Drippygate is bringing down the government

June 1st, 2009

Today’s revelations from the Daily Telegraph, were very small drips, but the political fallout during the day has been building up to an avalanche. Gordon Brown looks ever more desperate, as he sticks his finger in the dyke, to try and stem the tides of outrageous fortune. Unlike King Canute Brown has been bruised and battered by tides unleashed by the now-twenty-five day drip by drip Telegraph stories. We used to call it the Torygraph. But perhaps we should rename it the Dripagraph. Because this story is now virtually certain to get a place for the Daily Telegraph in history next the Washington Post, who brought us Watergate.

By this evening Brown has dug himself into a hole where he seems to be repudiating his own Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the nation is in a financial crisis. He still says he is determined to tough it out til next year.

But in a situation like this, the British Prime Minister, is an Emperor with no clothes. Unlike a US President a British Prime Minister is not a chief executive. In order to take executive action he needs to have the support of his cabinet. As of now most of them are still maintaining a loyal courtier’s position in public. But their lack of enthusiasm is demonstrated by their silence.

So if I was a betting man, I would be putting my money down not on a cabinet reshuffle after Thursday’s local and European elections. But on a Brown resignation instead.

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