Hazel Blears' resignation leaves Gordon Brown's premiership in crisis

[jimmy olsen]

Brown's going to be away on Saturday for D-Day celebrations which will, surely, be a dreadful time.

That the celebration that Brown "forgot" to invite the Queen to?

[Palisadoes]

Brown's going to be away on Saturday for D-Day celebrations which will, surely, be a dreadful time.

That the celebration that Brown "forgot" to invite the Queen to?

Nah it was the French being snobby to us, as per usual. They invited Obama, and it was Obama who reminded them to invite us, at which they pretty much said that the Queen can come along "if she wants".

How rude (and they wonder why no-one likes them!?)!

[Sheilbh]

Nah it was the French being snobby to us, as per usual. They invited Obama, and it was Obama who reminded them to invite us, at which they pretty much said that the Queen can come along "if she wants".

How rude (and they wonder why no-one likes them!?)!

According to the French they sent invitations to the US and UK.  Sarko wanted Obama so put work into getting him to visit but they say it was up to the British who came to represent the country.  Brown forgot about the Queen.

The French have said several times that who comes from Britain is a British subject that they've no influence on or interest in.

[jimmy olsen]

Nah it was the French being snobby to us, as per usual. They invited Obama, and it was Obama who reminded them to invite us, at which they pretty much said that the Queen can come along "if she wants".

How rude (and they wonder why no-one likes them!?)!

According to the French they sent invitations to the US and UK.  Sarko wanted Obama so put work into getting him to visit but they say it was up to the British who came to represent the country.  Brown forgot about the Queen.

She served in the British Armed Forces during the war, it's an unforgivable lapse.

[jimmy olsen]

Oh my God! The audio on BBC's videos goes up to 11!

[Sheilbh]

I think Labour's spin is showing.  With the exception of David Miliband all the statements of support for Brown sound like they've come from one script.

It's Soivet in its regimentation:
'I am very sad that my friend James Purnell has left the cabinet...  However I entirely disagree with him...  I believe Gordon is the right person to lead the Party and the Country...'

Edit:  Apparently the French (and Americans) have said that dealing with the British government right now is impossible because they're so focused on surviving.  I've also read reports that the civil service have stopped pushing through Labour policies because they expect a Tory government within a year.

[Barrister]

According to the French they sent invitations to the US and UK.  Sarko wanted Obama so put work into getting him to visit but they say it was up to the British who came to represent the country.  Brown forgot about the Queen.

The French have said several times that who comes from Britain is a British subject that they've no influence on or interest in.

There was a very snarky editorial the other day about how they forgot to invite Canada, since Canada was one of the three countries involved in the D-Day landing and has traditionally been involved in these celebrations...

[Oexmelin]

Most comments I have seen from France is that it was yet another stupid move from Sarkozy trying to garner air time and media attention (hence Obama) without any regard to actual diplomacy or historical meaning.

[Sheilbh]

My new favourite (almost accurate quote):
'I'm disappointed James Purnell has let down the Prime Minister, the Party and his Country...  Brown is right for the country.  This is a man of steel.' 

Edit:  Sean Woodward just topped himself:
'We have a man who is strong and able enough to deal with these crises.  I mean, look, even President Obama comes to this country to see how Britain is dealing with the recession so he can apply that in the United States.'

Edit: And more:
Gordon Brown is a man who 'attracts the leaders of the world to come to Britain to learn what to do in this recession'.  Jesus wept.

Edit: I've heard a few Labour MPs talking now.  They all seem to have been attending party meetings tonight and their local parties are, apparently, unanimously behind the leader  

This is pathetic.

[jimmy olsen]

My new favourite (almost accurate quote):
'I'm disappointed James Purnell has let down the Prime Minister, the Party and his Country...  Brown is right for the country.  This is a man of steel.' 

Gordon Brown?

