Bardzo proszę o streszczenie tego artykułu po angielsku !!The voice was prime ministerial and firm. The British government must be "strong in defense, in fighting terrorism, upholding NATO, supporting our armed forces at home and abroad, and retaining our nuclear deterrent. In an insecure world, we must and will always have the strength to take all necessary long-term decisions for stability and security." But it was not Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking. It was Britain's prime-minister-in-waiting, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who likely won't succeed Blair until next year. As his speech last month suggested, the understudy is looking and sounding more and more like the real thing.This is no accident. The transition from Blair to Brown has begun in earnest. Blair's speeches--with wistful allusions to his nine years in office and to his "personal journey" in politics and government--have a valedictory air about them. Brown's sound like those of a man with one foot already inside the door of 10 Downing Street, unfurling national-security agendas and schemes to improve Britons' work-life balance (appropriately, as he and his wife are expecting a child). "Just as Gordon's speeches look as if he's preparing for government," says Nick Pearce, a former government adviser who now runs the Institute for Public Policy Research, "Tony's look as if he's preparing to leave."The timing of Blair's departure was dramatically thrown into question last week when Scotland Yard arrested the prime minister's chief political fund-raiser, tennis partner and Middle East emissary Michael Levy, and took him in for questioning in the explosive so-called cash-for-peerages scandal. At issue was Lord Levy's (and ultimately Blair's) role in securing £14 million in secret Labour Party loans from businessmen, four of whom were later nominated by the prime minister for seats in the House of Lords. Levy was questioned and released, but the incident raised the stunning possibility that police would interview Blair himself.Even before the scandal, however, Brown had begun to sound not only more like a prime minister, but also more like Blair himself. This is a remarkable turn of events. For the past nine years, and especially since Blair's political fortunes began declining because of the unpopular war in Iraq, Brown has sought to distance himself from the prime minister. This was good party politics for Brown. He solidified his support on the Labour left while Blair saw his own drain away. But by being the anti-Blair, Brown threatened to hurt the Labour Party's chances in the next general election, in 2008 or 2009. Blair's great success as Labour leader has been to win over millions of non-Labour "Middle England" voters by positioning himself in the political center. As it is, Labour's share of the vote has declined in each of the two elections since its 1997 landslide. Expert analysis of forthcoming electoral-district boundary changes indicates that in the next election, a national swing of just 1 percent would wipe out Labour's overall majority. Were Brown, now 55, to march into the next election as a left-wing Scot, the thinking goes, Labour could lose Middle England to the resurgent Conservative Party under the 39-year-old David Cameron.Hence the latest twist to the Brown makeover: the Tonyfication of Gordon. "Brown now sees the logic of being Blairer than Blair," says Andrew Rawnsley, a respected chronicler of the Labour Party. Like Blair before him, Brown recognizes that voters on the left have nobody else of stature to turn to. So on issues like pension reform (raising the retirement age), nuclear energy (greenlighting it) and terrorism (being tough even at the expense of civil liberties), Brown has fallen in behind his boss. What's more, he's deliberately taunting left-wing M.P.s with such provocations as pledging to renew Britain's aging Trident nuclear-missile program. Brown's inner circle fondly hopes that an M.P. from the "loony left" will challenge him for the party leadership when the time comes. "It will perfectly suit him to be offered a left-wing challenger to crush," says Rawnsley.With a newfound confidence, Brown and his team are even putting together an American-style First 100 Days Plan to be unveiled when he becomes prime minister. The plan is a work in progress, but interviews with a number of sources in and around the Brown camp reveal some of its features. Events in Iraq permitting, Brown would announce British troop withdrawals, addressing the perception in Britain that Blair has been George W. Bush's servile "poodle." The plan may well contain headline-grabbing initiatives on the environment and climate change, countering Cameron's carefully cultivated green credentials. (Last month Brown met with the American green campaigner and former vice president Al Gore. A Brown aide said the two men are "working closely together" on the environment and other issues.) In another swipe at the Conservatives, Brown may announce a small but symbolically important tax cut.Where Brown will want to part company with his boss is on the issue of trust, the great undoing of Blair and his government. Blair's WMD rationale for invading Iraq created the trust deficit. But the cash-for-peerages scandal has deepened it. Once he's ensconced in 10 Downing Street, Brown is likely to push hard for the establishment of an elected upper chamber. Other prime ministers, including Blair, have tried, and not gotten very far. So Brown is likely to take a shortcut by announcing that, as prime minister, he will not put forward anybody's name for a peerage, period--demonstrating that he knows there are times when it's better not to be Blairer than Blair.
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