One voice that’s been strikingly absent, so far, from the recent debate over Brown’s future has been that of Frank Field. He’s been a fierce, and integrous, critic of Brown for the past decade, so the assumption has been that he’s been holding back now so as not to ruin his chance of winning the Speakership. But no longer. The Birkenhead MP has just put up a blog post which is as incisive as ever. Here’s the key passage:
“Don’t let anyone kid themselves that this was an unimportant election where voters felt they could make a clear protest vote. Unless something changes significantly on a national level these results would be reproduced at a general election.
Labour cannot win with the present Prime Minister. I was one of the seven who would not support his coronation after Tony Blair was shoehorned out of Number 10. But even I didn’t think a Brown administration would be as inept as this one.
The Brownites are attempting to terrorise Labour MPs into inaction. If they succeed then we deserve our fate.”
A few weeks ago, Field was stressing how crucial it is that the next Speaker drives through a “programme of reform”. Maybe he’s figured that he could do more for Parliament by helping to oust Brown…
h/t: Paul Waugh
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