The blame game
James Forsyth 9:15am
The fall out from the election debacle continues this morning. The ‘young Turks’ surrounding Gordon Brown—principally, Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls and ED Miliband—are receiving much of the blame. One junior minister tells Rachel Sylvester, “I’m in despair about the cack-handedness of these arrogant little sods...These people don't understand politics, they speak at think-tank seminars, not public meetings."
None of the young Turks want to end up carrying the can for this mistake. Hence, all the newspaper reports about who was much less gung ho than we’d realised and urging caution on the PM. A senior MP reports to Sylvester that the three of them are “fighting like ferrets in a sack" to avoid being pinned with the blame for this.
For what it’s worth, none of them make it into the front rank of the betting to succeed Gordon Brown. David Miliband is favourite at evens followed by Hillary Benn and Alan Johnson, who admitted on Desert Islands Discs to not being up to being PM, both at 8/1. Ed Miliband is at 10/1, Ed Balls 12/1 and Douglas Alexander in a group at 14-1 including Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper and Alistair Darling.
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Comments
salieri
October 9th, 2007 9:42amThe next 2 years are going to be 'exciting' times, precisely by being the opposite: witness the excruciating care taken by the Broon's underlings not to upstage him at the Conference by saying anything (a) meaningful (b) interesting (c) provocative or (d) amusing. Now imagine this on a national scale, day in and day out, for even 12 months. Laughable, isn't it? At some point, pretty soon I reckon, at least one insubordinate will, perhaps inadvertently, express something other than a sanctimonious platitude, and the whole Party will implode. May you live in dull times...
albert hammond bootleg
October 9th, 2007 10:15amsalleri: you're assuming Broon's underlings have the wit or intelligence to say something meaningful or interesting etc.. I'm not so sure. These people just don't have the caliber of John Reid et al
salieri
October 9th, 2007 12:36pmFair comment but, yes, even the robots have some intelligence. It's just that they are on strict orders not to use it. What about H Blears blaming the meejer for whipping up all that election frenzy? She doesn't believe it, we know she doesn't believe it, and she knows we know she doesn't believe it. That takes intelligence, of a sort. As for wit, I cannot disagree - though Reid's calibre is perhaps open to debate - but what have the Cameroons to offer either? Only the Sainted Boris, and he's busy taking on another comedian (albeit an unintended one).
John Whitworth
October 9th, 2007 2:14pmJohn Redwood can be funny - I mean deliberately. Hague's a sprightly fellow and David Davis has a dry wit. But is suppose they're none of them Cameroonians, are they? Perhaps you're right.