The beginning of the end? (For Tony Blair)

Wow, getting all nasty and personal now, are we?

Confront Muslim extremists - Reid

Extremist Muslim "bullies" must be faced down, John Reid told the Labour conference in a speech which heightened speculation of a leadership bid.

there are numerous misunderstandings in the long post above

I understand why you dont like Blair. I have felt utterly disenchanted too. But I think that was to do with specific though very important issues, e.g. Iraq Afghanistan, terrorism etc.

but your bias against Blair comes through

e.g. when something is ok its down [to] Brown

And leaving out those issues, Blair and this Labour govt have done brilliantly.... in the opinion of Bill Clinton...personally I would only give them 7/10.

Mr Prescott's remarks last night infuriated many Blairites who increasingly fear that their stock is falling. One pessimistic ally of the prime minister admitted that he was doubtful any Blairite candidate would be able to gather the necessary number of nominations to stand. The names of all nominees have to be published, and some Brownites suggested that a Blairite candidate was as many as 10 short of the 43 MPs required to mount a candidature. [..]

Mr Prescott is the second cabinet minister to depart from the agreement reached at last week's cabinet meeting not to make announcements on the leadership at the conference. The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, also endorsed Mr Brown this week.

The only lingering hope for Blairites is that the party will sense that the chancellor is not electable, and over the next few months start to shift to another candidate. The only possibilities will be the home secretary, John Reid, the education secretary, Alan Johnson, and the environment secretary, David Miliband.

Mr Johnson sidestepped questions about his leadership ambitions yesterday as he used his speech to announce measures for children in care and the end of coursework for maths GCSE. Speaking at the end of the session on education and health, which was dominated by the row over NHS privatisation, he was politely, though not rapturously, received.

John Reid put himself in pole position to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership yesterday when he earned a standing ovation for a speech in which he vowed the British will not be browbeaten by Muslim bullies.

The resources of the security services will have nearly doubled since 9/11, from £800m in 2001 to £1.4bn next year. But it is clear that Tony Blair does not yet believe that the security services are up to the task of tackling the scale and new nature of the al-Qaida threat in Britain.

Labour has one serious candidate - but it also seems to have a death wish

The bullying Reid was yesterday unleashed on a hogtied Brown to warn of the dangers of straying from the Blairite path

Polly Toynbee
Friday September 29, 2006
The Guardian

'Rottweiler Warning," the headline flashed up on Sky News, just as John Reid stopped speaking. It turned out to be a dog-eat-child story, not the home secretary at all. One delegate was heard to hiss loudly: "I'd vote for Cameron if Reid won the leadership. I'd rather have the nice Tory than the nasty one."

This must have been one of the most unpleasantly jingoistic, rightwing rabble-rousers a Labour conference has heard in quite a few years. This was Britishness as from the Millwall terraces. "No no-go areas," he boomed: "We will go where we please, we will discuss what we like." No fool, he's hard to fault on particulars: the poison is all in the sentiment and tone. How proudly he gloated that Cameron had found his policies too extreme. Indeed, if he was one of Cameron's team, that speech would have got him fired.

Reformed old communists have this in common: when they swing the other way, they always go that bit too far. They never take off their combat kit: the progressive social democratic gene is alien to their psyche. So there was nothing progressive about his performance yesterday.

Roy Hattersley will not be alone: his threat to shoot himself if Reid becomes leader could turn into a mass die-in of Labour supporters. But there was Tessa Jowell, first up within seconds to tell the BBC what a wonderful speech it was. Indeed, rhetorically it was a barn-stormer. So is this it, the last throw of the shrinking group of Blairites? [..] It probably isn't quite.

But it is a sign of something almost as depressing. I lost count of the number of times Reid used the word "leadership" in his tough, tough, tough speech, as he put his marker down to be first among possible challengers. So far it's just a threatening gesture from the bruiser lurking in the alleyway. It smacks of both bullying and cowardice: without the bottle for a fight, he will hang about flashing that stiletto under his coat, hoping Gordon trips up all by himself during the next excruciating months of uncertainty. [..]

