This very English man has all the right stuff to be the next Prime Minister of England. His name is David Cameron. He was elected as the new leader of the opposition Conservative Party yesterday, primarily because he’s every bit as young (at 39), telegenic, impudent and glib as current PM Tony Blair was when he was catapulted to the leadership of the Labour Party at the politically precocious age of 41.
And, if they stick to their let’s emulate Labour’s 1994 to 1997 playbook (1997 being the year Blair upset incumbent PM John Major to win his first election), it’s very likely that the Conservatives will be returned to government – with Cameron moving into the Prime Minister’s residence at No. 10 Downing Street – after the next general elections.
Beyond aping Blair, the Conservatives are bound to derive immeasurable benefit in their campaign to unseat Labour from the ongoing internecine battles between Blair and Deputy PM Gordon Brown (the very impatient Prime Minister-in-waiting) that have beset the Party for years. Because it is an open secret in Britain that, despite Blair’s re-election to an historic 3rd term just months ago, Brown is already conspiring and conniving to push him out of No. 10.
Allegedly, it was (and perhaps remains) the nature of their arrogant ambition that Blair and Brown struck a deal in the early 1990s in which Blair promised to serve only 2 terms as prime minister, and then resign so that Brown could assume leadership of the Labour Party and, in due course, the premiership. But, evidently, Blair became so intoxicated with the power of his position that he reneged on the deal and decided to run for that historic 3rd term; and, thereby, turned his most trusted (and capable) political ally into an almost mortal enemy.
In fact, given the undermining tactics these two perpetrated against each other in the run-up to this year’s elections, it’s a wonder they won. But, just as internecine squabbles doomed Al Gore’s ambition to succeed the inimitable Bill Clinton as U.S. president in 2000, it seems fated that similar squabbles will doom Brown’s ambition to succeed Tony Blair as British prime minister.
Note: It behooves Brown to appreciate that Gore would have been elected president in 2000 if he’d won a majority of votes in Clinton’s home state of Arkansas. But he was so filled with hatred towards Clinton – at the end of Clinton’s 2nd term – that Gore allowed personal emotion to spite his political ambition when he rebuffed Clinton’s offer to rally support for him in that state.
Stay tuned…
News and Politics
Anonymous says
i could not resist another side note on al gore. if the former senator had simply won his own state (even michael dukakis managed this task), then he would have been no. 41…..
Anonymous says
the other side of this coin between clinton-gore and blair-brown is that blair might secretly wish to see brown fail out of spite. I wonder if clinton hasn’t gloated over gore’s failure especially since even his wife hillary will probably benefit from his political genius to become president.
anthony mayer says
Correction: This will still be the prime minister of BRITAIN, OR THE UK, not ‘England’. For those prejudiced yanks (myself being an independently minded Frenchie), England is only a region country and it never was a country by itself. As for the democratic principle of self-determination, less than 20 percent of Scottish people want to secede from the UK, and far less in Wales or other parts of the British Isles. The proportion of Sicilians, or Lombardy Italians, or Basque country ‘Spaniards” who would like to split from the rest of the nation ranks quite higher than that. Yet, Americans still relate to these places as 100% Spanish or Italians (ditto for Corsica or Brittany, Alsasce in France).