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True Scotsman

PM fails to quash exit-date clamour

Tony Blair promised that he would quit within a year

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1313992006

PM fails to quash exit-date clamour

JAMES KIRKUP AND GERRI PEEV

* Pressure from Labour rebels may force Blair to announce resignation himself
* Signed letter from faithful states that previous assurances are enough for them
* But only 60 of 200 back benchers have signed

Key quote "The conventional wisdom is that the Prime Minister sees himself carrying on for about another 12 months." - David Miliband, Environment Secretary

Story in full

A DESPERATE promise from Tony Blair last night that he will quit in less than a year failed to quell a Labour uprising.
Click to learn more...

The Prime Minister was forced to authorise allies to say he would be out of office by next September, after a group of previously loyal Labour MPs effectively demanded his immediate resignation.

David Miliband, a Blairite and Environment Secretary, Jeremy Beecham, who chairs Labour's ruling National Executive, and a string of loyal MPs and MEPs yesterday all said that Mr Blair will go before Labour's annual conference next September.

"The conventional wisdom is that the Prime Minister sees himself carrying on for about 12 months, and it seems to me that conventional wisdom is reasonable," Mr Miliband said. Sir Jeremy added: "There will be a change of leadership by the time of the next conference."

The clear signal sent by Downing Street suggests that Mr Blair would effectively resign next summer, in perhaps July or August, as electing his successor as Labour leader and prime minister could take two months.

But many Labour rebels were unconvinced and say they will continue to put pressure on the Prime Minister to state his intentions publicly himself, with some demanding an explicit statement at this year's conference, which begins in Manchester on 24 September.

Mr Blair was in Yorkshire yesterday, trying to attract attention to what was billed as a major speech on social exclusion.

However, he refused to discuss his position.

As part of the exercise in damage-limitation, No10 hastily organised a public letter from loyal MPs insisting the public assurances from Mr Miliband and others were enough for them. But scarcely 60 of more than 200 Labour back-benchers signed the letter and several were said to have refused point blank.

Many MPs' concerns centre on the elections next May to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, where Labour faces a tough fight. Wayne David, a Welsh MP, insisted last night: "We can't afford to have this kind of speculation taking place over the next 12 months."

Panic was prompted by plans among some 17 previously loyal MPs, who were elected in 2001, to write to Mr Blair telling him to quit soon.

Downing Street confirmed last night that a faxed copy of the letter had been received.

Worryingly for Mr Blair, at least two more letters are in circulation, one from MPs first elected in 2005 and a second from parliamentary private secretaries and junior government aides.

That pressure is likely to force more concessions from the Prime Minister, supporters say. One minister, who has discussed the transition with Mr Blair, told The Scotsman:

"They knew this was going to happen and they've accepted that they're going to have to give in bit by bit."

Some Blairite loyalists accused followers of Gordon Brown of orchestrating the insurgency, a suspicion fuelled by rumours that Tom Watson, a defence minister close to the Chancellor, had added his name to the 2001 intake letter.

But allies of Mr Brown, who fears an all-out Labour civil war, insisted last night that they were "dismayed" by the letter-writing campaign.
Aventinian

I'm getting increasingly bored of all this. I'm at the stage now where I pretty much have accepted that Tony Blair is the Prime Minister and will be for the foreeeable future.
Cado

Quote:
the foreeeable future.


You may find yourself paying a visit to the opticians shorty - the way things are going.

You could find yourself looking like this: Shocked
Reluctant Hero

Blair is due to make a statement regarding his future at 1400 this afternoon.

On Newsnight last night, MPs were indicating that if he is vague about the departure date, then there will be a high profile cabinet resignation today.
SLG

BBC predicting next May, but that he won't give a fixed day - just say sometime in the next year.
sandmountainslim

The State Media here in America is reporting that most likely Miranda Brown will be the next Bretwalda Of The Saxon Nation.
Is this true?
Deo Vindice
WP
Morph

Waht are you talking about? I understand the historicalreferences i just dont see the need for them. Brown willl prob step up however there are challenges
SLG

Charlie Clarke having a second go at Brown in the Telegraph today apparently. Some prettty strong words used. Brown will be getting very very nervous.
Anthropos

This was in today's Sunday Times which I though quite interesting, it is about Brown and his un Churchillian nature:

Quote:
This is why his behaviour has been little short of insane. We shall no doubt have to await the memoirs of the two men before we can properly reconstruct the cataclysmic meeting which took place on Wednesday. But, however one analyses it, it is clearly Brown who was ranting and demented. At one point he apparently threatened Blair with a second, third and even a fourth “wave” of resignations, for all the world like Osama Bin Laden ordering up cells of suicide bombers from his cave in Tora Bora. It is a measure of Blair’s enfeeblement that he did not simply sack him on the spot, tell him to go to hell and challenge him for the leadership if he dared.

