to give up writing about politics on this site. The reason is that, with a new business to run, there simply isn’t time.

Writing about politics is an all-consuming activity. It glues you to 24-hour news almost 24/7. It entices you to read all the serious newspapers and political magazines every day of the year. Add to that, time spent trawling the internet, Googling for clarifications and chasing up leads, plus the background research and fact-checking.

Instead, Syntagma will revert to type and concentrate on a melange of finance, philosophy and technology as in days of yore.

I know I shall be tempted to dip inky fingers into the increasingly murky waters as the British General Election gets near, but be assured Reader, my resolve will hold.

Except, of course, to raise a hearty cheer, and glass, when David Cameron walks into 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister.

The rest is silence …

John Evans

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Bank holiday mornings are usually dreary affairs, endured to the sounds of shrieking children and rain on the windowpanes.

This morning, as compensation, we have a few zingy articles in the press to cheer us up. Over at The Guardian, Jackie Ashley refers to David Cameron’s exceptional “chutzpah” — does she mean chutney?

When was the last time such positive thoughts for a Tory leader pinged from the bullet banks of the old Manchester teeth-grinder? I mean the paper, not Jackie Ashley.

So, let’s dig liberally into the chutney and hope that chutzpah is enough to win the next General Election.

I thought Dave looked a little chubby on Andrew Marr yesterday. Maybe he’s at the chutney too.

Boris Johnson was also heard moving in the undergrowth again at The Telegraph. Adding to the din of calls for a swift General Election he cites the dreadful state of legislation spewed out during the last 12 years. We need a House of Rebels, he writes, and, by implication, not shoppers and diners-out.

Why do many Tories sound so Cromwellian now? Aren’t they supposed to be Cavaliers, not Roundheads? Boris is a born Cavalier. A feather in his cap would utterly transform him.

But he’s right. We do need Parliamentarians for a complex technological age: MPs who will cut up badly drafted law and hurl it back at a slipshod Executive, forcing it to do better. Perhaps some Eton schoolmasters should be drafted in.

The floor of the House needs the capability to overcome government when it underperforms. That means a much higher quality of MP. Falling back on Esther Rantzen and Joanna Lumley would be total desperation. How good has Glenda Jackson been? Or Gyles Brandreth? Or that Leftie Shakespearean actor who went to Brussels?

Horses for courses. Ask any bookie.

But Derby winners, please.

Since we’re all in a rather bilious mood of rebellion against our leaders, here are two possible reforms to Government off the top of my head.

1. American Cabinets are not drawn from Congress as a rule. They are normally appointed from distinguished experts and public servants. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, for example, was at the New York Federal Reserve before the call came from Washington. Like us, there’s probably not the talent or expertise among career politicians on Capitol Hill.

Would they want to mop up 100 or so of the people who vote the money and pass laws for everyone? The “separation of powers” is bigger in the States than here, although I believe we invented the concept. Maybe that’s what’s gone wrong.

Gordon Brown tried a similar idea with his GOATS (government of all the talents). One by one the goatlings have fallen by the wayside, usually for lacking political savvy. Lord Myners slipped up over Fred the Shred’s pension. Others have left to take up motor racing, or got caught out for being human — a dreadful sin these days.

Digby Jones was probably the best, but he was stuck in some minor post as Prince Andrew’s bag-carrier. One suspects Brown’s heavy-handed incompetence destroyed the exercise.

Cabinet Ministers, especially Secretaries of State, must be selected from the best we have. They should also be vetted by Parliament before they are confirmed in office.

Prime Ministers must not have it all their own way. Often, as with Brown and Blair, they are the blockages that keep excellence out of government.

2. Why should leaders in the Commons choose the people who will revise their legislation in the Lords? Let’s remove the government’s power to stuff the second chamber with its placemen.

If you were up on a murder charge, you’d be astonished if you could choose anyone you wanted for the jury.

Improvements, such as these, need to be made now, when politicians are weak. The tragedy is, the old system ensures only they can make the necessary changes.

And turkeys don’t voluntarily jump into ovens at Christmas.

Gorbals Mick, otherwise known as the Speaker of the House of Commons, is almost history now.

