Sorry Canvas, that is nonsense and you know it. Graham is right. The public don't vote for leaders, they vote for their local MP, period.

If only Margret Thatcher stayed on as leader until 1997

Brown will now go to Lisbon and sign EU treaty - but by himself

Wednesday December 12, 2007
The Guardian

Gordon Brown provoked ridicule among EU supporters and critics alike yesterday as he bowed to pressure from European leaders and agreed to attend the signing of the controversial Lisbon treaty, but arrive late and miss the main ceremony.

The prime minister was pressed by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, to join the other EU heads of government. But he will miss the official signing ceremony and family photograph, leaving the foreign secretary, David Miliband, to face the cameras. Instead he is expected to arrive during the lunch.

Police to be balloted over strike

Every police officer in the UK is to be balloted over whether they want to lobby for the right to strike, the Police Federation has said.

Police are not allowed to strike because of an act of Parliament, the Police Act 1996.

The decision came during a meeting of police officers to discuss a pay row.

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith faces mounting pressure over her decision not to backdate a 2.5% pay rise for police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Police call for Smith to resign

Wednesday December 12, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Front line police officers have called for the immediate resignation of the home secretary in their increasing acrimonious row with government over pay.
An emergency meeting of the Police Federation today voted that they had "no trust" in Jacqui Smith after she decided to delay a 2.5% pay award to officers in England and Wales.

About 1,000 delegates have also been discussing balloting their 140,000 members on whether to seek the right to strike.

Cable's killer punch

So, when Mr Cable asked him which of the disasters to have battered the government over the past six months would haunt him most over his Christmas sprouts, Mr Brown tried a fresh, pre-prepared put down.

Tongue firmly in cheek, he thanked Mr Cable for his contributions over the past few weeks and suggested that, at the current rate of leadership turnover in the party, he might be back in his stand-in role not long after the next Lib Dem leader has been elected (next week, by the way).

And that was when it all went horribly wrong.

Party poppers

Killer Cable hardly hesitated: "Given his own position, he might not be wise to speculate about leadership elections."

Labour backbenchers looked like they had just opened their Christmas presents to find batteries have not been included.

Mr Brown's smile fell from his face like needles from a Christmas tree on Boxing day (if a Downing Street aide had fed him that line I fear for his or her future).

And the Tory benches joined the Lib Dems in donning their paper hats, pulling their crackers, firing off the party poppers and falling about in delirious festive fun.

Gordon Brown, of course, probably doesn't do Christmas - far too frivolous.

But how he must be wishing for the holiday period to arrive and give him a break, at least from his new nemesis Vincent Cable.

If only Margaret Thatcher had stayed as leader...

6) Brown’s quoting Obama. A reminder the Team Brown (esp. Douglas Alexander) is obsessed with American politics and ape successful tactics as freely as they do Tory policies. Their (failed) critique of Cameron as a “flip-flopper” is the charge Bush successfully levelled against Kerry in 04

“The great irony of British politics is that the big issues are not central to the debate in the theatre of politics, but they have to be dealt with.”

He quoted Barack Obama, the US Senator and candidate for the Democratic nomination, about the smallness of the politics set against the bigness of the challenges.