The eunuch Prime Minister
His Chancellor has cut off his Balls
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All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Friday
Andy Burnham to Health
Andy Burnham, that football-mad Liverpool lad, is to be the new boss of the non-communist world’s largest workforce: Health Secretary. He has thus fulfilled the prophesy bestowed on him when he was named The Spectator-Threadneedle’s “minister to watch” in 2006. Burnham was a former health minister (I interviewed him in Richmond House at the time)
Where does Balls stand now?
One of the many questions whirling around Westminster is what Brown is doing to placate Ed Balls. So, so close to his dream job of Chancellor – but denied it because of Brown’s precarious position, and an exhilarating intervention by James Purnell – Balls is now stuck as Schools Secretary; a role in which he
Alan Sugar’s take on Gordon Brown
So what did Alan Sugar think of Gordon Brown before he was offered a (for a tsar, utterly unnecessary) peerage? My former colleague at The Scotsman, Gerri Peev, has unearthed something that CoffeeHousers may appreciate: This letter appeared in the FT on 19 March 1992, after Brown appeared to accuse City bosses of feeding off
Alan Sugar: the rare rat that joins a sinking ship
Could anything more confirm this government’s hapless, pointless, useless, desperate, incompetence than the appointment of Alan Sugar* as “Enterprise Czar” (whatever the hell that is)? Doubtless this is something to do with the idea of a “government of all the talents”. Sheesh. Still, why end here? Readers are invited to speculate which of these preposterous
Thirty pieces of silver?
Rumour on the Beeb that Caroline Flint will be made Health Secretary – the price for not following the lead of her fellow “Pugin Room plotter” Hazel Blears? UPDATE, 1459: Now Sky are saying that Andy Burnham may have the job.
Miliband has lost the invisible primary
For the last year and a half or so, there’s been an invisible primary going on between David Miliband and James Purnell. The contest between these two friends was to be regarded as the candidate of their generation and side of the party, the one that the other would have to defer to. David Miliband
What’s going on in the minds of Miliband and Johnson?
So just what are Johnson and Miliband – the Men Who Would be King – thinking? They seem to have bottled, just when their big chance has come. Here, for the sake of completeness, are a few more or less possible scenarios: 1) They genuinely think that Gordon Brown has a chance of recovering, and
The left needs to come to the aid of the party<br />
The Tories are cock-a-hoop this morning. They now have the prospect of a year of a battering a government with a Prime Minister who is so weak he can’t reshuffle his Cabinet as he wishes and a Chancellor who everyone knows does not command the confidence of Number 10. If Labour is polling in the
John Hutton joins the ranks of the rebels
So John Hutton is quitting as Defence Secretary – this was NOT in the script. Lord Mandeson said only an hour ago that “I believe you will find the entire Cabinet following the PM and nobody following James’s lead”. But Hutton, an arch-Blairite who was made to distance himself from James Purnell’s resignation last night,
Hutton to quit the Cabinet
The BBC are reporting that John Hutton–the man who predicted that Gordon Brown would be a ‘fing disaster as PM’–is leaving the Cabinet.
The worst of all possible worlds for Labour
Brown didn’t have the cojones to makes balls Chancellor and so one potential trigger for multiple Cabinet resignations has been avoided. But the country now has a Chancellor who everyone—including the markets—knows is not the Prime Minister’s first choice for the job. What authority will Darling now have when he pronounces on economic matters? Brown
Latest reshuffle news: Denham to Health; Johnson to Home Office
The reshuffle pieces – however incongrous – may be falling into place. A government source has just told me that Alan Johnson is expected to go to Home and John Denham to Health. With Cooper to the DWP, and Darling and Straw staying put, that would fill all the main holes. But who else can
The rebellion grows
Brown appears to be running out of Labour MPs whom he can trust not to resign. Word is that Louise Casey is to be ennobled and sent to the Home Office – this with Alan Sugar’s purported role as a peer and minister would mean even more unelected ministers in the government of an unelected
Latest: Darling to stay put
Word is that Darling is staying put – if so, it would be the position of maximum weakness for Brown. It means he has had to abandon his plan to enstool Balls as Chancellor. And there was indeed such a plan – I know, for example, that Purnell was offered education, which suggests Balls was
How things stand
So where are we now? After James Purnell’s resignation last night, Brown really is on the ropes. In fact, I can’t see him nor his Presbyterian conscience lasting the next couple of weeks, or even the next few days. Sure, folk like ever-spineless David Miliband and Jack Straw have come out in support of Gordon,
More reshuffle snippets
It looks increasingly likely that this will be a Cabinet of has-beens (i.e. Beckett); clique members (Balls, Cooper, Vadera and – God help us – Alan Sugar); and toadies (Sean Woodward). Cameron’s lot will look like veritable titans compared to this new axis of pygmies being assembled in No10. For the Tories this gets better
All smiles for Yvette Cooper
I’ve been in Westminster since 6.30am, a time when anyone awake is crying out for coffee and looking like death. But two metres in front of me now stands the biggest smile I have seen all day. Yvette Cooper was careful not to beam as much on camera, but was a ray of sunlight as
Reshuffle imminent
Seems like Gordon Brown is going to reshuffle his Cabinet this morning, in response to the resignation of James Purnell. The key thing to look out for is whether he replaces Alistair Darling with Ed Balls – we know he wants to, but the events of last night may have dissuaded the PM from
Thursday
Moving from Crisis to Catastrophe
Perhaps James Purnell was at Hamlet last night as well. There is a kind of tragic inevitability to all this now. Until tonight there was at least the appearance of a government. Now even that thin veil has been removed. There is nothing left with which to govern. Think of the already vacant Cabinet posts: Home
Obama in Cairo
I have no doubt that Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo today will not have gone down well amongst American conservatives. In fact many of them will be appalled by it. How long before someone in the right-wing blogosphere writes something about how terrible, if unsurprising, it was to see an American President protstrate himself in
The end has come for Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown is finished. I said so on Newsnight last night and I say it again now with even more conviction. In James Purnell, he has lost a truly formidable Cabinet colleague, the best and the brightest of his generation, and one of the few senior Labour figures to grasp the full extent and novelty
To vote or not to vote?
