Towards the end of his premiership, Harold Macmillan carried out a reshuffle which became known as the Night of the Long Knives. Tony Blair is currently undertaking his equivalent. Sky have just reported that Charles Clarke is out (he turned down Foreign Secretary without Europe) and that Prescott will stay in his current role as Deputy PM. Hmmm. I still think he may be foreced out over the sex scandals. Blair would therefore be wise to strip him of his portfolio responsibilities. Straw is following ex Foreign Secretaries Geoffrey Howe and Robin Cook to be Leader of the House. If he had any pride he'd have told Blair where to go.
10.45 Margaret Beckett to be Foreign Secretary. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Can you imagine her and Condi getting on? What on earth would she have to say to George Bush.
10.46 Charles Clarke making live statement. He's been replaced by John Reid. He's obviously deeply hurt by Blair's decision to move him. He's a proud man and he obviously feels badly treated.
10.52: Hain & Jowell to stay in their jobs. So I had a duff steer on Stephen Byers then. Oh well! Fun while it lasted.
12 comments:
Ian, you're a Tory so I don't expect you to praise any Labour minister. But Margaret Beckett is one of the stars of this government. Just think back to the interviews she did over Gilligan - she crushed the BBC and their arguments and she also made some of the most effective speeches of the 2005 election campaign. She gets abused because of her looks in a way that no man would (people take the mickey out of Clarke and Prescott but nodbody offers up their looks as reasons why they are unfit to be ministers).
I'm pleased for her - even though I once despised her for running with the ultra0-left, these days she is new Labour to the core.
As for the farmers' stuff - who cares? Landowners don't get money for owning land. Tough luck.
Would we expect a (more minor) Conservative reshuffle to mirror this one, as they sometimes do, or will David Cameron want to make the point that he's quite happy with his shadow ministerial team, thank you very much?
Also, what's your opinion of Jack Straw (Iain or anyone else) - I know Private Eye and Bremner/Bird/Fortune take the piss out of him quite a bit, but he did demonstrate he had reservations over Iraq, and I quite like his style (standing on a soapbox outside his Blackburn supermarket every week and arguing with anyone who's up for a bit of debate).
Perhaps its simply that I feel that the likes of Clarke and Straw are far more honourable people than Hoon or Reid will ever be.
Tne other point... Missing: has anyone seen Gordon Brown this month?
Iain, youre absolutely right. The appointment of Beckett is a strange one but she must have been doing something right in her performances at the international meetings on climate change for Blair to have put this huge faith in her. She is a tenacious, gritty media performer and probably just a safe pair of hands.
Clarke's refusal to become Foreign Sec (probably out of pride) is an interesting one.
Straw seems to have been the biggest loser so far though.
Does Reid know what he has let himself in for?
At this rate anything could happen with the remainder of the posts!
Sorry but the Byers story just had to be bollocks, Iain.
Beckett - star - oh come on anon!!
But Margaret Beckett is one of the stars of this government
I think thats known as being damned with faint praise :-)
Fergus,
Anon 1's comment bears all the hallmarks of that Blairite Cheerleader, Niel harding from Brighton Regency Labour. Unthinking support for the Dear Leader combined with gratuitous class insults drawn from "Janet and John go to Moscow".
I guess he's just sore about last night's little mishap.
RM
Labour Labour Labour - out, out out!
Scottish and Welsh farmers received their subsidies from their own governments before Christmas. English farmers are verging on bankruptcy and the EU is preparing to whack a massive fine on the UK government for not paying subsidies to English farmers.
Margaret Beckett is totally incompetent and now she's going to be representing the country abroad. God help us.
I don't soubt farmers work very hard. So do shopkeepers.But we don't pay shopkeepers for owning a shop, we expect them to make their way in the world off their own backs. Why are landowners treated differently?
What was it our new Foreign Secretary said about George Bush on Question Time last night? Fixed terms were a bad thing because we ended up with George?
Diplomacy, hey!
Expect a Photoshop from Time Ireland with MB'#s caravan on the White House lawn.
Anonymous, farmers are bogged down with legislation and red tape, mostly from the EU. Also, they get subsidies not to farm some of their land so they leave fields fallow. If they don't get their subsidies, it's not like they have something to make money with instead.
To use shopkeepers as an example - if they were paid a subsidy not to sell frozen food, for example, and they didn't get their subsidy then they wouldn't have a stock of frozen food to sell to make up the difference.
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