Dr Crawford Gribben, a lecturer at the University of Manchester, has written an article for the Dutch newspaper Reformatorisch Dagblad (Reformational Newspaper).

The article is a pretty good explanation of what is wrong with the Labour Stazi and the Ignorant Jock becoming Prime Minister but is spoilt by it’s conclusion that it has given rise to petty English nationalism.

This week, the UK’s governing Labour party has been meeting in Manchester for its annual conference. I am writing this column on Monday, before the main debates test the cabinet’s resolution to focus on policies, not personalities, amid ongoing rows over the timing of Tony Blair’s departure from office and the choice of his successor. One thing, however, is clear. The path to the premiership demands different qualities now than it did when New Labour won their landslide victory in 1997.

Nine years and three general elections later, the United Kingdom has made significant progress in realising the constitutional revolution imagined by New Labour. The Bank of England has enjoyed over a decade of autonomous decision-making. The House of Lords has been substantially reformed. Most crucially of all, Wales, Scotland and, intermittently, Northern Ireland have been granted regional parliaments. England is now the only part of the United Kingdom to lack a regional parliament – and English resentment is growing.

Ironically, that resentment may be most troubling to the party that has done most to support these constitutional changes. The old Labour party, solidly of the left, depended for much of its support on the strongly working-class industrial areas of Scotland and Wales. This trend underscored the democratic deficit at the end of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership. Scottish voters opted overwhelmingly for a Labour government, but ended up being ruled by Conservatives, who had successfully mobilised their southern base. Labour has always depended upon that Scottish support, even as it appealed to swing voters and disillusioned Conservatives in the run-up to the 1997 election. The ’Scottishness’ of Labour support was a mainstay of that Labour victory. Nine years later, the ’Scottishness’ of front-bench politicians has become a major electoral problem.

Middle England’s suspicion of ’Scottishness’ has been illustrated in several recent polls about the suitability of the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to become the next Prime Minister. Brown has impeccable credentials. As the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, he entered the University of Edinburgh at the age of 16 and left several years later with a PhD in History and a network of useful political contacts. His early politics were clearly leftist, combining the Scottish labour movement’s class instincts with its traditionally Christian concerns. These early convictions have evolved. Brown has moved with New Labour towards the political centre. But he may now become the victim of English nationalist sentiments stirred up by his government’s preference for devolution.

The last few months have seen the collapse of the famed discipline of New Labour. Brownites and Blairites have briefed and counter-briefed. Old friends and enemies have released statements that seem designed to feed the controversy rather than move toward its resolution. But across New Labour’s political spectrum, activists agree that this is not the political landscape they inherited from Margaret Thatcher. Too much has changed. Scottish devolution has released the genie of England’s petty nationalisms.

The author is lecturer in Renaissance literature and culture at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom.

The Fat Turd yesterday apologised to the Labour conference for letting the party down over the past year.

I want an apology too for the last 9 years of being let down by this corrupt and inept ball of lard.  Prescott’s career in government has seen him split England into euroregions, the imposition of regional government against the will of the people in those euroregions, the demolition of thousands of homes for his Pathfinder project and no end of gaffes, incompetence, violence and border-line criminality.

The Fat Turd has announced at today’s Labour Stazi conference that he is going to resign as deputy prime minister when Princess Tony resigns as prime minister.

Thank christ for that.  If ever there was a reason for Labour Stazi members to press Bliar for an early departure this has got to be near the top of the list even for hardened Bliarites.

Princess Tony admits he’s finding it hard to let go.  It’s easy Tony …

Your Majesty,

I regret that I am no longer able to discharge my duties as Prime Minister.

Please accept my apologies for abusing the royal prerogative in taking your country into an illegal war.

I acknowledge that I have lost the support and respect of my peers and that my position is untenable.

Your disloyal servant,

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair

See, that wasn’t difficult – it took me all of 2 minutes to type that up.

Poor Gordon, he’s about as popular as the Pope in Mecca at the moment and all he’s trying to do is subject 50m English people to minority rule and apartheid.  I mean, where’s the problem in that?  He is proud to be British after all.

The Tartan Taxman (like Labour) doesn’t stand a chance without the support of the tabloids.  Most Labour voters are, shall we say, more comfortable with the tabloids than they are with the broadsheets, preferring stories about 14 year old single mums on heroin giving birth to triplets in the back seat of a Ford Cortina than stories about things that actually affect our lives or are actually real.

Unfortunately for Britishness Brown, the Mirror has decided to give him a kicking to co-incide with the non-launch of his not-a-leadership-campaign.

Paul Routledge has written a piece for his column in the Mirror explaining, in layman’s terms, why it is wrong for the Ignorant Jock to be Prime Minister.  He also tells us that a recent poll in Yorkshire asking if Gordon Brown would make a good Prime Minister came back with a result of 3% thinking he would and 97% saying he wouldn’t.  Yorkshire is a reasonably supportive are for Labour and the heir apparent to Princess Tony‘s throne can’t even muster up more than 3% support.

The article is mostly good apart from his parting shot which suggests that not supporting Brown because he is North British might be racist which, when he’s just gone to great lengths to explain that the issue is where he’s elected and not his nationality, is a bit weak and apologetic.

Hat-tip: The CEP