Today's Eastern Daily Press carries an interview with Home secretary Charles Clarke, which oddly has not been picked up by any other media outlet. It's quite an extraordionary interview in which he gives the impression he knows the end is nigh. The full article can be read HERE, but here are a few tasters."It doesn't remotely compare to the pressure of 7/7 and the subsequent decisions of that time and how we protect ourselves against the threats that are there. At the end of the day, my own political future depends on my own strength of character dealing with the points that are raised, first, secondly on the support of my own political colleagues, and thirdly and most importantly on the decisions of the prime minister. If I lost that support, that would be different. I hope I will continue as home secretary. I have tried to be a reforming home secretary and have tried to deal with some fundamental issues. We have still got some challenges which still need to be completed and I think I am the best person to carry that through.There are a lot of issues of genuine concern quite apart from the political side and obviously I wanted to explain as best I could how we have been trying to deal with this situation, and that's what I have done. Obviously with the mistakes with what was told to the public accounts committee, it would have been ridiculous for me not to consider my position. Considering your position isn't the same thing as resigning. I thought about it and thought about the reform agenda and what I had delivered. If I look back over the past 15 months I don't think it's been an underachieving period. I feel we have achieved a great deal. As far as John Prescott is concerned I still believe the matter is entirely personal.
Charles Clarke admitted he had abandoned plans on Saturday to campaign with local Labour activists ahead of the Norwich city council elections on Thursday when his party is hoping to retake control of City Hall."I was going to do something on Saturday but decided it was more prudent not to because it would divert from the local poll which is here. But people remain very concerned about city issues such as how we get more CCTV, warden issues and alleygating issues. I hope people accept we have got a better record than our main opponents, the Liberal Democrats."
4 comments:
Local issues? As you said Iain, issues like are any of these released and not deported murderers and rapists living in my locality? Wonder what the answer to that question would have been, had he had the guts to campaign?
Out of interest, do people actually want to get more CCTV? I recall a story a few weeks ago about a 70+ year-old woman who was required to remove her hat in a pub and was astounded that the bar had 12, repeat, 12 CCTV cameras. That has to be overkill. I don't live in UK so I can't really comment on the real necessity for all this "security" - especially that when the crunch comes the important ones don't work.
Just think what it will be like when the proposed total traffic monitoring scheme comes into being, 1984 will relly have arrived.
Apologies for off-topicality but I was intrigued by the "local issues" comment at the end of that piece.
One of the statistics that wears down a long premiership is the proportion of disappointed former ministers festering on the back benches. Blair surely can't afford to add two more in one hit. The glue currently sticking Clarke to Home Office is the fact that no other minister wants the job and most would actually refuse to go there. Didn't Hillary Benn 'insist' on staying at Overseas Development in the last reshuffle? If a young squit like Benn can tell Blair where to get off, just imagine what Reid or Hoon would say.
"alleygating issues"
What's that ?
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