What will be the effect of this lurking? It is designed to make sure Gordon Brown strays not one step from the Blairite straight and narrow: at home on the NHS and public-service reform, abroad on the war and Bush. He will make this interregnum yet more needlessly fraught, flashing that glint of a knife whenever Brown tries to shape his own style and agenda. If they hobble him sufficiently, he may flounder, and Reid can step up. Or some anyone-but-Reid challenger might charge through the middle, anything better than the old attack dog himself. Who knows? It will spawn enough conspiracy theories to keep the media happy and the voters bored and angry - deeply damaging to Labour.

<snipped>

There is a fatalism, bordering on a death wish, hanging over some in the party right now. Just when new ideas and new faces are needed - and there are plenty around - everything hangs in suspended animation, delaying a contest that never comes, waiting for a hustings that never happens. Just when the probable next leader needs freedom to step out and show what he can do, he is kept gagged and hogtied until Blair finally sets him free.

As they come up for air from the conference, probably nothing of interest reached the public. The odd announcement here and there by ministers falls on ears no longer listening to Labour. A new leader urgently needs to find a way to tell Labour's narrative anew. Meanwhile, the Tories gain a stronger foothold: their conference will give them another lift. [..] Is this a party almost willing itself to fail?

Here they are, with only one serious candidate - yet bent on destroying his authority and reputation every day that goes by. If enough people really think that he is not a winner, then dump him now and choose someone else fast. Get it over. But if it is to be him, get behind him now. Build him up, don't pull him down. Much more of this and they will be staring certain and well-deserved defeat in the face.

arglewargle

[..] dear lord, please not John Reid, the Labour Party now has it's very own Norman Tebbitt.

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Andychr

Will someone *please* give the nutty old Stalinist the Life membership of the Conservative Party that they both so richly deserve?

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angryman9

I sincerely hope the Labour Party elect Doctor Reid when the time comes. Nothing is more certain to ensure a Tory victory.

FrancisSedgemore

I really don't know what to make of Dr John "Red-Top" Reid (ref. Dave Hill), but isn't it a bit rich for Gordon Brown's chief media 'attack dog' to liken Reid to a football hooligan and hyena? [..] I hardly think that Gordon Brown is a cuddly bunny. In any case, no-one reaches high office in the British state without being at least a bit of a thug. So what does it come down to in the end - an assertion that my political hero is more refined a thug than yours? What a depressing thought.

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Waltz

I think Labour is on its way out regardless of whether Brown or Reid succeeds Blair. But Reid's speech yesterday was excellent and it's a huge relief to see a major political figure, one with some real clout, powerfully defending the values of liberal democracy against the religious fascists.

downsman

September 29, 2006 08:27 AM

Of course we have long known there is no depth of duplicity to which Mr Blair will not sink in extremis. But he still has the power to bring you up short with his sheer audacity.

Last Sunday Blair was testily refusing to discuss any aspect of the leadership in a long interview with Andrew Marr. The Cabinet, he said, had met that week and agreed that this week was one in which only policy questions would be discussed with the British public.

Four short days later, he was sitting and grinning alongside John Reid's wholly undisguised bid for the top spot, with constant references to "leadership" and often in a context (ie taking on Mr Cameron) which could not be confused with a plan of action by a Home Secretary. [..]

It is no surprise Blair would want to annoint Reid. Reid's history - lowest common denominator attacks on human rights, an impatience with the Geneva Conventions when Defence Minister, his aggressive, sinister hounding of Elizabeth Filkin from her role assessing MPs' conflicts of financial interest - these are of a piece with Blair's own authoritarian instincts, in which Guantanamo Bay achieves no more than 'anomaly' status, and rendition is to be either ignored or gently applauded.

Those Labour supporters who say they would vote for Cameron's Tories before a Reid-led Labour Party are not being overdramatic or glib. They are simply saying there is a final core of principle and human decency which we must always fight to keep hold of.

