Friends of Darling: He won’t take another job
Nick Robinson has just reported emphatically that “friends” of Darling have made clear to him that it is Chancellor or nothing for him.
James Forsyth
James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Wednesday
Downing Street confirms that Brown and John Reid met last night
Nick Robinson has just reported on the BBC that Brown and Reid met last night. Robinson says that he heard that Brown offered Reid the job of Home Secretary but a Brown aide denies that and says they just talked about Celtic football club. I’m sure Brown—fighting for his political life—has nothing better to do
‘She found it too much’
Peter Mandelson, who is spinning at full speed today, has just given an interview to Jon Sopel in which he has said that he spoke to Blears this morning and that she just found the pressure placed on her because of her expenses too much. Mandelson is playing a dangerous game. Blears doesn’t want to
That must have hurt Darling
Peter Mandelson has just been on TV stressing what pressure Smith and Blears have been under because of the expenses story and trying to spin that as the sole reason they have resigned. He was then asked about Darling and his response was that Darling was another person who had found himself in the eye
Is the letter in the post?
Allegra Stratton and David Hencke have the scoop over at The Guardian: A group of rebel MPs have begun soliciting signatures for a round robin letter calling for Gordon Brown to step down, which they plan to hand to the prime minister after the results of the local and European elections have come in on
PMQs live blog | 3 June 2009
Today’s PMQs comes at an awful time for Gordon Brown. But weirdly if he can make it through this half-hour without being bloodied further, he might buy himself some time. But if Cameron pummels him, he might be weakened even further. It’ll be one of those occasions when one watches the faces of the Labour
Why Blears jumped at the worst time for Brown
The word in Westminster is that Blears made up her mind to resign when Number 10 started trying to blame her for the leaking of Jacqui Smith’s resignation. It can’t be stressed enough that Blears has chosen to go at the worst moment for Brown. She has resigned hours before PMQs giving Cameron time to
Blears jumps before she’s pushed
The chaos continues: on the eve of the European and local elections and in time for PMQs, Hazel Blears has resigned.
Caught in the shuffle
I rather suspect that Gordon Brown’s fate will be sealed by whether or not he can pull off a successful reshuffle. If he can bind the Cabinet to him, he is probably safe until at least Labour conference. Over the weekend, the assumption was that Brown would reshuffle on Friday. The idea was to move
Tuesday
The Guardian calls for Brown to go
Following on from its call for its readers to vote Lib Dem at the European election, The Guardian will tomorrow call on Labour to replace Gordon Brown. In an editorial that has clearly been written more in sorrow than in anger, the paper says: “The truth is that there is no vision from him, no
Jumping Jacqui
Well, well – what is going on? I locked myself away for a few hours to write a piece and emerge to find that the Home Secretary has resigned. My first instinct was to look for Damian McBride and to check for the availability of Peroni in the Westminster area. But the word is that
We are about to see Brown doing what he does best
Gordon Brown’s greatest political achievement was to be the heir presumptive to the Labour leadership for 13 years. For more than a decade, there was not a day when he was not the favourite to take over once Tony Blair had gone. Brown did this through a whole variety of methods, including plenty of brutal,
ComRes has the Tories down ten to thirty while The Guardian urges its readers to vote Lib Dem and The Independent calls on the Cabinet to dump Brown
A day of political drama has a twist in the tale: a ComRes poll which shows support for the Tories collapsing and Labour closing the gap to eight points. Anthony Wells, an authority on polling. is calling this result “frankly odd” and saying that he’d “be amazed if YouGov, Populus or ICM produced figures to
Monday
Three disastrous days for Brown
It is worth thinking for a second about how bad the past few days have been for Brown. We have had a poll showing Labour in third and then one with Labour recording the worst rating ever for one of the two major parties. What has, perhaps, caused equal damage to Brown is that he
These polls have Labour doing 50 percent worse than the Tories did in 1997
That Mori poll which has Labour on 18 percent is dominating conversation in Westminster tonight. Coming after the poll at the weekend which had Labour third, it has the speculation up another notch about whether a challenge to Brown might begin to materialise as early as Friday. Putting these polls into perspective, offers no comfort
Labour tied with the Lib Dems on just 18 percent in latest Westminster poll
The Labour limbo continues: the party is down to 18 with Mori—level with the Lib Dems. This is, according to Political Betting, a Westminster voting intention poll. The Tories are on 40. I can’t think of the last time one of the big two was in the teens in a Westminster voting intention poll.
There could be utter chaos on Friday
In Westminster, the word is that Gordon Brown will reshuffle the Cabinet on Friday as the local election results come in. The thinking is that this will distract attention from the results, allow Labour to claim that the European election results on Sunday are a verdict on the past Cabinet not this one and, most
The Sun shines on the Tories
Last week, the Sun’s editorial strongly implied that it wasn’t endorsing any of the main parties for the Euro-elections. The Sun said, “If the established parties have their way, the prospects for change in Brussels vary between fat chance and no chance.” But today, The Sun urges its readers to vote Tory, saying “If you
Sunday
Darling, Cable for you: Go now
Vince Cable’s reputation might be another over-inflated bubble that will have to burst at some point, but there’s no doubt he’s a formidable politician. Alistair Darling should be extremely worried that Cable is now demanding his scalp because of his property flipping. “When he was accused of ‘flipping’ homes and getting the taxpayer to pay
Cameron’s mortgage
There was something entirely predictable about the mortgage on David Cameron’s constituency home getting drawn into the expenses scandal. Even Tory MPs supportive of the line Cameron has taken on this issue have, in private, pointed to it; noting that Cameron himself had found the most politically palatable way to make the system work for