The beginning of the end? (For Tony Blair)

Yep, methinks he hath sh*t his potfull.

In Canadia, Paul Martin's Liberals are propped up by the New Democrats. The Progressive Conservatives (insert rolling eye emoticon here, and read: Tories) whine about Jack Layton's NDP, and pretty much shoot themselves in the foot for any hope of a coalition with them. The Bloc Quebecois has nothing but safe ridings, but not enough seats to guarantee anyone's government. So, when Layton declared the other night that the New Democrats could not express confidence in the Liberal government, everyone began speculating on the life expectancy of Martin's government. The Tories sneered and whined, and the BQ pissed and moaned about a holiday season election.

I have understood that Blair enjoys a solid majority in the House. What are the prospects for his continuing governance? Would this be a case of him being replaced in his own party's leadership? Is Labour in danger of losing their grip on the House?

Neyaa . . . what's up, Doc?

you are indeed correct mr setanta sir that mr blair has a perfectly adequate working majority.

which brings into focus even more the reasons why he lost tonight.

he made it an issue of his personal authority...based on what the police said they required to keep us safe from islamic terror.

and the house said stuff you

why?

simply because on issues of national security, blair has form. As prime minister he has a right to ask the people to trust him and the govt on issues of national security. But the people say "we gave you that trust, you betrayed it".

So there is no real danger that Labour would lose the House then--so how would the downfall of the Poodle be accomplished?

Its not obvious. Mr Blair has all the factors in his favour (on paper).

Its a question of personal authority. I've said many times that I like TB. Still do. And he is unquestionably a superb Politician...but in my view you can lie and deceive parliament and the people over all sorts of things....and get away with it in the medium term

but NOT over such a fundamental issue as peace and war (in Iraq)

Blair for whatever reason has so antagonised so many in his party, in the media, in the judiciary you name it

in all the walks of life that he depends on to run this goddam country

for the simple reason they AND ME object to being lied to on such a fundamental issue.

So what it boils down to i think, is that the Labour party has now had enough. They want change in the form of Gordon Brown. Another vote like tonight and it could happen pretty quickly.

The so called "men in grey suits" would privately tell him he has lost the confidence of the party....what can he then do but try and go with dignity?

(Actually knowing TB he will probably go for the showdown/nuclear option)

Well, then, i'd first like to get some historical perspective, and then . . .

Did Thatcher have an absolute majority in her House, or was she ever obliged to coalition government? If the former, is the rise of Labour to such overwhelming power a result of what may have been seen as Thatcher's hubris? Was it simply that idiotic poll tax tomfoolery? Were the electorate tired of her and the Tories? Did former supporters of Heath stab her in the back? I've always wondered how an intelligent observer close to the action would describe her fall. Was that the definitive end of the Tories?

And the finally question--what i want are gory details--how would the nuclear option play out?

What happened? What vote?


(Sorry, too little time to check google/news feeds)

He wanted a vote to authorize holding suspects for 90 days, up from the current 14 days, but was defeated soundly, and an amendment to allow suspects to be held for 28 days was passed instead. Tories and Social Democrats combined could not have defeated him, so significant numbers of Labour cross over in the division.

Ah, yes...I did know about that.


Hmmmmmm...

will try to give account tomorrow. late here. warren time

I think part of it is the 90 days. It's too extreme. If you can't get a cough in 14 or 28 days then ramping it up to 90 days isn't going to achieve much either.

Interesting act of ethics vs party loyalty, I would say.

I agree with GF.


Not sure what it means for Blair, though. In Oz it would certainly be a message that time for a PM was running out - becausehe had not read his party adequately if for no other reason, politics being the art of the possible.

The 90 day thing, so we are told by Blair, is so that the Police would have adequate time to search through the maze of links and evidence on various seized computers, mobile phones and other gadgetry, and follow up any leads.

There a two schools of thought here. Either Blair genuinely believes that 90 days is required, or that he has gone for 90 days, knowing that it will be knocked down to a lesser time by Parliament, eventually ending up with a concession being made (say 60 days) and everyone feeling that they've won.
The fact that it ended up as 28 days, shows that Parliament had total control over the outcome.

The reason that Parliament WANTED to get it down to 28 days is that they no longer believe the "truth" that comes out of Blairs mouth.

One hell of a lot of M.P's feel totally betrayed that a British Prime Minister would lie to Parliament over a matter as serious as going to war then, rather than come clean, do his utmost to cheat and deceive Parliament by means of very slick "spin" (deflection, distraction and betrayal.....just think of that poor sod David Kelly) ...to cover his arse.

