Blair’s Successor – Leadership

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For more recent information on the “successor” – or should that be “failcessor” to Mr Blair, please see more recent posts or pages, on right hand side of page.

16th August, 2007

THE POLITICAL BRAIN – CONNECTIONS?

A new book says that politicians need to connect emotionally!! No? They’ve noticed have they. It’s amazing what you can write a book on these days. Clinton & Blair were masters at connecting emotionally.  But of course whether you can do it, depends on whether you feel it. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Over to you Mr GB/PM.

[Pic: “Grit your teeth Tony, while I remove this little daggery type thingamajig I lost recently. It won’t hurt – much. Then if you support me, I won’t stick it back in.”]

16th May, 2007

HAIL TO THEE MACBETH – er – GORDON, KING OF SCOTS, ENGLISH, WELSH and so forth and so forth …

ARISE PRIME MINISTER ELECT

But arise not until 27th June. Ignore The Indie’s silly little toil and trouble jibes. They’re well practised at that, which you will no doubt discover when they get you in the firing line in a few weeks. So let your predecessor ease gently out of that hotseat, and place a firm hand on the disrespectful scribblers now.

The chancellor has secured enough votes to become our next Prime Minister. Just like that! Seen off the Left without even trying, so that’s something. So there we are, folks – democracy in action. I suppose we can’t complain TOO much because it is how things have always been done in this parliamentary system; can’t just moan if we don’t like the choice. A coup, bloodless or not, isn’t quite my idea of how we get rid of the best prime minister the country’s had for decades.

And this evening while Mr Blair settles down with President Bush in Washington for probably their last face-to-face as leaders, I wonder how hot PM Elect Brown’s ears will be?

ANTI POPULIST BROWN – hah!

The man who has publicly shunned populism – remember, Gordon Brown – has asked the family of the little lost girl in Portugal how he can help. Has he done the same to ALL the other parents of ALL the other families who have lost a child this week? NO? Well, blow me down with a leadership speech.

11th May, 2007

BROWN HAS LAUNCHED HIS CELEBRITY-FREE CAMPAIGN

I won’t be writing much about this as I think his parents’ “moral guidance” was a bit lax. Stabbing his friend in the back didn’t quite get me started off on the right note with the “brilliant man”. Still, who am I to care? I’m not a member of Labour and won’t be until and unless they bring back THE Prime Minister. Anyway, enjoy your new PM.

1st May, 2007

BESTEST Best Friends – EVER!

In answer to my question below – it seems “yes”, Blair DOES back Brown. Mr Blair in Scotland today, the land of his, and Brown’s birth, has confirmed this.

He told party workers: “In all probability a Scot will become prime minister of the United Kingdom, someone who has built our economy into one of the strongest in the world, and who, as I have said many times before, would make a great prime minister for Britain.”

And Gordon Brown is full of praise for his “oldest friend in politics”.

David Cameron doesn’t say much of note but he did today when on hearing this, said, “You’d need to be a psychologist to understand their relationship”.

At the last party conference, after the coup which all but destroyed him, Tony Blair said, memorably, “I want to heal”. Well, he seems to be putting that in action. Don’t know how he is capable of this. If it were me, I’d want to **ll!

[You’re thinking – just as well it’s Mr Blair who’s leading the country and the Labour party, and not BlairSupporter! ]

As a teenager said, after I explained that the double negative is often used colloquially, but there is no such thing as a double positive – Yeah, right.

29th April, 2007

Will Blair Back Brown?

Yes, according to today’s Sunday Times. the Prime Minister will back ( … spit it out … Gordon Brown!) There I’ve said it – and I don’t feel better for having done so. In fact I feel much worse.

OK, OK, stranger things have happened in politics than supporting one’s own political assassin. It’s just that I can’t think of anything stranger right this minute!

And since I’m NOT involved in these political goings-on I can express how it makes ME feel, for a start.

A kind of sinking, empty, loathing feeling of disgust in my stomach that this is what Blair’s New Labour project has come to. Even the “Blairites” are insufficiently principled to put up a fight, just as they were at the time of last year’s coup, when they stood by and watched as Brown’s cronies almost destroyed the historic, three-election-winning Blair.

Of course, Mr Blair’s ‘declaration of support’ COULD be another tactic. I sincerely hope it IS a tactic, but if not, I suppose I can force myself to understand the arguments.

1. The Brown succession is a fait accompli, so the PM has little choice but to back him.

2. He could hardly NOT back Brown against Meacher and McDonnell who both want to take the “New” out of “New Labour”. (Though it seems that Downing Street aides say Mr Blair will back Brown, even if Charles Clarke or John Reid enter the race.)

3. So, the writing’s on the wall; it’s all a numbers game. And the number of Labour party MPs committed to voting for Brown are unassailable now by any candidate. The party’s future should not be wrecked or ruined by Blair’s petulance. Not good for the party, nor Brown, nor Blair.

Brown’s very leadership might well ruin its future anyway.

The question is this: is any heavyweight, cabinet-level prospective candidate willing to take the kamikaze flight? Because that is what standing against Brown would mean. No more power job, Secretary of State.

So, exit John Reid.

Step forward Charles Clarke, no friend of Gordon Brown’s. Neither is he in the present cabinet. He has little to lose.

Much as I dislike Brown for his betrayal of the PM, and I do, if there is no alternative and the Labour party is NOT willing to get down on its collective knees to beg Mr Blair to stay, well, that’s it then. No choice; end of; finito.

Brown’s comments, or lack of, intimating that Tony Blair could have helped Brown’s chances had he gone sooner, show some of the underlying tensions between these two New Labourites. Brown wanted to come in as Blair departed on a high, not as now, struggling to remind people that there actually HAS been great progress over the decade. Now Brown is likely to soak up much of the bad odour surrounding the last ten years, much of it his own making.

The premiership may only be Brown’s until the next general election.

27 April, 2007

A REAL Leadership Contest?

Labour MPs John McDonnell and Michael Meacher

The two left-wing candidates in the prospective leadership campaign, John McDonnell and Michael Meacher are about to unite forces in order to build up a head of steam against Gordon Brown. Even though they are not exactly best friends, they’d rather get it together and pool their resources behind ONE of them to pull the Left of Labour in one direction in order to defeat the hated NewLab Blairite (Brown, to you and me). They will meet on the day Tony Blair makes his resignation announcement to work out the mathematics and politics of the whole thing. “He likes me and she supports you, and they approve of my ideas …” etc. Then one will emerge as the Left’s candidate.

Body & Soul

So are we about to see a fight for the body and soul of the party? Well, since it deftly did the dirty on the only winner in the pack, I have had to conclude the body of the party is pretty soul-less already. Perhaps Charles Clarke, or John Reid, or even both will be tempted now. Mr Reid will need to be sure of no more Home Office blunders in the next six to eight weeks to stand a chance, I’d have thought.  And Mr Clarke is, well, not quite right, somehow.

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