It was eight years ago today that I started this website – it seems a world away from now as we look to another new year with, mostly, very different faces among the world’s leaders.

I had recently come out of hospital after a life-threatening illness and some of the events of October and November passed me by. I had been an excited follower of Barrack Obama’s campaign for the American presidency and I had heard some news of things going wrong with the international banking system. I think, if I remember correctly, that I was feeling optimistic about the future. Then I suffered a major brain haemorrhage that took me away from current affairs until around the time that I started to write these pages.

Eight years on, I’m now completely recovered but I wish I could say the same about the world as we leave 2016 for a worrying 2017.

So who were our leaders in 2008? I was surprised to see just how different things were then. Take a look.

Well, yes, all seemed possible when Barrack Obama was elected president and we shall miss him when he stands down in just three weeks time. If the Republicans in Congress hadn’t set out to block his every move, we’d have had more of his legacy than Obamacare, Marriage Equality,  the Paris climate change summit, the Iran nuclear deal, the death of Osama bin Laden, and that sense of the  world’s strongest country being in the hands of a civilised, benign and intelligent progressive. Congress, to its eternal shame, consistently blocked his attempts at gun reform and at closing the infamous Guantanamo Bay.  He knew what he wanted as far as America’s wars were concerned and stuck to his principles, mostly, over limiting American army ‘boots on the ground’ even if the results were the rise of ISIS, the tragedy of Syria and the rise and rise of those frightening drones. In spite of the down bits, I shall be sorry to see him go.

He may have been a grumpy old thing but Gordon Brown was a great deal more than just a safe pair of hands when he succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister of the United Kingdom. Britain doesn’t like to admit it these days but  without Mr Brown at the helm when the great 2008 financial crash occurred,  Britain’s  economy could have gone through the floor with catastrophic results for employment, industry and what was then  hopeful signs in the country’s health and education systems. Well, he was chucked out and, yes, the rest is history. I wonder how many people would have voted him out if they could see where we are today.

The political alternative for Britain in 2008 was the pleasant enough but hopelessly upper class David Cameron whose idealism and cynicism was mostly held  in equal balance due to his posh debating society view of serious issues. In the end he was always going to be alright, no matter what happened to the rest of us.

There was a new kid on Britain’s political block in those days – the fresh-faced, bright-eyed and new-sounding Liberal-democrat leader, Nick Clegg.  Britain, in optimistic mood, thought for a time that he would be a genuine dose of fresh air for a country too long governed by the two major parties. It didn’t quite work out that way but, for a moment, he sounded like a nice British Barrack Obama.

There may have been some fresh smiling faces at the top of the West’s political parties, but it was a harsh and brutal world out there in 2008. No single figure haunted our imaginations more than the head of that murderous organisation Al Qaeda, whose shadow darkened all our lives with its members’ policy of mass murder in their blasphemous rewriting of the great faith of Islam.

Other leaders who sat pretty on the horrors of their regimes in 2008 were also perverters of Islam – Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Bashar al-Assad of Syria. It seemed, back then, that they would be the next candidates to fall, when early signs of the 2011 Arab Spring painted these men as political dinosaurs. If only. Libya got shot of Gaddafi but it is now in chaos and, well, Syria, with Assad still stuck to its boots like a piece of old sticky tape,  has become the biggest tragedy since the Second World War.

Iran didn’t feel much better in 2008 under the premiership of the wild-eyed and wild-mannered Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who managed to remain leader in spite of, or because of, his indifference to human rights,  international relations, diplomacy or the dire economic consequences of his ultra conservative political agenda. People have forgotten how big a deal Obama’s  2016 Iran Nuclear Deal actually was. Please take note President-elect Trump.

In 2008, unlike most other Middle Eastern governments, Israel and the Palestinian Authority were being led by two intelligent, diplomatic and peace-loving men in Salam Fayyad of the P.A. and much-missed (and now disgraced) Ehud Olmert of Israel. When chaos was looming elsewhere in that region, there were reasons for hope in these tow prime ministers negotiating skills but, as we now know, their efforts led nowhere.

Meanwhile China was basking in the faint light of Paramount Leader Hu Jintao who, in spite of the financial catastrophes elsewhere, succeeded in building up the Chinese economy to such an extent that it was only time before we all got to realise that soon China was going to be the world’s next economic super power. It was he who managed to build the economy without releasing his government’s tight hold on repressing any possible social liberalisation.  China’s current Paramount Leader,  Ji Xinping is a bit nastier, just as economically savvy and just as careful not to give away many civil liberties but he’s far better than his rather dull predecessor at giving us a smiling face.

