People in glass house shouldn't throw stones is the old saying... and here is Britain, great critics of the inefficiencies of the American polling system particularly in Florida in the year 2000, suffering the sort of problems one would more often equate with a third world country in its own elections last week. People who were entitled to vote, not being allowed to do so, and no system in place to take care of some clear deficiencies in the procedures.
Unseemly rows taking place in polling stations - where voters with a genuine grievance were being denied the opportunity to express their views by voting. Look, it doesn't actually matter whether those votes would have made much of a difference to the overall result. The fact is they were entitled to have their say and it was denied. Britain's former (I presume) foreign minister would have been on his feet quickly enough if something like this had happened in, for example, Africa. Saying words like Britain “…deplored the discouraging setback this was to democracy”.
And if all of this wasn't enough, you now have an unelected Prime Minister, whose political party whichever way you cut it lost the election, deciding to stay in the Prime Minister's residence. Whatever happened to gentlemanly conduct? Is he suddenly going to try and change the constitution and introduce martial law or some such nonsense, just so he can stay where he is? No, let's be honest, thatis rather far fetched even for me to suggest. But is he hoping seriously to try and do a deal with the Liberal Democrats, and the other smaller parties so that he can have a go at staying in power? Clearly not if the media headline today is correct which read "A diatribe laced with threats: Brown vents rage in furious call to Clegg as talks resume between Lib Dems and Tories".
It is reported that Mr. Clegg is no fan of Mr. Brown anyway, so this will have done nothing to provide a smooth path for discussions, were the talks with Cameron to fail and talks with Labour Party representatives became an option.
So, where do we go from here?
There is enough reporting in the newspaper to keep everyone advised, albeit not necessarily informed, about the state of play in Britain politically, and I really should return to writing about other things. But there are some serious issues that emanate out of Britain today from a purely financial perspective. Agreement needs to be reached soon in Britain. It should be reached between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. I do not think that the Tories should try and go it alone, even though it might just be possible, as it will just waste time and create delays in making a start on the much needed focus being brought to bear on an economy that has been destroyed over the last few years. A focus shared by both of those political parties.
Failure to move is going to put Britain in a more difficult financial situation than it already is; few measures will be popular, and the party therefore likely to benefit politically in the long term will possibly be a rejuvenated Labour Party, as they will not be the ones taking the measures - but if those measures are not taken, the British people are going to wake one morning to witness the same street scenes as we have already seen in Greece... lots of glass and lots of stones.
There were many things Dr. Mahathir said that were poorly received in the West (sometimes it was due to the way the message was delivered) but, as you point out, history has shown that in many cases he had a valid point. The flawed "you're not important enough to matter" attitude of the West towards Asia has certainly been brought into question more than once lately.
Posted by: David Eldon | 10 May 2010 at 15:18
Mr Eldon
Your article ( particular the criticism levelled by the Brits to the Americans on the Florida vote) reminds me of what the west say about Mahathir's action plan following the Asian crisis. Years later the American did the same thing re the bailout etc etc.The Asian people or rather the governments were 'hammered'by the west for their poor management of the economy, transparency, corruption etc etc.
Its time for the west to look within and perhaps learn one or two things from the Asian people...
Posted by: wzwz | 10 May 2010 at 13:53