Civil War in Labour’s ranks, and it’s not yet 4:00pm!

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UPDATE – 4:00pm – Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon and Housing Minister Margaret Beckett, both high flyers under Blair, have resigned from Government. Will add more links when I find out exactly WHY!  Expect weasel words from Beckett, perhaps something different from Hoon. By the way, it seems the Great Leader is going to talk to the country in about an hour. Can hardly wait.

UPDATE – 8:00pm – A by-election on the ‘immediate resignation’ of Ian Gibson; Europe Minister Caroline Flint resigns in the middle of Brown’s press conference, saying Brown uses female MPs as “window dressing”; oh, and Tony McNulty’s resigned too. More later …

Caroline Flint, Europe Minister until half way through Brown's press conference, when she resigned, saying Brown used women as "window dressing".

Comment at end

5th June, 2009

PRESCOTT LAYS INTO HARMAN, FLINT, ALEXANDER, BLEARS

The former deputy prime minister John Prescott, in the wake of several resignations, mutinous rumours and so on, has gone forth at his “Go Fourth” site.

He has hit out at those at the “top” of the Labour party, quote: “… responsible for this non-campaign – and make no mistake there was no campaign – were Harriet Harman, Caroline Flint, Douglas Alexander and yes, our former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.”

There was NO funding from the Labour party AT ALL, according to Mr Prescott:

“And we did it without a penny from the party – we raised the money ourselves through small donations.

Even Tony Blair made a significant donation to Go Fourth.”

So even the former prime minister TRIED to help Labour in the locals. That would be the Prime Minister they dumped because HE was no longer seen as a winner!

How incredibly foolish they all look now.

In the defence of the Labour party (don’t know why I bother!) I haven’t actually seen all that much electioneering by ANY party for the locals and certainly NOT for the EU election. The opposition parties have been largely happy to sit back and watch the votes roll in as Labour is more heavily hit by the expenses scandal than are the other parties. This was to be expected (by the Torygraph, in its political wisdom.)

Meanwhile at Labour Home a VERY disappointed and shell-shocked local candidate writes this:

“I’ve just suffered the humiliation of being beaten into 5th (last) place by a Nazi. I didn’t expect to do well, even though the division used to be a Labour one, but I did not expect to be beaten by the fascists.”

Typically, after blaming  Brown, Blears, Purnell, Mandelson, Denham and Sion Simon (oddly not Blair) he comes to the wrong conclusion:

“If New Labour isn’t dead yet, it’s our duty as a movement to kill it and to kill it swiftly and as painlessly as possible.”

As always with Old Labour he confuses cause and effect. These people never DID understand how or why Blair’s New Labour won three HISTORICAL elections in a row. They always over-estimated the importance/relevence of the left-leaning voters in this country. And they always under-estimated and thus under-valued Blair’s UNIQUE ability to reach across party loyalties.

So let them kill New Labour if they will. The second group to die will be Old Labour. And it will NOT, repeat NOT be at the hands of Tony Blair.

The conscience of Labour’s three times winner is clear, as history will show. (See my ‘Wikipedia, Labour 2050’ bit of ‘fun and games’. Or was it?)

RELATED

Alastair Campbell, Blair’s right-hand press man, seems to echo John Prescott’s concerns.

ExpatYank could SEE what would happen after Blair left – see here. Why couldn’t Labour?  They’d die, maybe even kill, for Blair’s poll ratings as he left office.

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Tags: Alastair Campbell blog, Caroline Flint, Geoff Hoon, Gordon Brown meltdown, Ian Gibson by election, John Prescott blames Harman Flint Alexander Blears, Margaret Beckett resign, no campaign says Prescott, Tony Blair backed Go Fourth campaign, Tony McNulty