But do you remember the Gorbals Die-hards? They were in a different class from the old black-robed sheet-metal worker.

You don’t recall them? Maybe Dickson McCunn will jog your memory. A retired Glasgow grocer, High Class, of course, Dickson — in his sixties — was the self-appointed leader of the Die-hards, who were a group of young boy tearaways, led by their Chieftan, Dougal. I wonder how that juxtaposition would play in today’s climate?

No, then how about Huntingtower? Or The House of the Four Winds?

Last chance: John Buchan.

Yes, I hear you shout — a bit late, if you ask me.

I left out the third book in the series, Castle Gay, because it’s taken on a wholly different meaning since Buchan’s day. More Graham Norton than Richard Hannay.

I mention the Die-hards because not everything narrow, puce-faced and boring came out of the Gorbals. The novels are wonderful confections of adventure, fights to the death, swashbuckling characters, and the kind of wild possibilities that appeal to teenage boys (and many older ones) almost everywhere.

It would be an interesting experiment to try out Huntingtower, written in 1922, on a modern comp-educated class of teens. Once they got over the very different morality and beliefs of the post-WW1 world, I’m sure the exhilaration of the story, far-fetched as it is, would grip them. After all how far does Harry Potter demand the suspension of disbelief?

You can download the Gutenburg version of the novel here.

I picked up my copies from a secondhand bookshop while still at school. They were very tattered but part of that great orange Penguin series that can still be found on sale all over the country.

I mention all this because every time I see Gorbals Mick presiding over the House, I think what a disapointment he would be to Wee Jaikie and the other Die-hards.

One of the great journalistic duels is taking place in the Business section of the Sunday Telegraph.

In the blue corner: Ambrose “Mr Deflation” Evans-Pritchard. In the red corner: Liam “Mr Inflation” Halligan.

Both are brilliant journalists and masters of their field. They differ in their assessment of the current economic circumstances, especially for the United Kingdom.

Ambrose admits to being “tortured by self-doubt” over his analysis. Liam is ruggedly certain of his.

Ambrose believes “two-thirds of the world will be in deflation by July”. Liam points to the climbing oil price which will wipe out all the stimulus effects of quantitative easing.

I suspect that both are right. Some parts of the world will fall into deflation — many countries already have. But inflation is the underlying wealth-destroying genie that has, once again, popped out of the bottle, thanks to Central Banks and politicians covering their backs against a 1930s-style Armageddon.

It may be a few years down the road, though, and deflation has to be fought now, as the Bank of England implies by its continuing policy of buying gilts. But it will let rip eventually.

As always, it’s a case of Up-To-A-Pointism. We are nowhere near out of the woods yet.

Once again the European Union is interfering in the running of the British state.

Not content with forcing us to adopt the useless mercury-filled light bulbs prescribed by them, we are now expected to switch from Watts — named after a fine Scottish gentleman — to “lumens”, a continental concoction that means nothing to the British.

Soon a size 9 shoe will become a 43, calories will be “joules”, after a long-forgotten Frenchman, and the English Channel will be called the German Waterway.

Why do these things happen? Because our politicians are not worth the spit they lick on their freebie postage stamps.

John Evans

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I’m always on the lookout for useful vignettes of what is wrong with the present British government. There are many naturally, but yesterday the perfect example appeared on the BBC.

Reporter Richard Bilton drew our attention to the extensive recording of every journey we make on major roads across the country.

Each time we stray off the country lanes, our number-plates are recorded by “sophisticated” software, checked for dodginess — undefined — and logged on a massive and growing database somewhere in the heart of … who knows where.

The police and other “agencies” of government are able to access this information at will, and use it in whatever way they see fit. Bilton’s point was that no one regulates this activity. Indeed, it’s hard to see how anyone could.

First, he approached the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, and asked who regulates the information. On camera, Thomas said, “We don’t regulate the police’s use of this information”. No one does.

Bilton trudged along to the Home Secretary, the infamous Jacqui Smith. With that wide-eyed and terrified expression common to many MPs these days, she tumbled out her answer to the same question: “The police are regulated by law and the Information Commission …”.

Bilton replied that Richard Thomas had told him they are not regulated by them.

Smith shot back, “We will have to look at that again and at further legislation”.

