The worst of all possible worlds for Labour
James Forsyth 10:06am
Brown didn’t have the cojones to makes balls Chancellor and so one potential trigger for multiple Cabinet resignations has been avoided. But the country now has a Chancellor who everyone—including the markets—knows is not the Prime Minister’s first choice for the job. What authority will Darling now have when he pronounces on economic matters?
Brown by backing away from this confrontation has confirmed that he knows how weak he is. He has proved that he is a lame duck Prime Minister. Tony Blair's 'weak, weak, weak' jibe springs to mind.
Alan Johnson by taking the Home Office has bound himself in more closely to Brown. The rebels will now have to force a vacancy or a contest before Johnson can get into the game.
One of the key questions now is whether Labour backbenchers can see how disastrous it will be for the government to stumble on for the next year with a Prime Minister and Chancellor so lacking in authority.
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Richard W
June 5th, 2009 10:12am Report this commentWoodward is doing the rounds of the TV studios and is very close to morphing into Pangloss.
David
June 5th, 2009 10:25am Report this commentThis is best case for the Tories but a further disaster for the country. A wounded PM limping on unable to assert his authority over even his own cabinet. What chance of the radical decisions required being made in such a scenario?
David
June 5th, 2009 10:25am Report this commentThis is best case for the Tories but a further disaster for the country. A wounded PM limping on unable to assert his authority over even his own cabinet. What chance of the radical decisions required being made in such a scenario?
Jonathan_T
June 5th, 2009 10:25am Report this commentDale reporting (on his radio show) that John Hutton has resigned
Nick Kaplan
June 5th, 2009 10:25am Report this commentThe word schadenfreude springs to mind!
Paul Hughes
June 5th, 2009 10:25am Report this commentWell, it looks as if the tories have the perfect conditions in which to nurture their now inevitable landslide. Assuming Brown stays and hobbles on, ridiculed by all and loved by none, he will take Labour to a 1997 style wipe-out. It's all they deserve but I retch at the thought of another year of Gordon Brown.
Last night, somebody mentioned that David Milliband was going to resign in order to restorore some of the kudos he lost last year. I see he has chosen another year of a minister's perks. His future is surely blown. How can he ever be taken seriously?
What an utter bunch of cowards. Brown will now go to his grace as the most ridiculed, despised and ineffectual Prime Minister of all time. Serves him right.
Josh
June 5th, 2009 10:26am Report this commentI'm not sure this is the right reading here.
I suspect, actually, that the markets are resigned to the fact that Brown is going (look how far sterling tanked yesterday on the flimsiest of rumours) and that it therefore matters little who his first choice for Chancellor is.
There is a growing feeling that Darling is a competent man badly done by, and that can only help him - and the markets' perception.
Dungeekin
June 5th, 2009 10:37am Report this commentLet's be honest about this.
With all the usual suspects appearing to hold on to their positions - Darling, Straw, Mandelson and so on...this is hardly a rejuvenation.
It's hardly even a Reshuffle. It's more of a slight jiggle.
The last, fleeting twitches of a Government in its death throes.
Dungeekin
Nicholas
June 5th, 2009 10:37am Report this commentBrown will avert disaster and stumble on. The cowards in Labour who put party before country will see to that. And he is still taking advice from woinkers who think government is like programming TV advertising.
"One wheel on my wagon,
But I'm still rolling along
The Con-serv-atee are after me
But I don't care
Because you see
I've got one wheel on my wagon
And I'm still rolling along"
Vulture
June 5th, 2009 10:44am Report this commentThe markets also know now that Gordon Bruin isn't Britain's first choice for Prime Minister.
But what does he care? I still think he will stumble on; and his party will be annihilated at the next General Election when public rage will be stratospheric.
Tiberius
June 5th, 2009 10:49am Report this commentSo Brown has bottled changing the Chancellor just as he bottled calling the election.
Words are not enough.
Bruce, UK
June 5th, 2009 10:52am Report this commentSelf before Party, Party before Country.
teledu
June 5th, 2009 11:40am Report this commentHe hasn't got the balls, the power or the integrity to get rid of a Chancellor who's abused the MPs expenses system. What a coward.
EyeSee
June 5th, 2009 12:59pm Report this commentA Government of All the Talents. In a Big Tent. Joined Up.
David Bouvier
June 5th, 2009 2:09pm Report this commentJosh - the markets (a) hate uncertainty, so are likely to did during such as period, and (b) were probably expecting Balls as Chancellor who would cooperate with Brown in continuing their mad spree.
For the markets to go down because Brown was going would require them to believe that the next government would make even less effort to stop the country from disappearing into a mire of debt and poverty.
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