Word: browns
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...billed as tragedy - an insurrection that would topple the Labour Party's flawed hero, Gordon Brown - but it played out like a Marx Brothers farce. The June 8 meeting that would determine Brown's fate attracted so many Labour MPs and members of the House of Lords that a House of Commons committee room quickly filled to capacity. And still they came, squeezing their way into the mass of bodies politic. When a clutch of tardy ministers wrenched open the doors, pressure-packed colleagues tumbled into the corridor, itself lousy with reporters poised to relay the verdict...
That verdict, after the hoopla and spiraling speculation over Brown's future, was anticlimactic. The Prime Minister prevailed over the few rebels who dared advance a case for his ouster. It was a whimpering end to an uprising that had seen attacks on Brown's leadership from across the party, and serial resignations from his Cabinet. Just four days before, James Purnell, one of the party's brightest young stars, had delivered a Dear Gordon letter on the eve of a reshuffle that would have reaffirmed his own place at the Cabinet table. "I now believe your continued leadership makes...
...results of last week's municipal and European polls - a historic rout for Labour, a solid performance from the Conservatives and gains for fringe outfits including the far-right British National Party - graphically illustrated the concerns that launched Purnell's kamikaze mission. Labour's support has slumped under Brown. It has hemorrhaged support among the affluent voters of Middle England whose endorsement is essential to securing a parliamentary majority, and whom it wooed successfully in the 1990s. And it has been damaged, too, in hardscrabble industrial regions. A fresh face might be expected to give the party a boost...
...social-democratic aspirations and fiscal conservatism, of commitment to equality and opportunity - needs a radical overhaul. The big question: Can Labour recast itself, delineate a new identity and purpose? Or is this party, like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch, definitely deceased? (Read "European Elections: A Blow to Brown, Boost for Merkel...
...objective of the inquiry, Brown told the House of Commons, is not to apportion blame but to learn lessons to "strengthen the health of our democracy, our diplomacy and our military." Critics cast doubt on the ability of an investigation conducted in camera to deliver transparency. "What is the point of an inquiry behind closed doors? No family would be happy with that," said Rose Gentle in a statement issued by the campaign group she founded, Military Families Against the War. Her son Gordon was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra in 2004, one of 179 casualties among...