Today, the beginning of the end (Blair to announce resignation today)

Source: Guardian

Today, the beginning of the end

· Resignation announcement this morning
· Will endorse Gordon Brown for PM tomorrow

Patrick Wintour, political editor
Thursday May 10, 2007
The Guardian

Tony Blair will today return to Durham's Trimdon Labour Club, and the room where he launched his Labour leadership campaign on June 11 1994, to announce that he is standing down as party leader, before finally endorsing Gordon Brown as his successor tomorrow.

...

Mr Blair will not quit as prime minister until the beginning of July, giving the party seven weeks to conduct its contests for leader and deputy leader. He will spend the intervening period seeking international deals on climate change, a new slimmed-down treaty for the European Union and extra cash for Africa.

With David Cameron yesterday branding Labour as "a government of the living dead", Mr Blair will attempt to counter criticism that he is a lame duck by travelling to France tomorrow to meet the new French president-in-waiting, Nicholas Sarkozy, and then flying next week to Washington for talks with George Bush on climate change and Iraq, the two issues that have dominated their extraordinary relationship.

...

The two leftwingers still hoping to mount a token challenge to Mr Brown for the leadership - Michael Meacher and John McDonnell - will meet today to see who has gathered more nominations. Mr Meacher is claiming 24 supporters. Mr McDonnell has not disclosed the number of MPs backing him, but his supporters have cast doubt on the firmness of Mr Meacher's numbers. Much of the day will be spent verifying the other man's claims.

...

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2076337,00.html

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for those of u into uk politics, meacher's sure to try and pull a fast one - according to http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/article2524419.ece he's in cahoots with brown to keep john off the ballot, talk about stitching up the underdog!

Wonder what he got ($$$$$) for inserting Britian into the "Mess-in-potamia"?

...and liberals can and do get sucked into stupid wars, too. We need to look our future leaders in the eye to see whether they are similarly prone to foreign policy misadventures. It's not enough to be liberal.

He might call himself a Labour minister but he's certainly not a liberal.

- The "New Deal", a glorified work-for-welfare program (I know, I endured it)
- Dumped all the socialist aspects of the Labour constitution
- Waffled on equality
- Continued Thatcher/Major economic policies for his entire first term and continues them in spirit even now.
- Refused to declare himself a liberal or conservative, insisting that he had created a "third way" between the two (if you want to call him a moderate for that, fair enough)
- Refused to reinstate free university education and actually extended the fees on many universities
- Waffled for years on devolution
- Followed Bush into Iraq war and defends it to this day
- ASBO orders for youths acting like youths
- On teh spot fines proposed for many things (i.e. before being convicted or even charged, making suspician something to be fined over in itself)
- Massively accelerated the practice of announcing legislation to teh media, removing teh traditional advisery role of teh Commons
- Removed hereditary peers from teh Lords and then started creating life peers faster than any PM in history, stuffing the Lords with people appointed by him who can't be voted out.
- Oversaw the virtual collapse of the education system and teh further outsourcing and restriction of (already inadequate) free school luches
- Extended Britain's nuclear weapon program (somethign the liberals here have been against for decades)
- Said he favoured the teaching of "intelligent design" in schools

He's only liberal on certain social issues (gay marriage) and every single issue is a carefully weighed equation between the number of supporters he'll please and the number he'll annoy and says whatever will please his audience most at any given moment (including contradicting himself in the same bloody speech!). On social issues, he's a moderate at best. On economics and foreign relations, he's very much a conservative.

I counted it six times in your response. Is it kinda like 'moran' or something?
By the way I agree with you about Blair. Glad to see the slimy ba****d go!

It means "I'm a lousy typist when I get worked up" :)

:eyes:

Tony bLiar has been far right in his policies.

that's why you disabled your profile...

His government is the most anti-gun in British history.

See my other posts. Britain is not, and has never been, a 'gun culture', except for farmers and others who use them for work, and the upper-class rural 'hunting, shooting and fishing' community.

I'm getting sick of this ethocentric BS. Have all the guns you want, as far as I'm concerned - it's YOUR country and YOUR decision. But it's just as bigoted to accuse us of being 'totalitarian' or otherwise inferior because we're not a gun culture, as it is e.g for the right to accuse all non-Christian countries of being 'totalitarian' or otherwise inferior.

Different countries have different cultures and different interests. Deal with it.

All British governments have been anti-gun (or rather, pro-gun-control), and so are most voters, certainly outside rural areas. It's nothing to do with left or right; guns just aren't part of the culture for most Brits and we prefer not to have too many around.

