Socialism

-By Ann “Babe” Huggett

Poor Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK has been the subject of some scurrilous web rumors lately that he is “self-medicating” by popping pills in order to “get himself through” his high pressure/low respect days. Who could blame Brown, if he took to at least the bottle after not only being snubbed five times in a row to get a bilateral conference with US President Barack Obama but ended up disgracing himself and his country over the Lockerbie bomber release-for-oil fiasco earlier on? Brown strikes me as a scotch and soda sort of fellow, who drinks in private but that old adage about never drinking alone because, if discovered, it will only arouse pity comes to mind here.

Normally, web rumors are just that and usually go no further especially in a country where the media works hand-in-hand with the government. The pro-Labour BBC is solidly leftist these days so Brown was not expecting the sucker punch live interview question on BBC TV by UK political presenter, Andrew Marr, when Andrew asked point blank, “…something everybody has been talking about in the Westminster village… A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them?”

Brown, of course, reacted in outrage because the insinuation carries behind it the acknowledgment that Labour has lost the approval of the media. Earlier in the week the UK’s political Rasputin of the Left, Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, commented that he could easily work with the Tories should have let everyone know that Labour’s days in power are numbered.

Andrew Marr’s question is also interesting on a different level because, quite frankly, it needs to be asked of all the world’s current leaders. Drugs, booze, decadent excess, jet lag and plain old mental instability would go a long way in explaining why we’re all in this hand basket and where we are all going.
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Drugged Out Of One’s Gourd”