These politicians breed fear and then trade on it to justify attacks on civil liberties.

Repeating his pledge that there could be no "no go areas" in Britain after his recent showdown in east London, he said he would not be "brow-beaten" by extremist "bullies". [..]

"So when the terrorists or their loudmouth advocates of terrorist sympathisers tell me that we won't be allowed to raise our arguments in this or that part of the community, my answer is simple:

"'Yes we will. This is Britain. There are, and will be, no no-go areas in our country for any of our people, whatever their background, colour or creed. We will go wherever we please, we will discuss what we like and we will never be brow beaten by bullies.' That's what it means to be British," he said.

To applause, he went on: "And let's be clear. It cannot be right that the rights of individual suspected terrorist be placed above the rights, life and limb of the British people. It's wrong. Full stop. No ifs, no buts. It's just plain wrong."

"The Tories end up talking tough, voting soft and hoping no-one will notice."

If Reid becomes Labour leader, I'll be voting Tory

John Reid must not become leader of the Labour party. He is an aggressive and unstable character who thrives on confrontation and conspiracy.

This is the politician who thought it was appropriate to spend three days in a luxury hotel with Radovan Karadzic. He famously punched a House of Commons attendant in 1991 during his years as an alcoholic. He nearly came to blows with the late Donald Dewar over the so-called "lobbygate affair" in 1999.

Reid's son Kevin, while working for the firm Beattie Media, was secretly taped boasting of his access to ministers. Kevin's subsequent employment as a parliamentary researcher led to the confrontation between John Reid and the parliamentary standards commissioner, Elizabeth Filkin, who accused him of intimidating witnesses and attempting to undermine her inquiries.

As defence minister, Reid famously said that British soldiers in Afghanistan would "return without firing a shot".

Reid has always been best at being Tony Blair's attack dog. Mouthing slogans about "the presumption of deportation", attacking civil libertarians, confronting British Muslims, and enthusiastically fronting the latest round of anti-terror legislation including 90 day detention.

Most didn't notice, but in his farewell speech Tony Blair set out Reid's leadership prospectus by saying that Labour should attack David Cameron for being soft on criminals and too anti-American. This was a direct appeal to Reid as the only man willing to take on the Tories from the right, rather than the left.

If Labour installs Reid as its leader, the party will complete its transition to an authoritarian party of the populist right. It will mean riots at home; new wars abroad. There will be imprisonment without trial, a massive increase in police powers, curbs on immigration.

This must not happen. If Reid becomes leader, I will be voting for David Cameron.

He was interrupted by activist Abu Izzadeen, who said he was "furious" about "state terrorism by British police".

What's on sale at the Conservative juice bar?

Stephen Moss
Monday October 2, 2006
The Guardian

The scattered remnants of the Hefferist wing of the Conservative party have been mortified to discover that the tree-loving, husky-hugging David Cameron has insisted on setting up a General Well-Being Juice Bar at this week's conference in Bournemouth. The days of pinstriped Tory grandees having a three-bottle lunch before taking a cab to the conference hall to bellow a speech on the importance of birching nine-year-olds who get substandard marks in their Sats appear, sadly, to be over. What is the world coming to?

The juice bar will be called "Cafe GWB" and will sell two organic fruit smoothies - blueberry thrill and apple dapple doo. The cafe will have a prime position right next to the main party stand. "It's all part of the change thing," says a friendly, helpful person at Conservative Central Office (soon, no doubt, to be renamed The Information Zone). "It's tended to be all champagne and oysters in the past - and I'm sure there'll still be some of that - but we want to make the point that general well-being is fundamental to the party's core values. We want to spread a bit of goodness." [..]

The party's worrying new obsession with spreading goodness will echo throughout the conference, as a quick look at the list of fringe meetings demonstrates. Amnesty International is organising a discussion with the Conservative Human Rights Commission (sic) on torture; Barnardo's hosts a reception titled Ending child poverty; the Shaw Trust is staging a discussion called Beyond profit: public sector services and the third sector; Turning Point goes for Bottling it up: The effects of alcohol misuse on children; and the RSPCA is holding a Freedom food breakfast to discuss the future of farm animal welfare ("meat and vegetarian options will be available" of course). The Thatcherite No Turning Back Group is presumably meeting in a phone box in Poole. Smoothies not welcome.