[Sheilbh]

More like :p

[Legbiter]

Well, since last this thread was updated the number of people not wanting to be ministers in Gordon Brown's government include Geoff Hoon and John Hutton. Oh, and add Caroline Flint to the exodus as well.

Plus, Labour got savaged at the local elections.

Will Scunthorpe and Hull finally get the political clout they deserve?

[Palisadoes]

Maybe some more might leave after the results ofthe European election? We'll have to wait and see.

The BNP though - they've got 3 seats... one of which was in Leicester!!! A while back that city was predicted to have a white minority by 2010 (it probably already does!), so how the hell did they manage to get a seat there haha!

[jimmy olsen]

Loved this description of Brown.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article6440451.ece

June 6, 2009

A shell of a man, propelled by anger and pride
Gordon Brown has brought his Government and his party to their knees. Shackled together, they crawl hopelessly on

Matthew Parris

Do you remember Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko? Perhaps not. But he held a most important post. In title, anyway. He was, for just 13 months until March 1985, the leader of the Soviet Union. In title, anyway.

Every Thursday morning, says one sad witness, Chernenko's soon-to-be successor, Mikhail Gorbachev, "would sit in his office like a little orphan nervously awaiting a telephone call from the sick Chernenko: would he come to the Politburo himself or would he ask Gorbachev to stand in for him this time again?"

At his predecessor's funeral, Chernenko "could barely read the eulogy. Those present strained to catch the meaning of what he was trying to say. He spoke rapidly, swallowed his words, kept coughing and stopped repeatedly to wipe his lips and forehead. He ascended Lenin's Mausoleum by way of a newly installed escalator and descended with the help of two bodyguards."

And now, it appears, another living waxwork is to join the grisly ranks in modern history. Another sweating, stumbling shell of a political career, drained of power or genius, impelled and sustained only by anger and pride. Another brittle, prickly carapace gone all squishy inside, surrounded by a plotting politburo, theoretically able to launch nuclear weapons, attend international summits, pat the heads of schoolchildren and kiss the hands of popes and monarchs, but disconnected from the control of anything the Government actually does.

At most, Gordon Brown now has a shade less time left to him than Chernenko. After the 24 hours that lie behind us, the prospect for him of the 12 months that lie ahead is no less pitiable. The prospect for his party is wretched. For his country the prospect is just dispiriting. As I write Mr Brown is supposed to be conducting a press conference. But he hasn't appeared. In theory his conference started an hour ago. This hour just past will almost certainly be the best bit.

This is pathetic. This is toe-curlingly awful. This is so abjectly, senselessly broken-backed that it almost isn't interesting to watch. I've seen poisoned rats die slowly, too, and after a while the spectacle loses the appeal even of the macabre.

It is also an act of supreme selfishness on Mr Brown's part. Wrapping himself like some wingless albatross around his administration's throat, starving his own colleagues of oxygen in his mindless determination that other careers should not live in order that his should not die, he has brought his Government and his party to the ground, broken their legs - and yet still will not release his grip. They must crawl on, shackled together, past the humiliation of Thursday's elections and onward for another year: plans jettisoned, policies stalled, Bills postponed, shelving everything bold, all in the name of mere survival. Mr Brown's survival. Never mind Labour's, never mind the future of progressive politics, never mind the ideas and spirits of capable men and women in and around his Cabinet.

From the corner of my eye I see that the Prime Minister has joined his press conference. He is standing at the podium, waving his arms and saying repeatedly "look". Deathly pale and grinning waxily - that disembodied smile robbed, it almost seems, from another discarded dummy - he is moving and talking with sort of desperate swagger. Across the bottom of my television screen a moving strap conveys breaking news. "Alan Sugar to join Lords." "Look," says Mr Brown, "when the fight is on you don't quit..." "Conservatives gain Staffordshire". "...I've an excellent team..." "Caroline Flint resigns." "...She's done a very good job... " "Geoff Hoon resigns." "...And there's work to be done..." "Margaret Beckett to leave the Government."

