Who would replace Smith?

AndyLeeds

I wouldn't bet on her going. The woman has no shame nor, it seems to me, an sense of morality.

Mitch

How about an honest person?.......can we find one in the house of expenses and fiddles.

Seba

Surely Smith should be the hot favourite?

oldtimer

Of course, Purnell could decline the offer. That would be the smart move and a significant signal. Not that I really care.

Duyfken

Her successor would need to be seen as squeaky clean over allowances. Stand forward Mr Dennis Skinner.

Tiberius

Purnell could always refuse the invitation to become Home Sec, Fraser.

Telling Brown to shove it could do his future leadership ambitions a power of good.

Dave B

I agree with Andy, she'll brazen it out, unless her 'main house' claim gets passed to the police.

George Laird

Dear Fraser

Discounting the Tories from your list.

The obvious choice is John Denham.

The rest appear to carry too much baggage.

As to the Scottish ned Jim Murphy at 33/1, I thought the odds would be longer.

500/1 seems right if you want to lose a few quid.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Sally Chatterjee

Brown is a coward. He often picks fights with those he can bully but he might well lack the authority to sack a fellow Cabinet Minister.

I think she must go. Being Home Secretary requires her to know wrong from right. Yet news that she's been checking her diaries to prove her main home is her sister's spare room only highlights how poor her judgement is, she can't spot how awful this looks.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, Smith is almost certainly going to be cleared by the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards, John Lyon who was very reluctant to investigate her "main home" fiddle right from the start and who, as you will know from the Screws yesterday, chose not to investigate Griffiths or even ask the Screws what evidence it might have.

Who is Lyon, what is his background and is there any reason for us not to suppose that he is another Labour placeman put there so he will not cause any Elizabeth Filkin kinds of embarrassment.

I just get the feeling that deep down there is a story attached to Mr Lyon.

jaydeeaitch

Almost certainly toast? LMAO.

As one commentator on CiF so perfectly phrased it, she is toasted on both sides.

Polly Peachum

Mitch - I am reminded of the philosopher Diogenes, who went round with a lighted lamp through Athens in daylight; when challenged, he replied that he was looking for an honest man.

Perhaps we should resign ourselves to the least worst incumbent.

Carrie

You're living in la la land if you think the Labour party will elect James Purnell to the leadership. This is the same party that elected Harriet Harman as Deputy Leader 18 months ago. Purnell has more chance of becoming leader of the Tory party!

luke

Amazed Johnson is 14/1. Thats far more likely than purnell.

Fraser Nelson

Tiberius/oldtimer, I should say that I suspect Purnell would take the job if offered and that he doesn't see it as quicksand.

Carrie, I didn't say it is probable. I suspect that Labour will go on self destruct mode instead: it normally decides to disembowel itself after losing power.

hadrian

Elizabeth Filkin should take her old post back, with the utterly, inexplicably ineffectual Lyons 'promoted' to the Home Office. The dismissal of Miss Filkin by the execrable, snivelling Mick Martin was nothing short of an atrocity.
Oh, to see all the other shocking expense claims made by our highest public 'servants'!! Pickles got himself into a right pickle on Question Time last Thursday. He is exceedinly poor quality Tory, practically inarticulate at times.

John

Who would replace Smith?
A packet of crisps?
A clothes peg?
A lump of wood?

While these are all inanimate objects they have the advantage of the inablity of doing as much harm as the present incumbant.

Silent Hunter

How about a tub of lard?

I seem to remember one standing in for Mr Hatterjee on Have I Got News for You; I believe it did about as well as Jacqui Smith is doing as Home Secretary - so we shouldn't even notice a difference in performance.

Leg-iron

Who would replace her?

Nobody.

There would be an immediate improvement.

Mitch

"who went round with a lighted lamp through Athens in daylight"
The eco-police would arrest him these days but point taken,what a choice though the best of the worst.