Leader's bus gets stuck in a ditch

Simon Hoggart
Tuesday October 3, 2006
The Guardian

Tory party conferences used to be bland affairs in which people said the same thing in different words and agreed on key issues: string 'em up, cut taxes, don't trust foreigners. These days [it's] more like [the] coach has spun off the road and the left rear wheel is in a ditch. Half the party are struggling to push it back on the Tarmac, while the other half [..] have moved to the back and are barracking their efforts.

So the law and order debate was fascinating. They kicked off with a guest visit [..] from a woman called Camilla Batmanghelidjh who runs Kids' Company, an organisation that helps children who've been wrecked by poverty, drug-addled parents and council care. [..]

Camilla is a big woman, [..] and she spoke in a long, seamless bellow about the problems of children loved by nobody, helped by nobody, left with crime their only way to stay alive. "We are gratified when we punish them, yet we ignore them when they are abused behind closed doors!" she yelled. The Tory conference [..] even clapped her, though in the way they might have applauded the Chippendales, if the vicar had signed them up for a fundraiser.

Minutes later they were even clapping Shami Chakrabarti. The director of Liberty! Ten years ago she would have been as welcome here as a dead mouse in a bowl of egg nog. Yesterday they cheered her - though possibly most for her attack on the government and "the pitbull posturing of home secretaries".

But this is an interactive conference and each delegate has a keypad which they can use to text messages. These flash up randomly on the giant screen, and tell a different story: "We need ID cards, now!"; "Why does the punishment seldom fit the crime?"; "More prisons and longer sentences"; "If I ran prisons, there would be no TVs in cells!"

They are interlarded with contrary views, views more pleasing to the present leadership. "If you were homeless and had no money and no food, you would be tempted to mug someone"; "We should be no more afraid of hoodies than we are of miniskirts."

Was it cynical to imagine a clutch of Cameroons in the audience saying "Quick, give 'em something caring and compassionate!" Fingers fly desperately over the keyboard before "Birch all immigrants" makes it onto the screen.

Over on the fringe Norman Tebbit and Theresa Villiers were debating taxes. Ms Villiers, a front-bencher, was valiantly defending the decision not to promise immediate tax cuts. But here are the lines that got the biggest applause at the meeting:

"How about leaving the EU?"; "The Conservative party is presently vapid, rootless and vague!"; "We know - tax-cutting works!" and "The EU is an overpriced, diseased cartel" - all greeted with huge and enthusiastic cheers. Mr Cameron has much work left to get his bus out of the ditch.

Johnson makes gaffes on all fronts

Wednesday October 4, 2006
The Guardian

Boris Johnson, the outspoken shadow higher education minister, was under siege yesterday after committing four gaffes in a few anarchic hours of the Tory conference.

Mr Johnson was besieged by dozens of reporters, photographers and TV cameramen after blundering into controversies on everything from school dinners to Muslim extremism.

After holing up in the conference press office for half an hour, he eventually made a break for freedom, surrounded by a media scrum. [..] "Do you not think you've slightly over-egged this?" he said as he ran from reporters and camera crews.

Mr Johnson slighted Jamie Oliver, days after David Cameron had praised the TV chef in his opening speech to conference. Mr Oliver had done more to improve school food than the government had, Mr Cameron said.

Mr Johnson told a fringe meeting he would ban sweets in schools, but added: "If I was in charge I would get rid of Jamie Oliver and tell people to eat what they like." He said: "Mothers have been driven to pushing pies through fences. The solution is not to provide healthy stuff." [..]

Mr Johnson, who was recently criticised by the RAC for allowing his sons to share the front seat of a sports car he was driving, also told a fringe meeting safety seats for children in cars were "utterly demented", adding: "When I was growing up we all bounced around like peas in a rattle - did it do us any harm?"