Did you mean to link to something else?

then please tell me what "I returned it to Michael's office only to find it unlocked, bare of staff and strewn with lots of other potentially useful information, should it get into the hands of (the rival left-wing candidate) John McDonnell" could possibly mean then!

the whole bit is about how meacher is getting ready to feed brown some real softballs ("Should we be treating our pensioners better?" being the one quoted) - i'd say that it's pretty clear what's going on. but if you've got an alternative explanation, i'd love to hear it...

It could mean lists of left-wing MPs who have told Meacher they might end up supporting McDonnell in preference to Meacher, for instance, if McDonnell can persuade them - or others that McDonnell can't persuade, although they haven't told him that yet. This kind of information would help McDonnell target his campiagn more precisely.

Why do you think "potentially useful information" for McDonnell can only be "Brown and Meacher are in a secret pact"? The question about pensioners is a poor one - from something that shows Meacher and his campaign aren't very slick, you deduce that Meacher must in fact be a crony of Brown? Was it a crystal ball or tarot cards you used to divine that?

... a list of left MPs that meacher thinks are borderline would not be interesting or useful, especially as he's widely regarded to be a bit of a fantasist, and that's clearly not what "pandora" was hinting at. we'll find out in a couple of hours, i suppose.

i'm afraid that i don't have a crystal ball - but can i ask who u want to be the next prime minister?

Clearly you do have a crystal ball.

I would like Frank Dobson, out of current Labour MPs - of the ones who voted correctly on Iraq, he's the one who rose highest in government, and thus with some credibility for the office. Robin Cook would have been the ideal one, of course.

I like Glenda Jackson, but she may be too lacking in experience (of the political sort). Robin Cook or Mo Mowlam would have been my real choice, but tragically both are dead. So is the man who might have averted the whole disaster from the beginning - John Smith.

u have to read between the lines a little bit, but anything stronger would be pretty libelous. and i meant to ask: "who out of the labour MPs that have declared an interest in being prime minister do u want to win?"

here's the "pandora" piece, have a look for hints - http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pandora/article2524419.ece

* The wannabe-PM Michael "Five Homes" Meacher might want to hair-dry whichever member of his team left a file in the Portcullis House toilets: "Questions to ask Gordon at the start of the campaign." (They include teasers such as, "Should we be treating our pensioners better?" Errrrr... No?)

The dossier was fortuitously found by a Labour staffer, who braved the flatulence of the socialist property tycoon's aide Dan Judelson to do the decent thing: "I returned it to Michael's office only to find it unlocked, bare of staff and strewn with lots of other potentially useful information, should it get into the hands of (the rival left-wing candidate) John McDonnell."

On the quality of the dossier: "Well, Michael is a champion of recycling so perhaps the papers are flushable."


btw, mcdonnell and meacher cancelled their press conference after not being able to reach an agreement, they're meeting again on monday: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6642331.stm

Brown rivals delay bid decision

Left-wing Labour MPs Michael Meacher and John McDonnell have delayed a decision over which one of them will run for party leader until Monday.

The backbenchers have said the candidate with the most backing from Labour MPs would go forward to challenge Chancellor Gordon Brown.

But they say the level of support for each was "too close to call" and more "clarification" was needed.

They say they jointly have the backing of enough MPs to mount a challenge.

...

Smarmy son-of-a-bitch is long overdue to sail off into the sunset. I loathe him with a passion and always have. He's the ultimate political opportunist without a single real principle in his body.

And don't blame me, I never voted for the bastard (I vote Liberals).

He wants to be a STAR.

Source: Guardian Unlimited (UK)

Tony Blair will today return to Durham's Trimdon Labour Club, and the room where he launched his Labour leadership campaign on June 11 1994, to announce that he is standing down as party leader, before finally endorsing Gordon Brown as his successor tomorrow.

Mr Blair wants to bring down the curtain on his time in high office in the place where he began his fight to succeed John Smith and create the New Labour electoral success story.

He will inform the cabinet this morning before flying to his Sedgefield constituency to announce his decision at noon amid the party workers who first selected him as their parliamentary candidate on May 20 1983 at the age of 30. He is expected to make a personal speech that will insist he is a product of Labour and that his government has left Britain stronger than he found it.

Mr Blair will not quit as prime minister until the beginning of July, giving the party seven weeks to conduct its contests for leader and deputy leader. He will spend the intervening period seeking international deals on climate change, a new slimmed-down treaty for the European Union and extra cash for Africa.




Read more: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/story/0,,2076222,00.html

plus calls for Blair to go to the Hague, asking why Labour didn't turf him out earlier etc etc.

