Justice Litle provides a status report on our British compadres. Will the peeling onion devour Gordon Brown?
"We’ll start with Britain - not an adopter of the euro, but a member of the EU (European Union) nonetheless. Britain has been hurled into political chaos, thanks to an unholy combo of deep financial crisis, explosive Labour Party scandals, and the hapless lame-duck status of embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Cabinet Ministers are resigning left and right in protest as Brown’s popularity plummets, calling for the PM to step down. Election results tallied this week showed the Labour Party (Brown’s party) putting in its worst showing since 1918."
"Philip Stevens, chief political commentator for the Financial Times, sees an ominous chain of events now set in motion. “Everyone thought the [election] results would be bad,” Stephens reports. “But these [results] are calamitous... the Prime Minister was prepared, if you like, for very bad results. He’s now got to grapple with absolutely terrible results.”
"If the Brown government fails, Britain will be left rudderless in the midst of the worst fiscal storm in decades. In a worst-case scenario where bad events lead to worse decisions, opines Stephens, the domino chain could even lead to a British exit from the EU."
"This outbreak of chaos is awful and unsettling for the British economy - and by extension awful and unsettling for Europe. As of this writing, it is not yet clear whether Prime Minister Brown can survive a political coup... or even whether he would be better off resigning, Dick Nixon style, in the interest of sparing greater turmoil."
The entire article:
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/litle/2009/0610.html
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