Comment at end
24th May, 2009
VIDEO: BEATLES HELP GORDON BROWN
Brown & Blair are both big Beatles fans. So I thought I’d add this little video, one I put together last year.
The Independent today reports that on Thursday Gordon Brown invited Tony Blair to a one-to-one meeting in Number 10 as crises mount and become the norm for this government. No sooner has one crisis been tackled, more or less, when along comes another. Mr Brown instigated the meeting. For this he should be applauded. Labour never had a winning machine like the previous prime minister. If HE can’t help, no-one can.
I wonder if Mr Blair also had a word about the future of (Blairite) Hazel Blears, Community Secretary, who, it is rumoured may be the cabinet level sacrificial lamb despite having behaved better than two other cabinet ministers over her expenses.
The only reference I can find to this National Plan is also in The Independent – Brown to launch “National Plan” for Britain. It is not even mentioned on the Number 10 website on Thursday or Friday.
Independent: ‘The aim of the “national plan” is to show that Labour has not run out of steam after 12 years in office and has a more detailed prospectus than the Tories. Despite Labour’s perilous position in opinion polls, Mr Brown is convinced Labour can still hold on to power if the general election could be turned into a choice between the rival policies of the two main parties. “Gordon Brown has a plan, David Cameron does not,” one of Mr Brown’s aides said. “When the voters realise that, we think they will look at things differently.”‘
Brown calls Blair in to No 10 for secret talks as crisis mounts
PM’s announcement of national plan for Britain came day after hour-long one-to-one meeting
By Jane Merrick and Brian Brady
The timing of the meeting, with Mr Brown’s future in doubt, triggered talk in Westminster that the premier was asking Mr Blair for help. Sources said that they did not discuss election timing or strategy, but the conversation did cover domestic politics. The day after the talks, it emerged that Mr Brown will launch a “national plan for Britain” as part of his fightback.
In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Nick Clegg predicts that Mr Brown’s troubles are so bad that Lib Dem MPs will outnumber Labour within a decade because the governing party has lost the “contest of ideas”.
After another day of turmoil in Westminster, Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, yesterday issued a thinly veiled warning to the Prime Minister that if he is preparing to sack her in the forthcoming reshuffle, she has the support of cabinet ministers. Friends of Ms Blears said she was feeling “emboldened”, despite criticism of her expenses claims, after talking to her constituents on the doorstep in Salford, and that she had been “delighted” to receive phone calls of support from members of the Cabinet. The warning followed Mr Brown’s condemnation of Ms Blears’s failure to pay capital gains tax on her second home as “totally unacceptable”. Ms Blears has since sent a cheque to HM Revenue & Customs for £13,000.
The Prime Minister initiated the talks with Mr Blair in a phone call that resulted in the invitation to Downing Street last Thursday. It is believed the two met about three times last year, but this is the first time they have held face-to-face talks this year. They speak on the telephone about once a month.
They discussed Mr Blair’s role as Middle East envoy, but the discussion inevitably strayed into domestic politics, a source said. A Downing Street spokesman added: “We never discuss meetings. We have repeatedly said they have a good relationship.”
Some ministers have suggested Mr Brown should go to the country in October, after a summer of setting out constitutional reforms to clean up Parliament, although No 10 sources tried to pour cold water on the reports.
Yesterday, the IoS established that Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, claimed more than £80,000 in second-home expenses over four years when he was an MP, even though his constituency was within 50 miles of Westminster, as we reveal today.
It also emerged that John Wick, the former SAS officer who handed over MPs’ expense claims to The Daily Telegraph, was involved in Tory fundraising, although a Tory source insisted it was “on the fringes”. It is believed Mr Wick was involved in the Carlton Club political committee, which has raised more than £400,000 for the Tories since Mr Cameron became leader.
As the expenses scandal continued to rage, Sir Peter Viggers, the Tory MP for Gosport, said he was “ashamed and humiliated” to have claimed for a duck house and island on expenses. He described this as a “ridiculous and grave error of judgement”, adding that the ducks had never liked the feature and it was no longer being used.
Ian McCartney, the former Labour chairman, announced he was standing down at the next election as MP for Makerfield – because of “health problems” – within days of his disclosure that he paid back nearly £15,000 of his own expenses claims last year. He had purchased, at the taxpayers’ expense, an 18-piece dinner set, champagne flutes and a £700 dining table. And Andrew MacKay, Mr Cameron’s former parliamentary aide, announced he was standing down after becoming a “distraction”.
The latest announcements take to eight the number of MPs stepping down at the next general election. Quitting then not only saves their parties from bruising by-elections but also ensures each up to £64,000 in “resettlement grant” cash, paid for by the taxpayer.
OTHER ITEMS OF ‘MORAL’ INTEREST
1. “ENOUGH ROPE” (interesting title) interview of Peter Foster – “Blair’s the Daddy”
Meanwhile, Peter Foster, ex-convict, on Australian radio repeats his claim that Mr Blair was the father of the miscarried child of Foster’s ex-girlfriend, Carole Caplin. Read the transcript of the radio inteview from the self-proclaimed ‘international man of mischief’ here, with reference to Carole Caplin’s miscarried baby which Foster says he uspects was fathered by Tony Blair. Note this miscarriage was just after Cherie had also miscarried her fifth pregnancy. The idea that Cherie Blair would have remained silent in her emotional post-miscarriage condition if any of this were true beggars belief.
Conman Foster: “Tony actually got Cherie pregnant and she miscarried and then a month late later Carol is pregnant. And there was a incident which, with respect to everybody …”
Another gem from the international conman here. Is he selling a book, by any chance?
And from Carole Caplin herself on Foster – “dreadful ex”:
Carole CAplin runs a lifestyle gur
“I’d had such bad press,” she says. “It absolutely rocked me. It has taken me years to get back on my feet.” She was pregnant by Foster but lost the baby, and then the couple split up, anyway.
“I have put him in a drawer marked dreadful exes and that’s where he stays,” she says. “Getting tangled up with him was not one of my better ideas.”
2. New Catholic Archishop of Westminster says that Tony Blair is not a good guide to catholic teaching
That would be in comparison to such as the Roman Catholic Church itself, as evidenced here, over a 60 year period? - Irish Church KNEW abuse endemic
Visit The Tony Blair Faith Foundation
Tags: archbishop of Westminster says Blair not a guide to catholic teachings, Caplin miscarried Blair's baby, Carole Caplin, crises mount, crisis, Gordon Brown, Irish Catholic abuse endemic, Number 10 meeting, Peter Foster conman, Tony Blair, Tony Blair was the daddy, Vincent Nichols on Blair
May 28, 2009 at 10:36 pm |
[...] Frequently we heard Tony Blair say that the job is relentless. Did Brown NEVER listen to Blair? Or only when he’s desperate? [...]