Friday, December 01, 2006

It looks like the Prime Minister will have a special needs son

India Knight notes that both of the men in line to become Prime Minister in the UK have a child with a disability. David Cameron's son, Ivan, has cerebral palsy. Gordon Brown's infant son Fraser has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

Please note: The Gordon Brown post to which I linked is family friendly, but a quick browse through India Knight's blog turned up language that isn't allowed under my roof, and a few entries that I found unsettling. On the other hand, Isn't She Talking Yet? is specifically set up as a supportive blog for parents of special needs children and it has its good posts, too. (Not to mention cute kid pictures.) The blog is hosted at Times Online.

Update: One of my readers bets that neither David Cameron nor Gordon Brown will become Prime Minister. I don't know from UK politics right now, so I'm not going to bet against her (besides, at a guess Maxine's more savvy on this than India Knight). See comments.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I bet neither of them will become prime minister! Who is going to vote for Cameron? And as for Brown, many voters find it extremely offputting that he and the labour party seem to assume Brown can walk into the job. I think that opinion polls will show the party that people actually want to vote for a prime minister, not have one foisted on them, and thus a more democratically chosen candidate will be presented to us (preferably someone who can start out with a clean slate, rather than someone who has worked through the entire previous adimistration -- not that I think there is anything particularly wrong with the administration, just that a change is as good as a rest -- so long as it isn't the Tories.)

Kathryn Judson said...

Maxine, I lean center-right, am not sure the EU is all it's cracked up to be, prefer governments that don't intrude as much into day-to-day life, appreciate Judeo-Christian values, like good US-UK relations, and am dismayed and shocked at the rise in criminal and anti-social culture in the UK. Who besides the Tories should I want to see get elected?

Anonymous said...

It is really difficult, Kathryn, becuase it is all sound-bite politics. Both parties concentrate on a few "swing" voters in marginal constituencies and ignore the issues.

The Tories now are more "left" in what they say they are going to do than the current Labour party, eg on higher education, hospitals, etc. But they all lie and change their postition once they are in power.

The lib dems are the third party, but they are not perceived as being a party of government -- more like well-meaning amateurs keeping everyone on their toes, but a bit out of their depth on actually running anything (see their current financial embarrassments).

Personally, I think Tony Blair has done a reasonable job and is pretty right of centre. But I seem to be in a minority! Nobody has come along who is an obvious choice, however -- Gordon Brown is not popular with the public though the party likes him -- and his financial stewardship has not been great (eg company pension schemes).

Anonymous said...

I mostly agree with Maxine, accept that it looks quite possible that Brown will be PM for at least a "caretaker" period of time between Blair's retirement and the next general election. But if rather than handover, the outgoing Blair calls a much earlier than required election at that time, that might mess up everyone's predictions. But regardless of when there is an election, I think Cameron will probably win it. Why? Because his opposition will be Brown or some lesser Labour candidate, and the Lib Dems. (And the latter are indeed hard to take seriously.)