There was some hope too in 2008, in an uncaring kind of way, that the Eternal Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Il,  might have been not long for this world. Eternity in North Korean leaders, luckily, isn’t forever but, those optimists who thought that he might be replaced sooner rather than later by a younger, more liberal and West-friendly Eternal Leader, were to be sadly disappointed by an even worse example of the Korean Democratic People’s Party, unelected ruling dynasty.

And that leaves Europe – or rather the European Union. It might not have been all sweetness and light in the EU in 2008 but, in those days, we were all in it together. Germany and France leading the way, as usual, under chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy, with Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the colourful but ineffectual joker  having fun on the side, and prime minister Gordon Brown,  ideally suited to be Britain’s semi-detached representative who was loving it all really.  Who would’ve guessed? Whose worst nightmare really imagined BREXIT? Well, not me. Looking at this picture now, I feel quite nostalgic for those days when we thought Sarkozy and Merkel were heartless right-wingers and that things couldn’t get any worse.

Who would’ve thought too that the only leader that can claim to represent the West’s much strived-for liberal democracies, would be the perennial Angela Merkel? The way things are going in the USA and in Europe, we might all hope that she might one day become our very own  Eternal Leader.

Oh yes, I almost forgot… HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!

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I’ve been worried, as have many of you I’m sure, about the way our leaders here in Europe have been handling the economy. I don’t vote Conservative and never have but, even if I were a supporter of the Conservative party, I would have to admit that Britain is suffering under the worst government of my lifetime. Half-way through this parliament, they are trying to re-launch their reputation in our eyes but, sorry, no matter how many policy tinkering announcements they make this week, the central point has to remain that they are failing to sort the nation’s economy.

It seems a long time now since Gordon Brown’s government and it is now a lazy and oft-repeated mantra that the economic crisis was all his fault. Actually the opposite is true but we have chosen to forget that. Poor Gordon, one day, the history books will reassess his reputation and show that without his tough intelligence when the financial bubble burst back in 2008, we would all be in an even more serious mess than we are now.

Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama saw eye to eye at that time and while, Brown lost out to the feeble  Conservative-LibDem coalition in Britain, Obama won a second term and, hardly free from economic difficulties, he is sticking to the Obama-Brown doctrine. Looking from the devastated battlefield that is now Britain, I know which of the two countries is more likely to come out of this economic crisis any time soon.

I am not an economist, but I’m not a fool either and, for some time now, on these pages I have tried to plead the case for Obama-Brown while British chancellor George Osborne recklessly refused to back down from the austerity policy that is only just beginning to reveal its truly damaging potential. What do I know so don’t believe me but read the words of American economist Paul Krugman writing in yesterday’s New York Times. Paul Krugman is one of those brilliant journalists who can make the complexities of economics understandable to the likes of me, I just wish more people would listen to him. Here in Britain, we need to accept that we will never recover unless something is done about George Osborne.

“My spending is your income; your spending is my income. If everyone tries to slash spending at the same time, income will fall – and unemployment will soar…”

“In 2008…governments needed to step in, spending to support their economies while the private sector regained its balance. And to some extent that did happen: revenue dropped sharply in the slump, but spending actually rose as programs like unemployment insurance expanded and temporary economic stimulus went into effect. Budget deficit rose, but this was actually a good thing, probably the most important reason we didn’t have a full replay of the Great Depression. But it all went wrong in 2010. The crisis in Greece was taken, wrongly, as a sign that all governments had better slash spending and deficits right away. Austerity became the order of the day, and supposed experts who should have known better cheered the process on, while the warnings of some (but not enough) economists that austerity would derail recovery were ignored…”

“The really bad news is…(that) European leaders, having created Depression-level suffering in debtor countries without restoring financial confidence, still insist that the answer is more pain. The current British government, which killed a promising recovery by turning to austerity, completely refuses to consider the possibility that it made a mistake…. The truth is that we’ve just experienced a colossal failure of economic policy – and far too many of those responsible for that failure both retain power and refuse to learn from experience.” New York Times, 7th January 2013

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So, OK, Ed went to a comprehensive school, Nick is sorry and Dave’s just a regular guy. It is all true I”m sure but I think we have heard all this before. They are perfectly decent blokes I suspect, our political party leaders here in the UK, Dave Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband. I wouldn’t suggest sending any of them to Madame Guillotine or even to a Siberian salt mine but…..

