The whirlwind of rebellion rumours, claims and counter-claims continues to rampage around Westminster. Will Caroline Flint act as a stalking horse? Is John Hutton about to resign? Which minister referred to Team Brown as “thugs”?
I, for one, don’t have the answers. But you’d have expected No.10 to be more clued in than most. Not so, if Ben Brogan’s latest blog post is anything to go by:
“Somebody close to Jim Murphy called me a short while ago to assure me that the Minister for Europe is not about to resign. Now, I suppose you could say the same about quite a few members of the Government. What’s curious is that nobody had suggested to me that he was about to quit. But No10, last night at least, briefly convinced itself that he was the minister in the departure lounge.”
Of course, rebellions are by their very nature “out of control”. But that No.10 seems to be convincing itself of imminent resignations that won’t happen(?) doesn’t augur well for its ability to deal with the plotters.
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