Just come across this from The Guardian's Martin Kettle...
"Once he had decided that Clarke had to go and concluded that he could no longer be promoted to the Foreign Office, Blair thought long and hard about promoting David Miliband as Straw's successor. It would have been an audacious move, though Miliband would have been two years older than David Owen was when Jim Callaghan gave him the Foreign Office in 1977 - and from outside the cabinet, too. But the balance of advice was that to make Miliband foreign secretary would have been too provocative a show of preference given the current bilious state of the Labour Party. So Beckett, the third choice but a safe one, got the job."
Oh what a pity. Just think of the reaction of the Brownites! Shame Blair bottled it.
9 comments:
It certainly would have been a better-remembered move than promoting the Wicked Witch of the Centre to rule the FCO. For shame, Tony...
So Brown doesn't have the balls to move against Blair and Blair doesn't have the balls to move against Brown. I hope everyone enjoys a long stalemate.
I think Miliband would have been even worse than Beckett. She might even turn out to be OK. Miliband on the other hand can't even string two words together. He is awful on television. He won't last long with the farmers...
While brown squats in his safe little castle for nine years, he can't complain about any appointments to other departments.
I can't work out who'd be the bigger insult to our overseas friends. A minister with the face of a horse or one who perpetually looks like a 12 year old. How lomg before we face an Argentinan invasion of the Falklands, or several brigades of French troops making their way through the channel tunnel?
Why does everyone seem to think that Miliband is a future leader? He looks and sounds like the sort of swot that everyone disliked in school. I'm sure he's very capable, but a potential prime minister? I just can't see it.
The really remarkable thing is the dearth of credible leadership candidates in the Labour Party. If there were anyone half-decent, I'm convinced that Brown would be highly vulnerable. Fortunately for him, there isn't.
In vie of what ross said, maybe we should call it the "Ladyboy Government" - neither one thing nor the other and definitely a bit queer
or several brigades of French troops making their way through the channel tunnel?
Only if they are retreating from the Germans again.
I wondered - why didn't he make Gordon Brown Foreign Secretary? It's not a demotion - one of the great Offices of State etc. so would have been difficult for Gordon to refuse, could have said he might be getting a bit stale after 9 years in the same job, needed more Foreign Affairs experience to assist him "when" he becomes PM - and best of all, would have kept him out of the country most of the time.
Was it because Tony Blair couldn't think of another member of the Government who could add up, so didn't know who to put in No.11?
Any thoughts?
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