I’d been thinking that I might as well vote today but Chris Dillow makes a pretty good case for not bothering to endorse any of the parties seeking one’s support. Also, the Scottish european election campaign has, if anything, been even more of a non-event than it seems to have been elsewhere. That is, the
Brown’s second spending spree
Public spending is currently accelerating at an unprecedented pace — more swiftly, even, that during the total loss of control during the 1970s. Spending is due to rise £120bn, 20%, in just three years from 2007/8 to 2010/11, taking it from 41% of GDP to above 50% — a much more rapid rise than in
It’s Truly Shakespearean Now
I’m just back from seeing Jude Law’s Hamlet at the Wyndham’s Theatre. I’ll leave judgement on the quality of the production and performances to those more qualified than myself. But it was certainly a very clear, no-nonsense retelling of that most terrible of stories. Since the point was first made about Gordon Brown being a
Why Purnell resigned
I can reveal that James Purnell was offered education, which he turned down, and decided to resign because he couldn’t go on continuing to go out in public and support a PM whom he’d lost faith in months ago. It’s an open secret that Purnell supported David Miliband for the leadership last summer. And, in
The Tories are on post-Brown footing<br />
Watching Eric Pickles on Sky just now, it’s revealing just how the Tories are responding to the news of Purnell’s resignation. Pickles’ message is that Purnell agrees with Gordon Brown on all the big issues – “high debt, ID cards, and all that” – and he’s pushing the line that Purnell isn’t concerned with the
RUMOUR: David Miliband to resign Friday
Update: Nick Robinson on the BBC saying Miliband won’t go. Update 2: This Week is saying that Miliband and Hutton have said they disagree with Purnell’s decision. The word on the street which I haven’t confirmed is that David Miliband will go tomorrow.
Purnell’s resignation letter in full
Courtesy of the Sun: Dear Gordon We both love the Labour Party. I have worked for it for twenty years and you for far longer. We know we owe it everything and it owes us nothing. I owe it to our Party to say what I believe no matter how hard that may. I now
BREAKING: James Purnell “resigns”
The BBC reports. This is big. More soon. UPDATE: Nick Robinson says that Purnell wants to force a leadership batle, and calls on Brown to stand down. Tomorrow’s Sun and Times carry his resignation letter. Apparently, Purnell “isn’t seeking the leadership”. The quotes that Robinson read out make this sound like a bit of a
The best and the worst ways for all this to end for Labour and the Tories
As we all await ten o’clock (and there’ll be full coverage on Coffee House if anything kicks off then) and the second editions of the paper to see where the plot stands, it is worth looking at the best and worst conclusions to the Labour leadership crisis for the two main parties: Worst for Labour,
Sing a song for Labour
Late last week, we asked who should sing for Labour? (There had been reports that the party was having trouble finding a big name musical act for its annual fundraising do). Thomas Fry came up with the clever suggestion of Gordon Brown singing The Beatles’ ‘I don’t want to spoil the party so I’ll go’.
Fight the wine orthodoxy!
One of the first predictions at the first sign of an economic downturn was the fear of a rapid rise in general mean-spiritedness – leading to nationalism, protectionism and worse. In some areas, though, a bout of grumpy nationalism wouldn’t be a bad thing. Especially if the backlash is directed against those rootless British metropolitans
How would CoffeeHousers reform our democracy?
I would like to call on the substantial collective wisdom of CoffeeHousers. What changes do we need to make to Britain’s democracy? Once, this would have been a closed debate – with Gordon Brown setting up a “national” committee then telling us what we think. Now, we can gatecrash – and this is what The