Tube strike

Londoners had to endure a 48-hour tube strike this week. Not good when you consider some 3 million people travel by tube here every day. But all-in-all, everyone coped quite well. You certainly saw a LOT more cyclists, walkers, skaters, buses and taxis on the road than normal. And even the ferries along The Thames were carrying around 8,000 commuters PER HOUR, opposed to the normal 1,000 per day. I think in the end only 100,000 were unable to get to work. Although it did cost the city's economy about £100 million.

To make the situation even worse, England was playing in the World Cup qualifier against Andorra at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday. Quite a few people couldn't even get there, and those who did had a real struggle since the best way to get to Wembley is by tube. As many as 70,000 supporters had to travel by car, even though there is already a lack of parking in the area.

The real kick in the stomach was that the strike was party over salaries (as usual), despite the fact that tube drivers average around £40,000 per year (about £10,000 a year more than nurses), plus they only work a 35-hour week and get 43 days' annual leave, not to mention FREE staff travel for themselves and their spouses. Tough life, heh? Personally, I hope people fight back by refusing to travel by tube. Think of how much more pleasure they'll get (not to mention EXERCISE) by walking or cycling instead. Easy for me to say, since I don't have to travel by tube every day. Thank God.

Time for Gordon Brown to go!

There are many facets of British government that I prefer over America's. The ability to get rid of a poor-performing leader is one of them. Gordon Brown has gone from one disaster to another since he took over as Prime Minister from Tony Blair in 2007. But the last few weeks have been nothing short of catastrophic. The expenses scandal was bad enough. Now six of his cabinet ministers have resigned within the past week, followed by several other junior ministers. To top that, in last Thursday's local elections, Labour lost 60% of the county councillor seats held and now hold ZERO county councils.

In the UK, there are a total of 34 county councils (with 2289 county councillors seats). After last week's election, 30 of the councils are now Conservative, 1 is Liberal Democrat and 1 is no affiliation. NONE are held by Labour and only 176 of the 2289 seats are held by Labour. What a joke. And what does Gordon Brown do in response? Shakes up his cabinet. He decides to shuffle people around in order to show that he's doing something productive. Basically trying to position himself ahead of the European election results which come out tomorrow and which Labour are once again expected to lose dreadfully in. He has even offered a job to Sir Alan Sugar to add some star-quality I suppose. All of this, in my opinion, warrants Gordon Brown's removal as leader of Labour (and consequently as Prime Minister).

What's so great about the system here is that if enough members of the ruling party agree that their leader is not performing well enough, they can submit a letter of no-confidence to force a vote for a new leader of the party. For Labour, only 15% of the party members need to show support for no-confidence before it is acted upon (for the Conservative Party, it's 20%). With six of Brown's cabinet ministers stepping down last week, surely this is as good a sign as any of 'no confidence' in his ability to lead the country???

I understand a good number of Labour MPs have already signed a letter of no-confidence. All they need is 71 signatures. Come on, guys, show some balls and do something to reinstate faith in the Labour Party to take a lead on something for a change. Brown needs to go. At least you have the ability to do something about it - unlike in America where everyone is just screwed until another election can be held.