He then said: "As a Scot, Gordon Brown will find it hard to convince people in England he should be prime minister."

Finally, in a separate fringe meeting he told Tories that giving power to local communities could result in sharia law. [H]e told the audience that while he was broadly in favour of localism, there was a complication in "the issue of people's failure to feel British, especially large chunks of the Muslim population."

He added: "Supposing Tower Hamlets or parts of Bradford were to become governed by religious zealots believing in that system. Are we ready for complete autonomy if it means sharia law? [..]".

Top front page stories you might have missed

Sunday December 3, 2006
The Observer

Tony Blair says: 'It's time to start a national debate over whether we should erect two 40ft statues of me at either end of Pall Mall'

The Prime Minister today will announce the need for a 'widespread public conversation' about whether he should best be remembered by having two 40ft-high statues of himself put up in London. 'I'm not saying we should,' he will say.

'All I'm saying is it's important at this stage to rule nothing out before the public has had this unique opportunity to have a chat with me about why we should do this.'

Though funds have already been allocated and voted on for the project, Blair himself insists that things are still 'very much open', because materials haven't yet been chosen nor pose agreed (though he himself favours sitting on top of a pile of city academies looking ahead of him into the windows of a much larger city academy).

Home Secretary John Reid says Polonium-210 is safe but everything else isn't

The Home Secretary today tried to allay public fears over Polonium-210 by asking his wife to gargle with it in front of the cameras.

'Please do not panic,' he told the press. 'The only way it could kill you is if two tons of it fell on your head from an aeroplane. There is absolutely no risk to public safety. 'Everything else, on the other hand, is a very grave threat to the security of this country.

'Lipstick, cough medicine, shoes, and hats may all look safe, but in the hands of terrorists could be suicide bombers in disguise. Walls, bread, handkerchiefs, drums, and hair are all potential sources of the utter destruction of this nation by our enemies.

'Let me be frank; at some time in the not-too-distant future, this country will be destroyed and you will all be killed, unless you heed the warnings I give you.'

Quote:

Top front page stories you might have missed

Sunday December 3, 2006
The Observer

Good spoofs on the styles of Tony Blair and John Reid, respectively..

Quote:

Tony Blair says: 'It's time to start a national debate over whether we should erect two 40ft statues of me at either end of Pall Mall'

The Prime Minister today will announce the need for a 'widespread public conversation' about whether he should best be remembered by having two 40ft-high statues of himself put up in London. 'I'm not saying we should,' he will say.

'All I'm saying is it's important at this stage to rule nothing out before the public has had this unique opportunity to have a chat with me about why we should do this.'

Though funds have already been allocated and voted on for the project, Blair himself insists that things are still 'very much open', because materials haven't yet been chosen nor pose agreed (though he himself favours sitting on top of a pile of city academies looking ahead of him into the windows of a much larger city academy).

Home Secretary John Reid says Polonium-210 is safe but everything else isn't

The Home Secretary today tried to allay public fears over Polonium-210 by asking his wife to gargle with it in front of the cameras.

'Please do not panic,' he told the press. 'The only way it could kill you is if two tons of it fell on your head from an aeroplane. There is absolutely no risk to public safety. 'Everything else, on the other hand, is a very grave threat to the security of this country.

'Lipstick, cough medicine, shoes, and hats may all look safe, but in the hands of terrorists could be suicide bombers in disguise. Walls, bread, handkerchiefs, drums, and hair are all potential sources of the utter destruction of this nation by our enemies.

'Let me be frank; at some time in the not-too-distant future, this country will be destroyed and you will all be killed, unless you heed the warnings I give you.'

Dismayed Labour MPs said Mr Blair seemed "oblivious" to the damage being done to the Government while he refused to give a timetable for his departure. "There is a sense of total frustration across the backbench," said a Labour MP. "It is agony, like watching a car crash in slow motion. Things are just falling apart."