I'll keep my celebratory pint for when the government admits publicly that invading Iraq was a mistake. Here's the thread in the research forum created to help answer some of your questions about what's next.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=358x4774

Live on BBC news now!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6639945.stm

Tony Blair is setting out his plans to step down as prime minister and Labour leader in a speech to party activists in his Sedgefield constituency.

He received a rousing reception from supporters at Trimdon Labour club.

He earlier briefed Cabinet colleagues on his plans, with likely successor Chancellor Gordon Brown paying a warm tribute to his leadership.

Mr Blair will remain prime minister until the Labour Party chooses a new leader - expected to be late June.

to bad rubbish. He should be put in Battersea Dogs Home where most unwanted poodles land up.

Most of his bad legacy is summed up here :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6640297.stm

how often does a PM stand down, without having
their party defeated at the ballot box?

Thatcher was ousted mid-term. Harold Wilson stood down mid-term, as did Churchill in the 50's, Eden and Macmillan. And that's just post-war.

... to step down without being forced to do so by a leadership challenge.

And that's just one PM who stood down of his own accord.

Thatcher is the only one to go as a result of a leadership challenge isn't she? Posr-war anyway. Churchill, MacMillan and Wilson went because of health problems. Not sure of the precise circumstances surrounding Eden - think health was given as the reason there.

As I said in another post, Suez no doubt contributed; but it's in fact quite likely that Suez happened partly because Eden was in bad health and not thinking straight. Attlee, Heath, Callaghan and Major lost general elections.

Apart from Thatcher, there have been two post-war Tory leaders who lost leadership challenges - Heath and Duncan-Smith; but neither was PM at the time when it happened, and Duncan-Smith was never PM at all.

Eden was officially 'health', but he had handled Suez so disastrously that I think most people feel it was a convenient excuse. Wilson didn't talk about health problems at the time - the onset of Alzheimer's only turned up as his reason later, I think.

he was being crushed by the establishment and there was almost a coup. thatcher was convinced that he was a KGB agent!

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1731067,00.html

>As Peter Wright confirmed in his book Spycatcher, Wilson was the victim of a protracted, illegal campaign of destabilisation by a rogue element in the security services. Prompted by CIA fears that Wilson was a Soviet agent - put in place after the KGB had, the spooks believed, poisoned Hugh Gaitskell, the previous Labour leader - these MI5 men burgled the homes of the prime minister's aides, bugged their phones and spread black, anti-Wilson propaganda throughout the media. They tried to pin all kinds of nonsense on him: that his devoted political secretary, Marcia Williams, posed a threat to national security; that he was a closet IRA sympathiser.

>The great and the good feared that the country was out of control, and that Wilson lacked either the will or the desire to stand firm. Retired intelligence officers gathered with military brass and plotted a coup d'etat. They would seize Heathrow airport, the BBC and Buckingham Palace. Lord Mountbatten would be the strongman, acting as interim prime minister. The Queen would read a statement urging the public to support the armed forces, because the government was no longer able to keep order.

I don't remember there being a leadership challenge to Wilson in '76. Can you provide details - otherwise like Wilson at the time I fear my memory may be failing.

Eden and Macmillan both retired for health reasons (though possibly helped along by the Suez mess and the Profumo scandal respectively). Wilson did not give a clear reason in 1976, and everyone was very surprised - certainly no leadership challenge there; on hindsight, health may have been the reason there too, as a few years later he showed obvious symptoms of Alzheimers or a related condition.

Actually, what's unusual is for a sitting PM to lose a leadership challenge. It happens more frequently than the American equivalent of an incumbent president losing a primary (has that happened in the last century?) but its far less usual than someone choosing to step down.

... in which case you obviously have to resign. blair's the only PM who's jumped without being pushed - and that's highly unusual.

Not an actual leadership challenge, but his party made it very clear to him last year that he would have to announce his departure before too long (he would have preferred to stay until, or almost until, the end of his third parliamentary term).

What's really unusual is one PM staying so long at a stretch. Wilson had about 8 years in office, but those were divided into two separate terms of 6 years and 2 years. The only people who stayed for more than 8 years at a stretch, and/or won more then two consecutive elections, were Thatcher and Blair - and both definitely stayed too long for their own and their country's good.

he announced last september that he'd be gone within a year. the question is, why is he leaving now? was brown threatening another attack? clearly, no-one thinks that blair has had enough of power - he would carry on until the next general election if he could, i'm sure.

Because we had Scottish, Welsh and Local Government elections last week and the party wanted to concentrate on those elections first.

of course, we all know the answer, but he hasn't officially given a reason. what a joke!

run, than at any other time. You can barely sneeze in the UK without it being recorded.