So much for the Philosopher PM ?

A combination of a reminder from Google (thanks, folks (-:), comment from family about the absence of new postings (even my mother's labrador was getting restless) and John Reid's apparent retirement from the Labour leadership race prompt a first posting for months - I may be back more often in the new semester.

I'd been following Dr (for such he is) John Reid's contributions to philosophy with interest. I'd always thought him a Hobbesian - Leviathan protects the citizens from each other is a natural position for a Home Secretary to take - but he was recently heard quoting Hegel to a Parliamentary Committee. Admittedly it was the line about the owl of Minerva rather than explaining how a fabulously right-wing regime is the best of all possible worlds (then again ...), but it seems a coronation (as everyone calls it) for Gordon Brown is now guaranteed. Of course, in other ages, rather more people in the Labour Party would be saying, 'Er - isn't a coronation what a monarch has, and - er - aren't we vaguely against that kind of thing ?'