Presumably Brown was gambling that none of this would ever emerge. Here again one sees his autism when it comes to personal relations. News of what had happened was spreading across London within hours, as it was bound to do. It is therefore not his brutality which makes one question Brown’s fitness to become prime minister — brutality can be a necessary quality in a leader — it is his criminal stupidity. And if this is the way he behaves towards the serving prime minister, can one wonder that so many of his junior colleagues, such as Charles Clarke, feel so scarred by their dealings with him, or view the prospect of a Brown premiership with trepidation?

What Brown needed to do this autumn was to treat Blair with the utmost loyalty and consideration, both in public and private. His model should have been Winston Churchill in May 1940, who mounted a magnificent defence of Neville Chamberlain in the Commons which impressed many of those who had previously doubted his judgment. The result was that Churchill was prime minister two days later.

Blair was almost finished anyway after his disastrous performance over the summer. There was no way he could have survived the Labour party conference without laying out a timetable for his departure. Brown should have praised him to the skies at every opportunity. By doing so he would have looked like a statesman and gone a long way towards winning over wavering Blairites.

As it is he has shown the most appalling political ineptitude and has reduced the Labour government to a farcical grotesquerie without precedent in living memory. So much so that, as the reality sinks in, I would put Brown’s chances of succeeding Blair at not much more than 50-50 and his hopes of winning the next general election at substantially less than that.
Reluctant Hero

All the ex ministers are coming out to attack the PM now

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5348554.stm

Blair may not hang on, says Hoon

Europe minister Geoff Hoon has cast doubt on Tony Blair's ability to remain in office until next May.
He told the London Evening Standard it could create a dangerous "air gap" for Labour, allowing a Tory recovery in local, Scottish and Welsh elections.

Mr Blair has said he will quit as party leader within a year, with allies stressing it is likely to be in May.

It comes as backbencher and ex-Downing Street aide Jon Cruddas said he was considering a deputy leadership bid.

Mr Blair is thought likely to step down after local elections and mid-term polls for the Scottish and Welsh Assembly on 3 May - expected to be disastrous for Labour.

'Popular'

"Having set the outer limits of how long he is staying, that still leaves questions in the context of the elections in May," he told the Evening Standard.

"A lot of people will be asking if it makes sense to him to carry on through those elections."

He raised the prospect of Labour activists jumping ship if Labour does badly.

"It is a concern that if we were to lose badly in the local elections again, two years running, a lot of active Labour members would not be active by the time of the next general election," Mr Hoon told the newspaper.

He added: "The view among activists is that he [Mr Blair] should go out on a high. That should be a factor affecting his decision. He should do it while he's still popular."

The normally loyal minister's intervention is likely to reignite debate about Mr Blair's departure date, ahead of Labour's conference in Manchester in a week's time.

'Lost touch'

Meanwhile, former Blairite minister John Denham attacked the government as over-centralised, narrowly-focused and lacking in policies.

"Our government has become too centralised, so much is funnelled through the narrow channel at Downing Street that we have become slower in responding to new policies. Some of our new policies haven't been well designed," Mr Denham told GMTV, in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday.

He said the government lacked a "clear message" for voters and had lost touch with the public.

Mr Denham, who resigned as a Home Office minister over the Iraq war, added: "I think we have explored the limit of how much social change you can achieve by driving everything from the centre."

Cruddas bid

In a separate development, backbencher Jon Cruddas has said he is considering adding his name to the list of Labour MPs interested in the party's deputy leadership.

He said he had been approached by key trade union figures who wanted him to stand and was "flattered".

But he insisted that major reforms were needed, and whoever won the post should not also be given the title of Deputy Prime Minister, as John Prescott had been.

Mr Cruddas told the Guardian: "Right now I am not crunching any numbers. That would be presumptuous. There is no vacancy.

"I am trying to see if I can start a rolling debate about what this job is, and how the party needs to organise itself. One thing is for certain: the status quo is not an option."

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain has already announced a challenge for the deputy leadership, when a vacancy arises, and Constitutional Affairs Minister Harriet Harman has said she is considering a bid.


Quote:
The view among activists is that he [Mr Blair] should go out on a high. That should be a factor affecting his decision. He should do it while he's still popular


That is one of the funniest things that I have read in ages.

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