Comments on: Why Gordon Brown? http://www.randomvariable.co.uk/blog/2008/10/13/why-gordon-brown/ Musings on political science and sociology from Bloomsbury Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:14:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Matt Cole http://www.randomvariable.co.uk/blog/2008/10/13/why-gordon-brown/comment-page-1/#comment-26602 Matt Cole Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:29:34 +0000 http://www.randomvariable.co.uk/blog/?p=193#comment-26602 The fact that the US has checks and balances to stop stupid plans, does mean it cannot react quickly. That's true. But if you look back at how hype turns everything into a 'crisis', I must admit, I prefer the US system, even when its shooting itself in the foot. Its not a matter of pride that 'saviour of the world (tm)' can act without anyone actually looking at his plans. If the UK actually had a Budget Office, he would at least have to wait a bit for independent testing of how everything was going to work. Wether its the best thing at the moment, the US has Congress, Economic Councils, Budgetary offices, a proactive Audit department instructed by Senate..... lots of barriers. Ok, pork is added later, but at least the initial idea is vaguely coherent. The main reason GB and AD moved so quickly to be leading the fight, is that they had failed at any other sort of politics. The old school mixture of weak nationalism and strained social democracy perhaps could have worked, but Nicolas Sarkozy proved how to marry both together and actually seem charismatic. Both had to run to a home pitch of technocracy. The key success of Obama was too make technocracy seems like radicalism. It would be harsh to expect the same of Brown...... Rant over... :D The fact that the US has checks and balances to stop stupid plans, does mean it cannot react quickly. That’s true. But if you look back at how hype turns everything into a ‘crisis’, I must admit, I prefer the US system, even when its shooting itself in the foot.

Its not a matter of pride that ’saviour of the world ™’ can act without anyone actually looking at his plans. If the UK actually had a Budget Office, he would at least have to wait a bit for independent testing of how everything was going to work. Wether its the best thing at the moment, the US has Congress, Economic Councils, Budgetary offices, a proactive Audit department instructed by Senate….. lots of barriers. Ok, pork is added later, but at least the initial idea is vaguely coherent.

The main reason GB and AD moved so quickly to be leading the fight, is that they had failed at any other sort of politics. The old school mixture of weak nationalism and strained social democracy perhaps could have worked, but Nicolas Sarkozy proved how to marry both together and actually seem charismatic. Both had to run to a home pitch of technocracy. The key success of Obama was too make technocracy seems like radicalism. It would be harsh to expect the same of Brown……

Rant over… :D

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