…… it’s political conference time here in Britain We’ve had Labour and the Lib Dems and this week it is the Conservatives’ turn.

Now I’ve always been interested in politics. I acknowledge that we all have a responsibility to take it seriously – it is what democracy is all about. We need to decide who we support and vote for them but…..

…but what is it about these men, these nice blokes? Why am I so bored by them? Bored by what they have to say and bored by the fact that they are just saying what they think will trick me into voting for them.

I’m bored with being manipulated, by being talked at, marketed, seduced and tricked by these smooth tongued men and their army of PR advisers.

Maybe it is time to switch off the news and close the newspapers until these men wind up their PR events.

I know I am wrong to think this but, Ed, Nick and Dave, you bore the pants off me.

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

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Us being the people of the United Kingdom I mean, not us that great band of wolfiewolfgang.com readers who cross all national boundaries and most other superficial classifications too.

We often over-estimate our importance to the rest of the World as was seen this week when the British press and a number of politicians were bleating about the Hung Parliament saying that it had to be resolved in five minutes because of the financial markets which were wobbling.

Amazingly, as I suspect all of of us knew, it was nothing to do with us, it was all about the Greece economic crisis. When Europe acted to put together a financial package, the markets steadied even though Britain hadn’t been panicked into sorting out its election results. It has wobbled again this morning but rallied slightly too at the thought that there might be a Liberal-Labour coalition but it will sort itself out so let us remember that it was the markets who got us into our financial woes in the first place.

There was an opinion poll taken on the day after the General Election where 60% of the sample said that Gordon Brown should have resigned immediately because his party had lost the election.

Well, this position was as ill-thought through as the markets argument.

Gordon Brown would have left the country without a Prime Minister if he had gone last Friday and it gave me a nasty shudder to realize, after all the coverage of this unprecedented moment in our electoral system, that so many people in Britain could just simply not understand what is really going on.

No matter what party you support, or if you support none of them, there was no way that Gordon Brown disappearing last week would have been a good thing for the country. His announced resignation yesterday, on the other hand was considered and dignified. He has opened up the possibility of an alternative coalition to the Liberal-Conservative one and he has strengthened Mr. Clegg’s negotiating hand.

This petulant rushing into change just for the sake of it is a dangerous thing for the British newspapers to be fanning. Our politicians should not be hurtled into a quick fix when there are big issues to be discussed.

Mr Brown certainly did lose the election but so did Mr Cameron and, weirdly, in case you hadn’t noticed, so did Mr. Clegg. So did the Scottish Nationalists and Plaid Cymru too…..etc. etc.

No one party could govern alone so an agreement has to be had or we will have to hold another General Election. That, of course, would be unfortunate too at this time of financial crisis.

There is a majority of people in Britain who did not vote Conservative and there are not enough Conservative MPs to carry their legislation through Parliament so it is perfectly proper for us to look for the best and most stable combinations of elected MPs who can agree on enough principles to form a government. Let us let them sort this one out at a considered pace. It is, and would be if we change the electoral system, a perfectly normal way, and maybe a more intelligent way too, of sorting out who runs the country.

The newspapers are also blustering about Mr Brown’s resignation leaving the country with the possibility of another unelected Prime Minister. This would undoubtedly be true if the rather impressive (well he impresses Hilary Clinton) David Miliband becomes Labour Leader in a dynamic new relationship with the equally charming and impressive Nick Clegg. Let us not think that it is unusual though to have a Prime Minister who was not directly elected…..just looking back at previous Prime Ministers this was also true of Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home and James Callaghan.

We have to be careful and realize that there seems to be a natural divide in Britain at the moment. On one side is the Conservative Party and most of the national press and on the other side the majority of the electorate so, hey, don’t start giving up the struggle just because the newspapers tell you to.

So I make a plea to the British Press and its more gullible readers, let us all have a bit of patience and let the politicians thrash this out in a mature and responsible way. We had the TV debates, the exciting TV election coverage but this is not Big Brother or the X Factor, this is the governance of Britain.

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You have to be tough to be a politician.

Look at the three leaders of our main political parties here in Britain. They have been travelling round the country electioneering for weeks now, they have appeared in three long and very demanding television debates and now they have been up all night hearing the bad news.

News?

Yes. Nobody wants any of them.

Well, not entirely true. There is our first Green MP, Caroline Lucas. People love her and, no matter what your politics, you have to admire her intelligence, staying power and charm.

