Honeymoons, lame ducks and the political wilderness

When a government is elected, there is often a honeymoon period when people are not too critical of it mainly because they are waiting to see what it will do in the longer term.

After a while, normality sets in:

ministers may be given new posts, or lose their posts, in a cabinet reshuffle;

they may leave the cabinet, or resign, stand down or quit because of incompetence or wrongdoing;

there may be crises, when confidence in the government is so low that people wonder if it can continue and think it may collapse. Governments or politicians that have lost all credibility and authority are described as lame ducks.

Politicians or parties who leave office and no longer have power or influence are said to be in the political wilderness.

In any new presidency – in any new anything – everybody is hopeful, there’s a honeymoon period and there are stars in everyone’s eyes.

On Sunday, nine ministers who favoured opening talks with the opposition lost their jobs in a cabinet reshuffle.

Among the casualties in this ruthless cabinet reshuffle were some of the prime minister Harold Macmillan’s oldest and closest colleagues, prompting Jeremy Thorpe to remark, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life’.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Mrs. Thatcher only changed her mind about not fighting on after the majority of her cabinet urged her to resign. It says that three cabinet ministers had threatened to resign if she did not stand down.

A minister quit two weeks ago saying, “I’m tired of signing decrees no one pays attention to.”

The anniversary finds the Socialists in crisis, facing the danger of collapse. Yesterday, the party lost its parliamentary majority when 16 of its deputies formed a breakaway group.

Whoever wins faces the prospect of leading a lame duck administration. Too many hostile things have been said on both sides to give either man any real hope of turning the Tories’ nominal 21-seat majority into a viable long-term government.

His car headed for the House of Commons, its occupant for the political wilderness. Today Mr. Mellor will make a statement to the Commons at 11 am. He is expected to blame everyone, apart from himself, for his resignation and destruction of political career.

Task 6. Political lame ducks

Not only governments can be lame ducks. Put an appropriate noun from the list into each extract below.

1. prime minister

2. government

3. administration

4. leader

5. congressman

6. governorship

1. He could have lost so much political impetus that he would have found himself leading a lame duck _____.

2. Lukens is appealing that conviction. Lukens is a lame duck _________. He was defeated in the Republican primary and he has only a few more weeks to serve in congress.

3. … his claims to have been sole architect of the state’s prosperity for most of the 1980s. But Governor Dukakis identified himself with the success and is therefore identified with the failure. He is rarely seen about now as he lives out the last days of his lame duck ______.

4. What Britain doesn’t need after a year of lame duck government is another lame duck _________.

5. Mr. Olszewski may have felt that he would end up becoming a lame-duck ________. Mr. Walesa’s spokesman has dismissed the significance of Mr. Olszewski’s decision to abandon his mission, saying the President has at least three other candidates for the post of prime minister.

6. If he succeeds, he could only become a lame duck _________, his tenure of office would be decided by Congress, whose long-term ambition is to win an election and govern India again.