A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Charles Clarke

Now we find out what he meant by debate.

In one short article today we have him using playground language to attack his successor John Reid's proposals for dealing with the mess Mr Clarke left the Home Office in - which most other commentators view as "common sense" not "batty"; and announcing he is likely to break a 3-line whip on maintaining the UK's nuclear deterrent, a policy that was a pledge in the Labour Manifesto that he fought the last General Election on as a senior Cabinet Minister.

In what he describes as the “very unlikely” event of him running against Brown for Leader, who does he think would be the 44 MPs who would nominate him?

They would presumably be to the right of Brown but

a) happy to slag off ideas that Tony Blair and John Reid come up with
b) in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament
c) in favour of breaking 3-line whips on manifesto commitments
d) in favour of having a PM who was sacked for being unable to manage one department, let alone the whole government

... I have trouble coming up with a list of 4 MPs that fit those criteria, let alone 44.

7 Comments:

Blogger Manchester University Labour Club said...

I reckon possibilities are Field, Byers, Milburn, Reid and Hutton.

12:38 am, March 04, 2007

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Why would Reid support Clarke when Clarke keeps attacking him on Home Office issues?

9:21 am, March 04, 2007

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

CLarke is to the left of Brown if he's voting against Trident.Mind you, Thatcher's to the left of GB by the looks of things at moment.If enough Labour MPs let the scales fall from their eyes (it's hard because so many of us had faith in Gordon) we could stop him.I fear w won't and then we'll get Camron in two years. Meltdown.I'm on the left of Party, and have not much time for Milburn or Clarke, but see where they are coming from.The right and the left could unite to stop brown - now there's a thought......

10:00 am, March 04, 2007

 
Blogger Manchester University Labour Club said...

Anyone but Gordon

1:12 pm, March 04, 2007

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"CLarke is to the left of Brown if he's voting against Trident."

Well, no, he supports one position that many on the left support that Brown doesn't support.

I can't imagine he's actually joining CND, though.

The left and right probably could unite to stop Brown but that would be most likely to leave us with a leader who's both more right-wing than Brown and less likely to win the next election.

Not sure who or what that would be a victory for.

I'm not particularly a Brown supporter but no one seems to be making any practical case for an alternative candidate at the moment.

5:18 pm, March 04, 2007

 
Blogger Manchester University Labour Club said...

I reckon Reid would be more likely to win the next general election

7:48 pm, March 04, 2007

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I reckon Reid would be more likely to win the next general election "

I think that the Libdems will be very happy to have Reid leading Labour

10:25 pm, March 04, 2007

 

Post a Comment

<< Home

 
Free Hit Counters
OfficeDepot Discount