Call me pedantic but, was she lying, or didn’t she know that the Information Commissioner was not charged with checking this practice? Either way, she should be sacked.

But then that’s typical of the way Labour fudges every aspect of its performance. Jacqui Smith is just not very good at dissembling the facts, try though she might. We’ve become so used to it, we tend to shrug it off now. We shouldn’t. It’s yet another fraudulent element in the “new politics”.

I once worked at the Central Office of Information in Hercules House, London, centre of the government’s information service. The COI has a distinguished reputation stretching back to the war. Since 1997, the operation has been taken over by red-top tabloid journalists and bears little resemblance to its old independent role.

Therein lies the faultline at the heart of this government. There’s nobody charged with standing back in total neutrality and assessing real-time performance, compliance, and the fundamental integrity of the system. Sham operations pass for oversight.

Gordon Brown, who has dominated domestic decision-making for 12 years, first as Chancellor, now as Prime Minister, has run a Brezhnevian Soviet system of government.

The Supreme Soviet is centred on Downing Street, not Parliament, which has atrophied disastrously under his regime.

Local soviets — or quangos, as they are called — run almost everything below central government level and are populated by carefully selected members of the tribe. They genuflect automatically to everything that Downing Street wants, without being told. Thus, if they slip up, as is usually the case, no smoking gun is found that can implicate the Supremo in the cock up.

This is typical of revolutionary cadres throughout history, as they seize power for themselves and mangle every decent impulse in the system.

They then destroy the national culture piece by piece. For without that, no sense of coherence remains. What was once “a people” becomes putty in the hands of cynical operatives who “do politics” in place of governing for all.

We have been had. Taken over by a political class whose motives are not of these islands but of distant lands dominated by warlords and mercenaries. They have polluted the system, destroyed the economy, the Constitution, and our country.

Forget calling for “time to reflect”, as many are, we must get rid of them now. A General Election is the foremost imperative of our times.

John Evans

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Imagine you are a hardened criminal who has just stolen the Crown Jewels.

Would you (a) melt down the gold and sell off the gems to handpicked buyers associated with the underworld? Or (b) declare them to Companies House as assets on your balance sheet?

The ludicrous declaration by Sir Peter Viggers of the creation of a floating island for his ducks as an aid to his Parliamentary duties, places him firmly in the Laurel and Hardy camp. He made £1600 from the act, but I’m sure he didn’t need it.

There’s a lot of that around. MPs are illustrating just how inept they would be if ever they decided to walk on the wild side of the law. The real question is, does that make them unfit for public office, or, in an endearing sort of way, does it reveal their fundamental honesty?

The Tory claims are generally more colourful than Labour’s. Douglas Hogg’s moat is a good example. You can imagine him exclaiming, “Doesn’t everyone claim for their moat on expenses?”

We’re into darker territory with the many MPs who avoided Capital Gains Tax on a house sale by “flipping” the designation of the property to that of their main residence. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, no less, did this four times in four years. He was in effect indulging in property speculation at public expense. Surely he can’t survive?

Again, to put this in perspective, many buy-to-let landlords do something similar when offloading one of their properties. The technique is to rent out your own house and move into the flat or house you want to sell. Once you’ve been there for six months it becomes your main residence for tax purposes and can be sold without paying CGT. I’m told it’s a common practice in the trade.

Surely the Revenue has cracked that one by now, you may ask? Apparently not. The law lays down the six-month rule, and it’s not illegal to move from house to house. Shady, but within the rules.

The Secretary for Communities and Local Government, that walking rictus Hazel Blears, managed this, we are told, three times in one year without, apparently, actually moving in. A bit excessive? It’s still said to be “within the law”. And the law is made by Parliament.

Clearly, Members of Parliament have to have higher standards than your average Dell Boy down the Mile End Road. There can be no excuse for endearing incompetence for the important folk who make the rules the rest of us have to abide by on pain of increasingly draconian penalties. Laurel and Hardy are for Hollywood not Westminster.

Someone has to draw the line somewhere and it can’t be Gordon Brown. He’s too implicated in the wreckage of everything he’s touched over the past 12 years.