The people of voting age in this country are becoming more apathetic by the day, as in the USA, so whether they care about the situation as deeply as M.P's is neither here nor there, as far as the Blair machine is concerned.
But to have your fellow M.P's give such a damning kick in the teeth to his credibility, leaves him with very little alternative but to seriously prepare for a handover to Brown, IMO.

If he stays, this type of thing will happen over and over again, which is no good for the country.

Shame, really. A nice guy at heart, well intentioned but totally seduced by the dark side of spin and cynical manipulation.

Agreed.

An interesting aside: towo days ago, the Labour MP's Marshall-Andrews (strong opposer) and Dowd (stron supposer, former whip) had an "punch-up" about this law (Law-Andrew called Dowd a 'faggot', Dowd went "ballistic" and lunged at him).



Blair must now reconsider how much he dare get away with in future Commons showdowns.
There's still 12 month until next year's Queen's speech, and these will decide, how much of his reform agenda can survive.
And these months will decide as well, I think, if and when the party will loose discipline. (From a German point of view, I know what I'm speaking about :wink: )

(Although the Independent already thinks that the moment Tony Blair lost his authority had arrived already yesterday at 16:56.)

This all started, as far as I can see, with the election campaign that got him into number ten in the first place.
His bulldog behind the scenes, Alistair Campbell, stage managed virtually everything. The tories were ridiculed and belittled in a very slick campaign, Blair was portrayed as the shining white knight, and Labour were swept into office on a crest of a wave.

The day that he arrived in Downing Street to meet a very large crowd of jubilant and cheering Brits convinced most of us that, as their campaign theme tune suggested, "things can only get better".

We were not used to "spin", and thought this was all genuine......it was always there, I suppose, but not carried out in such a slick and organised way.

We now know better! I personally feel ashamed that I was swept along with all the other sheep, looking back on the whole thing.

The MISTAKE that he made, was to carry on using the services of Campbell ( a veteran of the Press machine, he knew just how to whip the media into line) and, although the bulldog had not been elected by anyone, he was put into a position of great power, almost becoming the unnoficial deputy Prime Minister.

Campbell, in my opinion (I have to state "opinion" here, as I'm not sure how the British libel laws cover me) quickly became a Svengali like shadow in the background, only ending after the awful episode when our weapons inspector, David Kelly, committed suicide after being outed for leaking secrets re the "sexed up" document that everyone now knows to be a crock of sh*t.

The press came after Kelly like a pack of wolves, and the spin machine moved into top gear in an attempt to lessen the impact of his opinion.

He, a shy and retiring Scientist who was a typically "old school" honourable Brit, took a quiet walk into the country and slashed his wrist.

In the ensuing press investigations, it transpired that it was very likely that Campbell had orchestrated his "outing" and had left him to the wolfpack.

If Blair had ceased to use Campbell when he had made it to Downing Street, and had managed the office of Prime Minister in an honourable way, he would probably now be regarded as one of our best leaders, and we probably wouldn't be involved in this awful mockery of a war.

Like I said right at the beginning of this thread, I believe that Blair has now sh*t his potfull.

The best thing he can do now would be to leave honourably, and let the country move on to better things. Hopefully bringing credibility and honour back to Downing Street in the process.

Lord E - good posts, good analysis. I think perhaps people are sick and tired of spin. I am sympathetic to Labour but Blair has to go for the sake of the party and indeed the people.

Thanks GF....I think you're right about spin, but the problem is, they will spin another line to us about them not having spin anymore....and we will probably believe it.

Ho Hum.


On another note.........

Just trawling through Wikipedia, to read up on Kelly, I came across one of its sources, an email from Kelly to an American journalist, sent on the day he supposedly comitted suicide.

Email reads.....
" I will wait until the end of the week before judging - many dark actors playing games.
Thanks for your support. I appreciate your friendship at this time.

Best,
David. ".........

NOW, this email was sent to one New York Times journalist called JUDITH MILLER ! .......had he unwittingly sent his email to one of those "dark actors"?

See........ http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051107fa_fact




Kelly was quite naive, IMO. He opened pandora's box (with good intentions, methinks) and paid the price.


Source.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly

Having read through a couple of today's papers, some suggest that the public actually supported the 90-days.
(Which would start a new "wisdom of the crowds" against traditional parliamentary democracy discussion again.)

I'm thinking that with an impending Italian election, there's a possibility that the "War on Terror" will lose both Blair and Berlusconi in short order.

Too much agreement here.
How about a little controversy?

Tony Blair is the best thing to happen to the world since the baby Jesus, and is much misunderstood amd maligned by an ungrateful Commons which should know its place in the presence of such an uebermensch.

Y'know.