Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Raking It In



There is a scene in the "Cape Feare" episode of "The Simpsons" in which Sideshow Bob steps on nine rakes in 30 seconds, stumbling from smack-in-the-mouth to smack-in-the-mouth without the wit to break the cycle. It's on YouTube and well worth watching.

Is this the metaphor I've been waiting for to describe the current behaviour of Gordon Brown ?

Rake 1 - Giving up the 10% tax rate he himself invented not all that long ago
Rake 2 - Not spotting he had just made a heap of poor people even poorer ... the week before the local elections.
Rake 3 - Not gaining the support of his back-benchers - not even close to it.
Rake 4 - Steely determination not to do a U-turn gets big laughs
Rake 5 - Initial Compromise proposal to maybe look at possible ways to maybe take some of the pain for some of the people "next year" gets even bigger laughs

As of today, he's beefed up the compensation plan, and is taking flack for being spineless and clueless. It is by no means certain that Sideshow Brown has stepped on his last rake.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Claiming it would have no effect on people when in fact it had quite a distinctive effect on certain people least capable of tolerating it, stupid lying or can't be bothered - you decide.

Stan said...

It's been a while since I posted this and a lot has happened but nothing has been done. My vote is for "stupid".