What does it say about Tony Blair's Government when he...1. Fires his Home Secretary having said only a couple of days previously that he was the right man to solve its problems
2. Fails to fire his Deputy who has been exposed as a serial 'groper' and is accused of abusing his office and allows him to keep his grace and favour residences while taking away his portfolio responsibilities
3. Demotes his Education Secretary and moves the Schools Minister while the Education Bill is about to return to the House of Commons?
4. Humiliates Geoff Hoon by first appointing him to be Joint Foreign Secretary in the Cabinet, then Minister for Europe in the Cabinet, then only attending Cabinet "when necessary"
5. Appointing John Reid as Home Secretary in charge of drugs policy when drugs were recently discovered in his house
6. Appoints his rising star as Environment Secretary showing he is rattled by Conservative advances on green issues
7. Panics by holding his reshuffle within hours of a humiliation in the polls instead of having the weekend to think it over and consult with colleagues
8. When he replaces a failed Chief Whip with a failed Education Minister
9. Keeps the Minister most despised by the public in her high profile job as Health Secretary when she has proved she is unable to communicate government health policy
10. Fails to promote the Cabinet's most liked and competent Minister, Hilary Benn
11. Shows no sign of recognising the fact that mostof his MPs want to set a timetable for departure
12. Appoints as Foreign Secretary a woman who the night before her appointment insulted the US President on Question Time
Graphic Hat-tip Backing Blair
12 comments:
I think observation number 4 is unfinished, Iain.
I don't think Blair can sack Prescott. Take all his make work jobs away, yes; fire him, no. Prescott was voted deputy by the party, presumably only they can remove him. I expected what ever mechanism is used to find Blair's successor will also prise out Prescott.
1. Dunno - he changed his mind?
2. Has he been thus exposed? Sell tale allegations count as proof now, do they?
3. That the Bill has had its second reading.
4. Were there separate announcements to this effect, or just differing speculation about the status of the post?
5. That the police are taking no action and do no suspect Reid of any wrongdoing whatsoever.
6. That Blair described climate change as the most important issue facing the planet before David Cameron was even in the Shadow Cabinet.
7. One assumes he has been thinking it over already. It's not as if he needs to see who has been elected before making appointments, since the elections were at local level only.
8. That point says more about you than about Tony Blair's Government.
9. Surely the post of SofS for Health is about much more than communicating policy.
10. Dunno - Maybe Benn likes his post and is good at it, as you imply.
11. Do they? A few seem to.
12. She didn't.
I reckon Prezza must have some spectacular dirt on Mr Blair!
Iain, what has happened to Darling? He's gone from Transport, but to where?
DTI
Ahh thanks. Couldn't see where he'd gone. I thought we were about to witness Brownite uproar.
You could be on to something with Beckett Iain. Some bright spark at Central Office needs to pick through Horse Face's speeches to find any adverse references to Bush and other world leaders.
Interesting that in his resignation Clarke said he intends to support Blair as PM for the rest of the Parliament. This sounded like it was an expectation not just a hope. Certainly a major reshuffle like this suggests Bliar will have to be pried out with crowbars.
Normal is quite right about the Reid pot discovery - that was a cheap shot.
As opposed to some cheap pot...!
With respect to the drugs - the poilce claimed that the value of the material found was 89p. This works out to £28 an ounce.
I suppose that having a home sec who jnows how to score really cheap drugs will come in useful......
No question about his meddling with the NHS? The NHS would benefit from the eradication of TB.
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