The Changing of the Guard

The Times indeed are a changin’. Over here in Blighty we’re about to continue a long standing tradition of stabbing the Prime Minister in the back and replacing him without any need for elections and other tomfoolery.

The Reverend Blair is going to mosey on out of Dodge this week. Interestingly he’s the first British politician to have been deposed by Hezbollah. True his Iraq adventure didn’t win him any friends outside the White House, but it was his refusal to call for a ceasefire in last year’s Israeli assault on Lebanon that stirred his backbenchers into action and knives were swiftly brought out, ending in the bizarre appearance of our PM in a London school begging to keep his job for a bit longer.

He thought that he could fight back and all the talk was about ‘securing his legacy’ – meaning Anyone But Brown for the leadership.

One by one, Brown has assassinated all his challengers, from the boyish David Milliband, who just didn’t have the bottle, to the fearsome John Reid, friend of Bosnian war criminals. It’s believed that a few select leaks dissuaded Reid from standing as there are plenty of tales from his heavy drinking days and then… there’s that wanted Bosnian mass murderer… Hard to spin that.

There’s only one left, the enormous Charles Clarke, whose career has hardly been a trail of success. He won’t stand. The Blairites are going to hunker down and watch Brown lose the next election and reclaim the throne. That’s the plan anyway.

So our gloomy and, in the words of our top spin doctor, ‘psychologically flawed’ Brown is expected to be leader of the party and PM soon. True there will be a matter of a leadership election, the left of the party have put up two candidates in order to shoot themselves in the foot. John O’Donnell was the first to announce that he would run and has quietly been working away in the background. Michael Meacher and his ego also pitched for the left vote. One is expected to stand down, but who? the industrious O’Donnel or the vain Meacher.

The election will be a farce, expect lots of platitudes about a united front, ending division etc. Brown will win and there are rumours that he may call a snap election in September.

Assuming the party can afford it. Blair and his cash for honours antics has left the party bankrupt and with no donor wanting to come forward.

It’s come to our attention that George hasn’t long to go either and this is why some wags have decided to give him a lesson in civility and decorum. Our Monarchy has few real functions but they can be wheeled out to gently chastise the inferiors and show them how it should be done – in a very English way.

So Liz and Phil went to the States to show George how to be regal. It has to be said that he does scrub up rather well, even if he lacks the intelligence to realise he’s being insulted. At least the main concern isn’t if Phil’s going to start insulting people, but how George will behave.

If Liz looks a bit bored, you must remember she’s seen many Presidents and world leaders. George is just a blip on her radar and he’s had his card marked since the previous visit when his dad was running the shop and George asked her ‘Who’s the black sheep in your family?’

There are times when even the hardest republican feels sorry for the monarchy. Poor Liz sits there whilst George tries to remember what century it is. Even Reagan had a better grasp of time.

“She shot me a look only a mother could give a child”. Quite.

Still, she got to see the races, sadly Hunter Thompson wasn’t there to show her around – Harry would have loved that! Next she’s off to NASA where she’ll spend part of the day fantasising about launching Camilla into orbit.