Campbell wonders at Balls' motives

Silent Hunter

Sour grapes at not being made Chancellor.

Yes; Balls IS 'that' shallow.

Niccolò M

'Private enquiry' is opening gambit, designed to facilitate some general Gordon-bashing over the coming months. Whoever advised the PM that he could pursue this strategy must have known where it would lead -- true cunning at work there methinks. Poor Gordon.

chris

Bring it on. It is quite amazing to me that this useless individual thinks that he has any appeal whatsoever, to anybody. He cannot put a sentence together, he is agressive and alarming, he has showed what a pathetic minister he is, and I expect most of his so-called colleagues in his party wish he would go away.

I also expect that there are many in his party who would only be too happy to give him a big shove into the bin.

Pity, as he had a good education at one of the country's top private schools.

Only Shawn Woodward is a more hateful figure than Balls. Being a fly on the wall listening to Balls, Woodward and Mendleson would teach us a lot about nazi behaviour.
it won't be long beore Brown comes out of the bunker to shake hands with a squad of labour youths.

Simon Stephenson

Niccolò M

Thanks for pulling me back to what's really happening.

Of course! Brown's for the chop - already decided. His replacement will pick up brownie(?) points by making the inquiry public. And it won't mean anything because the inquiry's terms of reference don't allow any progress to be made, whether it's private or public.

A masterstroke. What chance a Mandelsonian inspiration, anyone?

Aidan

I can't imagine why Campbell would want the inquiry to be private.

Silent Hunter

Niccolo M:

Yes 'poor Gordon' - the man who abolished the 10p tax rate which hammered the poorest people in the country.

My heart bleeds for him.
Venal, mendacious bastard that he is.
(are we allowed to use Anglo-Saxon phraseology in The Coffee House?)

TomTom

Clearly Balls is trying to boost Yvette's chances of displacing Harriet Harridan so they can become the Dynamic Duo of Labour Lemmings Leadership

Jess The Dog

Campbell is frightened of a public inquiry, he is frightened of anything that is not an Establishment stitch up. He is frightened for very good reasons indeed, as he will be in the firing line for manipulating intelligence to use as propaganda. There is enormous evidence to back this up - including from troops on the ground and military planners without NBC kit who were not heard in Hutton.

pauline

well done balls-up u have my respect for 10 mins least u admit iraq war was farce what about baby p situ!
too many secrets there yet!!!
lets wait 5 yrs+ for that mites story

Henry Rogers

Simon S and Nic M,

I'm sure you're both right. Gordon gets forced out to screams of derision, a full scale political crisis is stage managed and the Prince of Darkness is implored to accept the reins of power by a panic stricken crowd from the Westminster Bubble.

The new PM (PM) points out that restoring confidence will require months of firm and unpopular measures and to save the public from themselves all thoughts of the June 2010 election must be abandoned.

The public won't be satisfied and the regime collapses.

The EU would naturally be obliged to intervene and impose 'Presidential Rule' and by then TB would be well placed to confirm PM as some sort of provincial governor. I'm sure a certain central european Chancellor and a President closer to home would be prepared to loan troops to bolster his administration and photos of them marching down the Mall would, by the 2090s be collector's items.

Sorry, I got a bit carried away but who is to say any of that is impossible?

Victor, NW Kent

Was there not some allegation that Alistair Campbell had caused the 45 minutes report to be amended?

Verity

Can't Alastair Campbell just go back to drinking and stop pestering us with his presence?

Pauline, in what language were you "writing", if that is not too complex a question?

Jean Baker

Odder still that media spinner and public manipulator Campbell is involved.

Any 'inquiry', secret or otherwise, will be a 'whitewash'.

Simon Stephenson

Henry Rogers : 2.19pm

Of course a next step of reasoning could be that Blair and Brown are intricately involved in all this. The "New" Labour project, perhaps designed as a relay race, with each leader in turn doing his bit. And when public disquiet reaches a certain level, the baton is switched to a new fresh face, hoodwinking the public into believing things are about to change, but in reality having exactly the same agenda as the men who have gone before him.

So all the things that a lone warrior might not have the electoral longevity to put in place, like wrecking the structure of the economy, destroying the intellectual nature of education or politicising the civil service, all become possible if the project is planned to be completed over several sequential but apparently stand-alone regimes.

Henry Rogers

Simon S,

That's all too convincing! Now we all know that TB is thick but has a wonderful gift of the gab and that GB is clever but deluded and has no gift of the gab at all. However the P of D is both clever, cunning and persuasive. He's the one to watch. And if he were to pop his clogs before his natural span I'd hope someone would be there at the graveside with a sharpened stake and a sledge hammer!

Meanwhile somewhere in some far away ministry of foreign affairs there is a group of bright young things, perhaps some of them even British, being coached to take on the handling of the P o D's already nominated successor. I doubt that's young Bollox (either of them). It will be somebody quiet and reasonable whose head is not yet above the parapet. Or perhaps one of the bright young things will be drafted in as some sort of modern equivalent of a viceroy. Us natives would have to be kept in check of course, probably by foreign mercenaries.

Fun as it is to write facetiously of such things there is the lurking thought that it might not all be paranoia and gallows humour.

Hysteria

Verity - I think pline ws ritin in txt.....

Verity

Hysteria - I no, tku.

BlairSupporter

Some fun conspiratorial thoughts here.

What about this one?

Balls is only an also-ran in the darks arts business.

http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/the-three-musketeers-from-granita-to-desperados/