Jacqui Smith admits Brown's tactics forced Blair to leave earlier than he wanted to

toco

Blair and Brown-a plague on both their houses for putting personal ambition,power,gain and vanity above this Country's wellbeing.The possibility of a Balls or Milliband becoming leader of what has become an irrelevant force in British politics is likely to pass unnoticed by all but the very few.Only 100 days or maybe less before we can start mending our broken society.

wonderfulforhisage

Strange. Why didn't Blair just sack Brown? Perhaps Brown knew where the bodies were buried? But which bodies? Very strange.

salieri

Perhaps not. They all hoped Brown would be a vote-winner like Blair. They were wrong. He's toxic waste. Brutus and Cassius enjoyed popular gratitude, for a while.

David Ossitt

“Jacqui Smith: I think it’s likely that Tony left probably earlier than he might have done had there not been that pressure placed upon him.”

Oh dear; come on James, why are you even bothering to write about the opinions of this very silly, if not stupid, woman?

Martyn Rowe

The Labour MPs who agitated for Blair's removal at Brown's behest must be very pleased.

Swapping electoral gold for electoral chlamydia was an act of marvellous political judgement.

David Ossitt

toco

It is 95 days to be precise.

TrevorsDen

Correct toco, but we also need to mend our broken govt and we need to mend our broken economy and we need to mend our broken armed services, and that before we start on education.

There is really no difference between Brown ousting Blair and the europhiles ousting Thatcher. It soured the Tories for years.

Of course in the tories case there was an issue over policy ... in labours case it was just vanity. The example of Brown does at least show how terminal it is for a political party if it allows a party within a party to operate. The invasion of Iraq is small potatoes ... Blairs biggest mistake was not sacking Brown between 2002 and 2004.
Even if it meant conjuring up a dodgy dosier ...

PS - of course, Blair's accommodation with Brown came back to haunt him but it was typical of the way he operated. Tell the big lie in the rush of the moment and the events will move on and the issue will die away. Move on to the next obfuscation.

Jennifer Joh son

What are the best new porn films?

Ghengis

"likely -- probably -- might" in the derivative sentence, hardly constitute any grounds whatsoever for discussion.

Andy Leeds

The Tories fall out over policy. With Labour they hate each other on a personal level. Twas ever thus.

Chuck Unsworth

Why is Andrew Neil bothering with this discredited fraud?

Beer Moth

Martin Rowe

'Electoral chlamydia'

Respect.

2trueblue

David Ossitt, not that stupid, she wrote a letter and read it out in parliment, and for that she kept £160,000 tax free. And thats the money we know about. They are all pretty dispicable.

David Galea

When she gets kicked out at the next election I'll celebrate by listening to a Mike Savage podcast.

cityca

toco
"Blair and Brown-a plague on both their houses for putting personal ambition,power,gain and vanity above this Country's wellbeing."

Are any of them any different?

Major Plonquer

I wholy object to refering to Gordon Brown as 'Electoral Chlamydia'. This is wholly exagerated. It's easy to get rid of chlamydia.

JohnAnt

"I think it’s likely that Tony left probably earlier than he might have done had there not been that pressure placed upon him."
This is news? We all knew that.
The question is - what role did Gordon play in the Cash for Peerages scenario? Did he fan the flames?
Because it was that scandal that finally pushed Tone out of office.

ndm

-- The way in which Brown treated Blair is one of the reasons that he has found it so hard to command loyalty as Labour leader.

Maybe so. But Blair stayed leader of the Labour party for far too long - putting his own personal ambition way ahead of his duty to ensure the electoral survival of his party.

Cuffleyburgers

@ndm - maybe so, but it would be nice if any of these bastards put the country's interests above those of party or of self.

anne allan

Brown knows where the bodies are buried: too true.
Even with one eye you can see the literal and metaphorical cemeteries produced by the most mendacious, greedy and amoral prime minister this country has ever produced (I don't think Brown's personal greed reaches the same level).
Apart from thousands of Iraqis and nearly two hundred ill equipped British soldiers, Blair also bears responsibility for creating the conditions that lead to individual tragedies such as Dr.Kelly's death. He also sounded the death knell for a Britain that was, by the standards of most countries, honest and upright.
I would like to think he can't sleep o' nights, but I suspect he is so bathed in self righteousness that he gets his full, untroubled eight hours.

Beer Moth

ndm

But who was there worthy of replacing Blair? At any time?

Frank P

Jennifer Jon son

"What's he best new porn films?"

I suggest you watch the SOTUS.

70 minutes of a c*** in action - and Oh! Those labials!

Ghengis

"But who was there worthy of replacing Blair? At any time?"
Worthiness is not a word I would use in the context of blair, it suggests that he in some way possess's a degree of such an admirable quality

Alex

95 days? Can I suggest that The Spectator creates a Widget of a Counter to the Next GE Widget somewhere on their website?

We can then look forward to the death of Labour.

Alan Douglas

Cuffleyburgers "it would be nice if any of these bastards put the country's interests above those of party or of self."

In Tony's case "L'etat, c'est moi", while in his wife's case " The tat, that's me."

Alan Douglas

quadratus

anne allan @11.48
The juxtaposition of "Brown.....knowing where the bodies are" and a reference to Dr.Kelly makes interesting reading.
Whatever,to dislodge Blair must have required considerable leverage.The Power of Prayer perhaps?

anne allan

quadratus -I couldn't possibly comment.

Barbara

She says Blair left early because of the pressures from the Brownites, well if he really had any bottle he would have stayed an fought, after all he was the one elected not Brown. He let himself down and the country.Has for having Balls or a Milliband in office, god forbid, have we not suffered enough? The problem is they are all Communists in Tory clothing, is it not documented the Labour party has been linked to the KGB right up to .97'. They are all suffering from pompus self interest, and think they have the answer to the counties problems, but they have had the chance to solve some of them but it appears they have made things worse. Their greed, their dogma, obviously of communists mantra, which we've seen in their policies and laws passed, all to make freedom of speech more difficult and make us comply. We need to get rid of all of them and for those who wish to follow they should rethink their policies we've had enough of PC and need change.