What do you have to say to get sacked by Gordon Brown?
James Forsyth 10:00am
One of the more remarkable things about the row over the abolition of the 10p tax rate is the level of insubordination that the Prime Minister is letting Parliamentary Private Secretaries get away with. Just look at this string of quotes from The Sunday Times: "Derek Wyatt, a junior aide to Margaret Hodge, a culture minister, said: “I’ve had virulent e-mails from my constituents saying they feel betrayed and deserted. They say they will never vote for Labour again. I have thought about resigning, yes. The government has time yet, so it’s too early to say. But I’ve taken soundings from my local party and yes, many of us do feel this is a betrayal of our core beliefs.”
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Wyatt, the MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, said: “That is serious. It’s not what this party is meant to be all about. I have no time for the idea [that] this can’t be fixed.”
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Russell Brown, a junior aide to Des Browne, the defence secretary, said: “We’ve got to find a way to sort out this mess. We need to take this whole fiscal package, which was meant to be revenue neutral, and put it back together again. Questions will be asked as to how the government got it so badly wrong.”
John Mann, an aide to Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister who has herself called for a rethink, said: “I’ll be making my case very strongly and forcefully to the chancellor at the next budget. A good budget should reward work. Some people on low incomes have lost out this time and I hope we can put that right at the next budget. The 10p tax rate is not the only issue, there are also taxable allowances and finances that need to be looked at as part of the package.The fact that they can get away with these kind of comments is a sure sign of both how unpopular the scrapping of the 10p band is within the Labour party and Brown’s diminished authority. With this as precedent, PPSs will feel much less scared about sounding off about other unpopular government policies in future; guaranteeing that the press will have a ready supply of ‘Labour split’ stories.
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pfb
April 20th, 2008 10:38am Report this commentIs it because Brown wouldn't be able to find enough replacements if he sacked all the dissenters....
kinglear
April 20th, 2008 11:16am Report this commentThe interesting thing to me is that Blair would have been able to turn it round - or even to his advantage. Don't forget (as the 2005/6 polls show) Brown was less popular as leader than Blair even at the end.
Austin Barry
April 20th, 2008 12:33pm Report this commentThis is yet more evidence of dithering. Brown can't stamp out dissent himself and can't rely on Iago Balls to do so because Balls has his own not-so-hidden-agenda and this entropy works in favour of his ambition.
Chuck Unsworth
April 20th, 2008 3:36pm Report this commentWyatt is the local MP. He's pretty OK as a local figure, probably works pretty hard at various things and is generally liked. But he's not going to retain his very slim majority on the strength of that.
This is about public anger and disgust at the activities of central government. It's also obvious that Wyatt and his colleagues have almost no effect on the likes of Darling and Brown. Labour are going to have to go some to win the next General Election - and time, economics and recent history are against them. In short, they've blown it.
John Miller
April 21st, 2008 7:47am Report this commentGo read Dizzy Thinks. He makes the very valid point that these people hooted and cheered after Brown's budget speech. What are these people? Very stupid people incabable of thinking for themselves? Or people who don't care about what happens in real life until it intrudes on their political games?
No one in the Labour Party comes out of this looking any good at all - they are, one and all,exposed as unthinking political opportunists unfit for any real job.
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