Guardian Unltd: Election defeat piles pressure on Blair

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Saturday September 20

Election defeat piles pressure on Blair
By Nicholas Watt and Sarah Hall

The government last night admitted that it had received a "bloody nose" from the electorate after suffering a crushing defeat in the Brent East byelection.
The result left Tony Blair's critics upbeat ahead of what promises to be a difficult Labour conference and Downing Street sources promising sweeping changes to the Labour party to give ordinary members a bigger say in policymaking.
Sarah Teather, a 29-year-old teacher, swept to victory on a 29% swing on Thursday to become the Lib Dems' 54th MP, and the youngest in the Commons.
David Blunkett, the home secretary, described the Lib Dem victory as a "bloody nose" for the government. Such soul searching delighted the Lib Dems, who were ecstatic after capturing what was seen as a safe Labour seat.

Read more.
Question for our DUers on the other side of the Pond: Is anybody in Labour making any serious preparations to remove Blair at the party conference next month? It should be clear by now that his alliance with the American dictator in the colonial invasion of Iraq hurts Labour and that it is unlikely that he can reverse course with any credibility.

[J B]

1. Blair has dipped his rivals' hands in the blood of Dr. Kelly.

There will be no leadership challenge.

[Francis]

3. Don't understand

I thought Gordon Brown was waiting in the wings and he seems to be remote from the Hutton inquiry

[DrBB]

2. First we suck up to the US right wing

...then we get our ass kicked by the UK right wing. How ironic. And depressing.

You and your stupid dossier, Tony. Why couldn't you have stood up to the neo-con nonsense? My god they played you like a cheap ukelele, and look what it's gotten you. The American left needs allies in the UK, and if your stupidity results in some kind of Tory rejuvenation that's just one more reason to despise you.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Labour MP: "Bloody terrifying"

I've just seen Friday night's Newsnight programme from the BBC. It's on the web at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3123848.stm
I think the video recording will be there till Monday evening.

The first item asks if Blair is now a liability to Labour. One Labour MP, Frank Field (sometimes a maverick, sometimes supported Blair) says "we are in deep trouble". Then the reporter goes round the streets of Stephen Pound's constituency with him - he's a fairly solid Blair supporter - asking a few people about Blair. The consensus is that he was OK, but it's now time for him to go.
The report then asks Pound (at about 07:45, if you want to see it - it's priceless):
"Was this a sobering experience for you?"
"Sobering? Bloody terrifying!"

I haven't heard of any serious talk about removing him (and I don't know what the procedure for it would be in the Labour Party now). From an anti-war point of view, the only serious contender could be Robin Cook - he resigned before the war, gave the chief speech in opposition to it in the Parliamentary debate, and as ex foreign secretary and Leader of the House, has credible experience at the top of the government. Against him is the fact that he rubs a lot of people up the wrong way - he frequently seems smug.
Gordon Brown, the Chancellor (ie chief finance minister) could be the only other contender. He went along with all the war decisions, but kept as low a profile as possible. He has always been interested in the financial side, and nothing else - he's introduced allowances and tax credits that his supporters say have redistributed wealth to the poorer people better than anything in the last 50 years - but the regulations are so complicated that I'm buggered if I can work out if it's true or not. Against that good left-wing credential, he seems obsessed with getting the private sector to build and run any government building project (eg hospitals, schools, roads, the London Underground). I really don't know what the party thinks of him.

In my opinion, Cook won't challenge Blair unless another major problem happens for him (eg the Hutton Inquiry putting all the government blame for the Kelly affair on Blair personally, AND saying he'd misled the public over the WMD; I doubt this will happen). Brown will never challenge Blair directly - he's been too involved with him, and it would look too power-grabbing, and like a rat leaving the sinking ship. If Cook did try to get rid of Blair, and it became obvious Blair was doomed, then Brown might come forward as the successor (like Major did after Thatcher, when Heseltine challenged her. There's a lot of parallels here).