Comments on: Don’t Write Off Labour Yet

By: George V

George V — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:54:29 +0000

dreamingspire, I agree whole-heartedly but tradition has it that in this country we blame ministers not civil servants. The civil serants do the work, ministers simply set the agenda and make sure their departments do not screw up. Beckett’s last two jobs suggest that she is no good at either.

This is a disastrous reshuffle but it is hard to see that Gordon had many alternatives given the absence of any coherent ideological (rather than personal) challenge from within thbe party.

By: Mike Killingworth

Mike Killingworth — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:45:10 +0000

[13] Brown is showing that those who say he can only concentrate on one thing at a time are right – may well be so, and if it is, then – according to the Barack Obama theory of leadership – he’s been overpromoted.

By: dreamingspire

dreamingspire — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:10:52 +0000

George V: “Margaret Beckett fouled up the transition to single farm payments so badly that the EU levied fines that ran to the hundreds of millions of pounds.”
You need to ask why Defra fouled it up before you ask whether Margaret Beckett could have stopped them. Similarly ask why DfT cocks up so much (particularly rail strategy recently) before asking whether Ruth Kelly and Tom Harris could have stopped them. Sorting out govt depts needs action from the top to broker a deal with the Civil Service, and putting in Ministers tasked with keeping the lid on things just makes them worse. Brown is showing that those who say he can only concentrate on one thing at a time are right.

By: George V

George V — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:51:29 +0000

Mandleson may not be well liked but he is not afraid of difficult and unpopular work at a time when there is plenty of both to be done.

The failure of vision is at housing.

The economy is on the edge of the abyss and housing is absolutely central to the problem. Yet Housing still doesn’t get a proper cabinet member – just a “safe pair of hands”.

And what a safe pair of hands. Margaret Beckett fouled up the transition to single farm payments so badly that the EU levied fines that ran to the hundreds of millions of pounds. She then got promoted just in time to mishandle the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that did so much to entrench Hizbollah.

What will she do for an encore?

By: Matt Wardman

Matt Wardman — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:11:18 +0000

Anonymous shafting of anyone who gets in the way will now be done competently.

Should be interesting.

My biggest concern is that the control freakery tendency may have been strengthened even more.

Matt

By: cjcjc

cjcjc — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:14:13 +0000

Maybe, but then Gordon “moral compass” Brown is making only one of them a minister of the crown and peer of the realm.

By: john b

john b — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:03:25 +0000

Hmm. In a trustworthiness match between Mandelson and Finkelstein, I’d trust either to the extent to which I can throw them across the Bristol Channel. Which is, regrettably, not very far.

By: cjcjc

cjcjc — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 11:09:08 +0000

And already we have this:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/10/why-i-am-sure-t.html

He just can’t help lying, can he?

It will end in tears, but how wonderful it will be to watch!

By: cjcjc

cjcjc — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:07:14 +0000

Ah yes – Mandy and Myners.

A man who lied on his mortgage application teamed up with a director of the hedge fund with the largest short position in B&B.

Perfect. I predict public dancing in the streets.

Energy and climate change?

At least Hutton seemed to understand that we are running at the limits of energy capacity and that unless we get building PDQ there’ll be a big problem.

But of course this reshuffle has NOTHING to do with the better running of government, has it?

By: thomas

thomas — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 18:16:38 +0000

Steve Hodge came in for the suspended Ray Wilkins after the Portugal game in 86 as I remember. Wilkins (who was at Milan at the time) tells the story that he got sent off for the only time in his career by throwing the ball at the ref deliberately because he didn’t want to hurt his reputation in Italy by playing badly in the thin air of Mexico and was actually doing the team a favour (he’s also said that he did it because he wanted a holiday after a long season).

I guess professionall footballers are the masters at getting their excuses in, so perhaps he is the prototype for Mandleson.

Will Mandy start playing dirty and abusing the referee (media)? You betcha. Will the change in dynamic also shift the momentum in the polls? That remains to be seen.

By: Bob Piper

Bob Piper — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:37:00 +0000

Just two points…

You overlook the promotion of your own MP – the Mighty Spellar – in a return to Government.

And Steve Hodge also played a major part in ensuring Robson’s team progressed in Mexico, finally getting a start against Poland (as the hapless Bryan Robson owned up to being injured)… just like David Platt did 4 years later, although Gazza got all the plaudits for weeping. But of course Hodge and Platt played for Aston Villa, not the media darlings Tottenham Hotspur. This victimisation may continue tomorrow if the brilliant Ashley Young is overlooked for David Bentley. Now, what was that you were saying…

By: Steve B

Steve B — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:35:29 +0000

>>”Unless…then Labour are doomed to defeat. ”

Labour are doomed anyway. If they show that Cameron hasn’t really changed the Tories, then we have New Labour… sitting in exactly the same place. And the public don’t want them.

Brown’s only chance was to go a little left, and he didn’t. He won’t give up on New Labour even though it’s thoroughly, utterly dead, and he’ll get massacred at the next election because of it.

(Also: Beckett in charge of housing?! Oh dear God.)

The comments to Derek Draper’s post on Cif are absolutely priceless, and show quite nicely the mood in the country:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/03/mandelson.labour1

By: sally

sally — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:05:36 +0000

Unless Brown and Labour can start making the public understand that Cameron has changed nothing in the Tory party, and underneath they are still the same right wing, give to the rich party that they have always been ,then Labour are doomed to defeat.

People keep saying Cameron is the Tory version of Tony Blair. He is not, He is the Tory party’s G W Bush.

We are back to the 80′s, when the Labour party and the Liberal Dems split the anti Tory vote.

By: Unity

Unity — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:39:22 +0000

Well, that’s a very positive spin, Unity.

Mmm… is it? I see it more a reflection on the strategic intent behind the reshuffle…

…whether that can be executed successfully or whether it all falls apart due to Mandelson’s somewhat ‘colourful’ history, remains to be seen.

By: Mike Killingworth

Mike Killingworth — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:33:43 +0000

Well, that’s a very positive spin, Unity.

Looked at in another way, we have the return of a twice-disgraced minister and several other re-treads. Fleet Street, to say nothing of Guido and Dale, will lavish energy on raking over everything Mandy does or doesn’t do. They may even think the political benefits of losing libel suits are worth the financial cost. And consider a sentence like “convicted felon O.J. Simpson managed to convince a jury that he didn’t murder his wife – but no one else has ever been brought to trial for that murder”. Variations on that theme, in respect of Mandy, will be with us day in and day out.

Possibly more serious is the implication that there are no more rising stars who merited promotion. Retreads suggest exhaustion, and the reality is that after 11 years, governments are exhausted.