Are the party rules “fit for purpose? If I was an opposition “attack dog” I would be licking my lips in anticipation over Labour’s coming leadership election. For unlike what has become the norm in other parties the choice of Labour leader is not determined by a membership ballot in which all votes have equal value. For a process that might have looked democratic when last used 12 years ago when the party was not in power now has a…
For Labour’s sake, Tony Blair must go now Regular readers of this site will know that I am not one of New Labour’s greatest fans. In fact, I would be happy to see the Labour Party go the same way as the Liberals in the 1920s. Nonetheless, I am not being cynical in offering my opinion that the sooner Tony Blair goes, the better for Labour. Tony Blair’s own opinion poll ratings are dreadful. YouGov’s BrandIndex and MORI are at…
Is his inability to take criticism his fatal flaw? My biggest “person” bet of 2004 was a big lay when he was odds on that the former Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, would not take the Democratic nomination. I risked a thousand or so after being advised by an academic friend in the state that Dean had furious temper and that sooner or later he would blow himself up – which it did. My biggest person bet in 2005 was…
Is it too late for a timetable? You usually feel like a circling vulture when a politician announces at short notice that a “statement” is on its way. But Tony Blair’s announcement yesterday felt underwhelming in the circumstances. A month ago, say, the news that Blair would certainly be gone 12 months from now would probably have been enough to convince the rebels that they should more or less hold their tongues until then. This week’s catharsis, though, gives the…
What are the implications of Blair’s statement? My first reaction to this afternoon’s statement is that it makes Gordon Brown’s task just a little bit harder. We are now in an eight or nine month countdown which, as I argued yesterday, makes it a little easier for other challengers to develop their campaigns and come into the race. The critical question remains – will Gordon face a serious challenge when the vote comes? Everything that likely contenders do in the…
Is Tony trying to make Gordon fight for the job? From the acres of space devoted to the Labour leadership this morning there has been little on what to me is the key issue – that Tony is not playing ball over Gordon’s plan to get into No. 10 without having to fight a real contest. All the talk of ‘smooth transition’ seems to have been on the assumption that Tony Blair would do what he could to make the…
Does Tony actually want to hold on? You all read the news, but to state the obvious, it’s been a bad couple of days for Tony Blair. The string of resignations, even if all but one were Parliamentary Private Secretaries (not even members of the government, strictly speaking) hasn’t robbed the government of its most respected figures, but gives a pretty good impression of chaos. Blair’s allies plead for “a dignified departure”, which seems to mean setting a date sometime…
Will there be another wheeze to keep the show going? One of my great sayings used to be “Nobody ever got rich betting against Tony Blair”. Certainly he has been in tight corners before and the money has piled in from punters on an early departure. Just three years ago, in the frenzy over the Hutton Inquiry following David Kelly’s death, Blair became odds on for a while to go before the end of September 2003. Then on one famous…