What’s much worse than the occasional Stan and Ollie is a calculating manipulator who deliberately turns every decision and action to his own, and his cronies’, advantage.

Brown is severely damaged goods and must relinquish the reins of power before the fumigation of government begins.

Duckgate is a passing amusement. Smile, and move on. There are much more threatening characters to remove from public life.

Let’s not be diverted. Bring on that General Election now!

John Evans

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There’s a lot brewing this morning, including PMQs, an election leak, and general discussion of the state of Parliament.

Let’s start with an intriguing snippet: an apparently inadvertent leak of Gordon Brown’s election intentions by Labour Chief Whip, Nick Brown, one of the PM’s closest confidants.

The picture shows a Twitter post from N. Brown to Labour MP, Austin Mitchell. Since the new Speaker will be installed around June 22, that means an August or September election will be called in July, give or take a few weeks.

The Twitter account was subsequently taken down. Oooops!

This is, of course, a breach of protocol. A Dissolution should be a request from Prime Minister to Monarch, not blabbed about on Twitter.

Nick Brown’s head sits uneasily on his shoulders today.

Via Iain Dale’s Diary

Don’t throw out 646 babies with the bathwater
In his press conference last evening, Gordon Brown was in “Save the world” mode — again.

Having done his bit to subvert and corrupt Parliament over the past 12 years, Brown now poses as the Great Reformer on a personal mission to clean up politics. One could be excused for feeling physically sick during his performance.

Do we want this moral wreck of a man to poke about in the soul of our Constitution? I can hear the howls of rage from here in deepest Devon.

We are now to have a new Speaker foisted on us by a Labour dominated House of Commons, and promoted, I’ve no doubt, by the man who gave us Michael Martin.

I’m rapidly coming to what might be called the Widdy Option — after Ann Widdecombe — of a temporary Speaker (Widdy herself?) to see out the remainder of this Parliament.

Already, leftish commentators are writing about a totally new Constitution, where sovereignty will rest with “the people”, not Parliament. That effectively abolishes the Constitutional Monarchy, characterized by the “Queen in Parliament”.

Let’s get this straight, the public is not angry with the Queen, or even Parliament. The general anger is targeted on Gordon Brown himself and the pig of a party he leads. In the mood of the times, my profound apologies to pigs everywhere.

Constitutional change must begin with what we want to retain, not what the Left wants to get rid of. That means the great principles that underpin the system and hold the revolutionaries at bay.

What we must chuck out is the class-based shop steward system introduced by a sizeable block of Scottish cronies around Brown, including Michael Martin. That should be dumped into landfill at a depth at which it’s unrecoverable.

Only a Conservative Government under David Cameron can do this with full public confidence.

If Nick Brown is right about the election, we may yet enjoy the glorious summer promised us by the Met Office.

PMQs
Two very entertaining encounters between the Opposition leaders and Gordon Brown were laid out before us at this morning’s Prime Minister’s Questions.

David Cameron once again shone a searching light on Brown’s inadequacies.

He spat out his first question: why did the PM say that a quick General Election would mean “chaos”?

Brown tried so hard to be slick but, as usual, stumbled oafishly. Because a Conservative Government would mean spending cuts, he gloated.

Eh? Don’t we have the highest government debt in peacetime history, one which our grandchildren will still be paying off?

Cameron left that hanging in the air by chortling: so he acknowledges the Conservatives will win the election then!

Spending cuts, mouthed Brown, cutting his own throat in the process.

I counted only four questions by Cameron, but they ended in a flurry of fury with his peroration, which left Brown in no-man’s land. “The Prime Minister calls an election chaos. I call it change. When can we have one?”

Spending cuts …

Oh dear.

Cleggie was in cracking form again too, and facing an inevitable barrage of snorting from Labour proles. After his first question, Speaker Martin — yes, the old goat is still there — called someone else.

Clegg stood his ground. “I have two questions, Mr Speaker”.

Martin fumbled. “I thought you asked two questions in your first one.”

Clegg laughed it off and continued.

The Speaker is in demob mood and may be troublesome in the weeks ahead.

Syntagma’s Verdict:
Cameron, 8
Clegg, 7
Brown, 0.9
Martin, vanishingly small.

John Evans

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