David Ossitt

Sally Chatterjee
March 30th, 2009 9:14pm

"Yet news that she's been checking her diaries to prove her main home is her sister's spare room only".

Sally. That pompous fool; Piers Morgan, for once got it right with regard to proof of where she stays the most, he said it will take the police security team no more than ten minutes to check that they provide cover for far less than half the week. It is a fiddle!

TGF UKIP
March 30th, 2009 9:29pm

"I just get the feeling that deep down there is a story attached to Mr Lyon".

There is; try to find a photograph of him, other than an old one with him sat at a committee table.

He is not there to do the job but to pretend that he is.

No teeth, no balls, no bloody good, as much use as an ash-tray on a motor-bike.

johnny come lately

COME BACK BLUNKETT!

COME BACK DAVE!

COME BACK BLUNKETT!

at least he had a bunk up he didn't watch!

David Ossitt

TGF UKIP
March 30th, 2009 9:29pm

PS.

Think about this; this man decided on two separate occasions NOT TO investigate the Home Secretary, only after neighbours stepped in did he then decide to investigate.

What I am driving at; is that he does not have to explain his reasons for not taking any
action. He is a law unto himself very very dodgy.

Bruce, UK

Sooty. At least the smear campaign is only over Mr Corbett's suit.

Gruntson

Things are bad when even the Metro can make a joke at your expense: the Metro is free, but Jacqui has been claiming for them for years.

Not bad - but pure genius for the Metro.

Wily Trout

Perhaps Mr Lyon has been replaced by a tub of lard?

Paul L

George Laird

Jim Murphy is not a ned.

Max Kaye

An 88p plug would be an excellent value-for-money stop-gap.

Chuck Unsworth

Who would replace Smith?

I'd replace her instantly. Anyone or anything would do. She's incompetent and devious. A plank would be an altogether better choice.

Bobby

Why is grayling second favourite is he about to defect?

Verity

Max Kaye - Ha ha! I suggest it be employed up her arse to contain the BS. Talk about a Parliament of Whores!

Florence Nightingale

Who to replace Smith?
May I suggest a 65years old white Christian person (anyone will do),born and bred and struggling to survive in Bradford/Oldham /Blackburn etc?

Richard

I think everyone is ignoring Hazel Blears here!

I am no huge fan but she is relatively clean, at a department not a million miles away at communities, female and no threat to Gordon Brown.

She may not be a future, or current, big beast but she has done a number of cabinet jobs and is generally liked. She is also publically known. Johnson and Purnell should not/cannot be moved. Denham has far too little profile after the far too little profile Smith.

Just a thought...

George Laird

Dear Paul L

I am sorry but that is my impression when I look at him.

A ned in a cheap grey suit devoid of class and breeding.

Here is what 17 Labour MP's thought of this ned in action prior to being an MP;

"That this House condemns the intolerant and dictatorial behaviour of the President of the National Union of Students, Mr Jim Murphy, who has unconstitutionally suspended NUS Vice President, Clive Lewis, because he took part, in a personal capacity, in an open debate at Queen Mary and Westfield College on the issues raised by the Campaign for Free Education; further notes that along with President Elect, Douglas Trainer, both men have warned NUS Executive member, Rose Woods, that if she attends the Scottish launch of the Campaign for Free Education she too will be suspended from the NUS Executive; reminds Mr Murphy and Mr Trainer that freedom of speech is a right in the United Kingdom, that they have no power to overturn the results of elections that went against their preferred candidates and that, whilst these methods are a common practice in dictatorships around the world, they are not acceptable behaviour from someone such as Mr Murphy who is putting himself forward as suitable for election to the House of Commons".

We will have to agree to disagree on this point.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

TGF UKIP

David Ossitt,which is why I was jokingly suggesting elsewhere a competition to name the biggest Labour patsy, Martin, Lyon or whichever crook is currently running the Labour Election-Fixing Commission.