"I don't think anyone can say that Glenys Kinnock hasn't done important work as an MEP," he says, as if anyone was saying that. "Conservatives gain Derbyshire." "Ever since I was a boy," he begins his spiel on Values. "Conservatives gain Nottinghamshire." Mr Brown attempts feeble joshing with a Talk Sport reporter. "I suppose you're asking about the Lions tour?" "Labour's Dr Ian Gibson to resign his seat and fight a by-election."If only for those of us who watch and comment on British politics to hold on to our own sanity, surely it is necessary to believe that this cannot continue? And yet I fear it can. Surely the Labour Party - parliamentary, nationwide and in the trade unions - can see that what is at stake extends beyond an unavoidable defeat at the next election and into the first few critical years in opposition? Can they really believe that this is the man to take them across the threshold and into that renewal? Are they looking at the polls? Are they noting that they are rapidly joining the ranks of the fringe parties? Can they not picture those future election counts in which the Labour Party candidate stands among candidates from the BNP, the "Let's Have A Party" Party, and the tall transgender lady with the flashing nipples?

Within less than a decade Labour could become a regional party... "Conservatives gain Lancashire"... a regional party without a region.

Look, as Mr Brown would say, I know that you know that I'm a Tory. And you must know that I rate David Cameron, and believe he can and will be a successful prime minister. And so you may wonder (and I know some Labour MPs who may read me do wonder) if my railing against Gordon Brown is some kind of a Tory bluff. If getting rid of him would strengthen, maybe save, the Labour Party, they reason, why would Parris argue to get rid of him?

It's a reasonable question. I've asked it of myself. There was a moment in the small hours of yesterday morning when I said to myself: "Crikey, it really is going to happen. He's sinking. And Alan Johnson really is going to take over. And for a few months Mr Johnson might dance a pretty dance, and Labour's fortunes might recover. 'Plucky, modest, fair-minded English working-class waif-made-good takes on smoothie-chops Etonian' - here's a media narrative that for a season at least could fly..."

And I worried that by recommending Mr Johnson I might prove complicit in a Tory downfall.

So be it, because it's what I think. Gordon Brown will take Labour into oblivion. If Alan Sugar is the answer, then the Prime Minister is asking the wrong question.

[Sheilbh]

Ed Balls goes to war with Lord Mandelson


Ed Balls leaves Number 10 after the cabinet meeting
Isabel Oakeshott, Deputy Political Editor

GORDON BROWN'S reshuffle has created a bitter rift between his two most powerful lieutenants, threatening to derail attempts to rebuild his shattered government.

A Downing Street insider claims that Ed Balls "went nuclear" as the prime minister wavered over whether to make him chancellor – and threatened to stop cooperating with Lord Mandelson.

The schools secretary, whose hopes of being moved into No 11 were torpedoed when James Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, resigned, is said to suspect the business secretary of deliberately undermining his chances of getting the job.

The episode has fractured the truce between Balls and Mandelson, who had been bitter political rivals but patched up their differences when Mandelson returned to the cabinet last autumn.

The new crisis in their relationship highlights the fragile state of Brown's hastily constructed cabinet as he faces disastrous election results in the European polls, due to be announced tonight. Labour is braced for its worst performance in a ballot for the Brussels parliament.

An ICM poll for the News of the World last night showed that seven cabinet ministers face the loss of their seats in a general election.

Last night Balls described

claims of a rift with Mandelson as a "fabrication", claiming he was the victim of a smear campaign. "Whoever is inventing this rubbish is trying, through lies and malicious fabrication, to undermine the Labour party and the Labour government. Nobody should believe a word of it," his spokesman said.

It comes as two more female ministers consider resigning amid disillusion over Brown's leadership.

Meanwhile, Caroline Flint, the former minister of state for Europe, has launched a new attack on the prime minister.

In an excoriating article for The Sunday Times, Flint, who resigned on Friday, lashes out at the chauvinism of the No 10 cabal, accusing Brown of "utter hypocrisy".

