Politics

Hazel Blears knows exactly what she’s doing by intervening in print during the Labour Party’s darkest spring. Think of it the other way around. Ministers know that when the Prime Minister pledges 100 per cent support then it’s curtains. It’s a sign of the declining authority of Number 10 that this rule has now been inverted. Cabinet loyalty is assumed. It should not have to be asserted. Hazel Blears is stating the obvious, which is very dangerous indeed. Of course the government was on the wrong side of the gurkha debate, of course it is failing to communicate with the voters, of course the YouTube performance was a disaster. But Cabinet ministers

The rhododendron flowers are out, so it must be time for the  big beasts of the Labour Party to stir again. Charles Clarke has said that he’s ashamed to be a Labour MP after the events of the past few weeks. Well, who wouldn’t be? Clarke says there are no signs of a leadership challenge, but I’m not so sure. I think Frank Field is right that if the European and local elections on 4 June are as bad as expected, we might see a summer of serious speculation about Brown’s position. We are back preceisely where we were last summer. David Blunkett has entered the fray again. I thought he was

Iain Martin – who’s been blogging has been splendid lately – is right: the Tories should be worried that Labour might unseat Gordon Brown and fight the next election under new leadership. It’s hard to see how even this could win the election for Labour, but at the very least it might limit the losses the party can otherwise expect next summer. In fact Labour would be well-advised to get rid of Brown after the European elections next month, replace him with someone such as Alan Johnson or even, god help us, Jack Straw and promise to hold an election in October this year. Since there’s little advantage in carrying

The shocking thing about the government’s defeat this afternoon is that it can be described as a shock at all. And parliamentarians wonder why they are viewed with, to put it mildly, disdain? Anyone with an ounce of commonsense can see that it is grotesque to tell the Gurkhas that they may fight in the British army but they cannot live in Britain. And yet 246 MPs duly blundered through the government lobby solely so they could be good little soldiers themselves and try and spare their masters some much-deserved embarrassment. Then again, it’s a testament to the reduced expectations people have of parliament that it actually is a surprise

 A truly magnificent piece by Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times yetsterday. An extremely nuanced argument, which ends with the following paragraph: “One of Mrs Thatcher’s most famous phrases was: “There is no alternative.” As yet, no major political figure in Britain or the western world has really articulated a coherent alternative to the free-market principles inherited from Thatcherism. Until that happens, the Thatcher era will not be definitively over.” The rest of the piece, however, is an important deconstruction of the Thatcherite case for moral superiority.  “Perhaps most damagingly, Thatcherism has lost the moral high ground. The Iron Lady once proclaimed, slightly sinisterly: “Economics is the method. The object