Caroline Lucas MP

The nice non-partisan Alliance Party candidate and mayor of Belfast, Naomi Long in Northern Ireland too had a whacking majority, defeating the depressing Peter Robinson, leader of the Northern Ireland Assembly and, I think we could feel the love when she won.

Naomi Long MP

There is that formidable Lady Hermon too, also in Northern Ireland, who fell out with the Conservatives and left the Ulster Unionists and decided to go it alone as an Independent. She got back in and will be a force to be reckoned with in the House of Commons.

Lady Sylvia Hermon MP

They are winners all three of them and, I hope they will have a significance in this new Hung Parliament.

Poor old Gordon, David and Nick though. They didn’t get what they wanted and now, with very little sleep I suspect, they have to fight for their futures all over again. They are all tough guys though so let’s not get too upset by making our politicians work for us.

We still don’t know how it will get sorted but at least we have a chance of changing the electoral system this time to reflect what seems to be a fact that Britain doesn’t recognise itself any longer in the mirror that was the old political system. So well done Nick Clegg even if your party largely failed at the polls, you still might be able to make that difference that you talked about during your amazing rise in popularity.

It is a funny old world but I am still excited by this genuinely historic moment in our political history. I am hoping that the next General Election will see a system where we can have more Lady Mermons, Mayor Longs and Green Lucases. I think it is called diversity.

Oh yes and all those expense fiddling MPs (or the ones who got found out anyway) have now gone too. Now that is something worth celebrating.

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So let’s hear it for the fictional Greek dragon slayer and wish that St. George’s Day was a national holiday and that it could be held at a time of year when our red roses are flowering in the nation’s back gardens so that we could all pluck one to wear with simple and controlled pride in a country that, on the whole, is getting the whole difficult thing called society more right than wrong.

St George’s Day should belong to all of us, not just football hooligans and their ugly offspring, the British National Party or to any one who wants to use patriotism as a weapon against minorities or “others”. In fact St. George would probably have pointed his spear at these dragons of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.

If I am proud of being English (conveniently ignoring for the moment my 50% Scottish and Irish blood), it is because it is a fundamentally decent and fair-minded country showing all the signs of getting better.

We can be too long-suffering, accepting out-dated laws too readily, too easily bored by political and ethical problems, not interested enough in the poetic side of life and too smug in our own convictions but we do seem to like “fair deals,” we give the benefit of the doubt to eccentrics and distrust wild-eyed fanatics.

On balance I think we are OK.

We still have too much poverty and inequality, many of our institutions are crumbling and under-resourced, we often over-state our importance to the rest of the World and we can turn nasty when we are whipped into hysteria by our tabloid newspapers but, hey, no one is perfect.

We, along with the rest of Britain, are in the midst of a genuinely exciting election campaign which may well mark an important turning point in our political history. Those feelings of fairness, toleration and common sense have surfaced in a nation unsatisfied by the way it has been treated by its political elite.

The one million people who walked the streets of London protesting against the war in Iraq were ignored by the Labour Government so we went to war regardless.

MPs got found out lining their pockets with tax payers money and indulging in a life style obscene in its greed.

The Conservative opposition insulted our intelligence with an amateur gloss on the worst international economic crisis for over 70 years.

And then along came that lad with the shiny golden tie.

He, like the rest of us, is no St. George, but he has become a symbol for the nation (s) to make a change.

If we can have a government, if not this time, then the next time, that reflects the real wishes of the majority of the country then it will be by changing the electoral system so that we are no longer ruled by politicians secretly tied to the power of small numbers of the landed or corporate rich or the mean-spirited defenders of out-dated lowest common denominator collectivism.

Nick Clegg has put on a dazzling show and he has lit a fire under the dry timber of our pent-up frustration with old ways of defining our country. Even if he never becomes Prime Minister, he will have send a vital message to whoever wins that office, we want our views listened to in Westminster, listened to and put into action.

We have, of course, had bright young saviours before. Tony Blair caught the nation’s mood and pocketed the benefits, David Cameron has tried to be Tony the Second but has failed even in those unsavoury ways to show that he is much more than a nice guy out of his depth. Gordon Brown, still the most sensible voice on the economy, is certainly no shining young thing so let us not get carried away by new kid charisma.

Let’s admit that we have been Clegged no matter who gets elected. We have got the chance at this election of changing our politics and our country for good.

If we could do that then we would have real reason to celebrate not just St George but St Andrew, St David and St Patrick as well.

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