"In my relationship with the prime minister, I have felt that I had to repeatedly prove my loyalty while being prejudged," she says.

She claims women politicians have to "constantly work and work to prove their worth" and accuses allies of the prime minister of briefing against her and her female colleagues, adding despairingly: "Why they act like this I don't know."

Last night there were signs that the revolt by women ministers was widening. Bridget Prentice, the justice minister, and Jane Kennedy, the environment minister, are understood to be considering their futures.

Kennedy said: "After the drubbing we have just had at the elections, I would be amazed if there was a single member of parliament [who was not] talking to their local party to judge what the feeling is in the party."

Five senior ministers – Continued on page 2 Continued from page 1 Jacqui Smith, the former home secretary; John Hutton, the former defence secretary; Hazel Blears, the former communities secretary; Purnell and Flint – have already resigned, three over Brown's leadership, in the greatest crisis of his premiership.

The Sunday Times has learnt that as the future of Alistair Darling, the chancellor, hung in the balance, a succession of cabinet ministers and backbenchers lobbied the prime minister to keep him in his post, leaving Brown fearing more resignations if he pressed ahead with his plan to promote Balls.

Balls immediately agreed to remain as schools secretary when Purnell announced his resignation, privately acknowledging that Brown could no longer afford to risk ousting Darling.

However, a Downing Street insider claims that Balls confronted Brown earlier in the week, as he agonised over whether to give him the chancellor's job, warning the prime minister that he could cease to cooperate with Mandelson if the long-standing plan to move him to the Treasury was abandoned.

"Ed thinks Mandelson ran a covert campaign to stop him. He thinks Peter advised Darling on how to handle everything. He went nuclear and warned Gordon that if he didn't get the job he wouldn't cooperate with Peter any more," the insider said.

The Sunday Times understands that it is not the first time Balls has privately made such a threat. However, despite the latent mistrust between them, the pair have worked closely and effectively together since Mandelson's return. They were both at Brown's side when Purnell resigned and, despite Balls's threat, were both closely involved in Friday's reshuffle.

No 10 fiercely denied a rift, saying suggestions of "any tension" between the two men were "completely untrue". The denial was echoed by a spokesman for Mandelson.

The prime minister is expected to face a stormy meeting of Labour backbenchers tomorrow as rebel leaders continue their quest to collect the 72 names required to trigger a leadership ballot. Meanwhile, there was growing fury at a Brownite smear operation designed to undermine the credibility of critics of the prime minister.

Nick Brown, the chief whip, was yesterday forced to issue a public apology to Alan Milburn, the Blairite former health secretary, after branding him a plotter. Brown had briefed Milburn's local newspaper that he was "active" in attempts to unseat the prime minister.

However, yesterday the chief whip offered an embarrassing retraction after saying sorry in a telephone conversation with Milburn. "We got our wires crossed and it needs correcting," said Brown.

A study by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University suggests that Labour is on course to lose 140 seats at the next general election, giving the Conservatives a 34-seat majority.

A new survey of Labour grassroots activists reveals that fewer than half want Brown to lead them into the election. One in five is calling for him to quit now, according to the poll of 800 party members carried out by YouGov for Channel 4 News.

Ed Balls has proven seriously inept and incompetent as a Minister, though Gordon highly rates him.  He was Gordon's right hand man.

The last few days have changed all that as it was Lord Mandelson who saved Brown's premiership by calling round the Blairite cabinet minister to support him.  Apparently the younger Blairites seem him as a 'father figure' and he's close with both Miliband and Purnell.  So now Brown's job was saved by Peter Mandelson who is suddenly more powerful over a man who repeatedly tried to destroy his career than he ever was over Tony Blair.

Lord Mandelson was beautifully ambiguous in an interview with one of the papers in the past day or two.  He was asked a question about his relationship with Ed Balls and replied 'I'm not here to talk about Ed Balls.  I'm here to talk about the future of New Labour and Labour Party.'