A member of Mr Brown's "Government of all the talents" announced yesterday that he was quitting the "big tent". Tory MP Patrick Mercer, appointed by the Premier as an adviser on security in one of the shock "defections" of the summer, said he had finished work for Home Office Minister Lord West a month ahead of schedule. But it will be seen as a snub to the Premier - after Mr Mercer was critical of his decision to "spin" the withdrawal of 1,000 troops from Iraq. He accused Mr Brown of "double counting" in his announcement that 1,000 troops would be coming home from Iraq before Christmas.So, Patrick lasted 33 days before he saw the light. I wonder if like me, you think there is perhaps more to this than meets the eye. No one ever said anything at the time of his appointment that it was effectively a short term contract, did they? Surely if you are advising the government on national security it is a long term project - not one which takes 33 days. I think we deserve to be told.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Mercer Quits Brown's Big Tent After 33 Days
Remember Brian Clough's reign at Leeds United back in the 1970s. It lasted 44 days before the Leeds Board realised they had made an awful mistake. Tucked away in Ben Brogan's long article on election timing in the Mail this morning was this little nugget.
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19 comments:
Of course it was a short term contract - built to last just as long as Brown could milk it for the "big tent" publicity. Mercer served his purpose, but now has lost political credibility - like everything else Brown touches. He was a useful idiot.
So, what are the Tories going to do with him now?
I think Patrick Mercer was ill-advised to allow himself to be recruited by Brown in the first place particularly as the "in the national interest" phrase used by Brown was obviously an outright con and that such people who fell for it, particularly Conservatives, would be used politically whatever was originally said.
I would think that as an ex-officer Mercer found Brown's latest cynical ploy of visiting Iraq on the day of Cameron's speech too much to stomach hence his decision.
Patrick Mercer was no doubt aggrieved at his earlier treatment by Cameron but is essentially a decent man who was perhaps a little politically naive in agreeing to be seen to work with Brown but at least he has not criticised the Conservative leadership or made speeches at Labour's conference and should be allowed the dignity of returning to the fold no doubt a much chastened individual than hitherto
He's still a traitor and needs to atone himself.
Have you seen the report? I'm told he was a useless idiot.
I was told that Mercer was having second thoughts very shortly after he accepted the position - he's a decent man who doesn't like political games, but was lured in perhaps in a moment of bitterness.
Yes he was naive. He did not think through the implications of his action.
The race row was the same, another example of niaivety.
Frankly that is two strikes against him, will he learn or will he commit a third and be finished.
It is time that he knuckled down and helped get Conservatives elected as MPs. Plenty to do if he is up for it.
I have met and worked with Patrick Mercer - he neither an idiot nor useless. He is however, honest and straightforward, which are not necessarily the best traits to have to the fore in today's Westminster.
Patrick Mercer was highly regarded in the Army but many were rather surprised that he accepted the Brown offer. If indeed it was 'Gordon of Basra' that prompted his tactical withdraw then he joins a very long line of decent people who found the Great Leaders action as sickening.
Welcome back Patrick.
Now get on with what you are paid to do as a Conservative MP and stop playing silly buggers.
So, what are the Tories going to do with him now?
For 33 days you have been slagging him off
Chris Paul said...
"Have you seen the report? I'm told he was a useless idiot."
October 06, 2007 12:47 PM
You manage to be both kinds of idiot!
God, you are so naive! From your little perches in private industry or the public sector, you're saying a military man of rank is naive? Hello? Think that through. Military men are nothing if not strategists.
You condescending nits should consider why he did what he did; not attribute motives to him that would have motivated you.
lets face it : its oh so easy to massage the male ego
@ Verity "Military men are nothing if not strategists."
Clearly you've never been a military man, yourself. However I can verify from personal experience and pain that not all military men are strategists, not many of them are tacticians, either.
And, of course, there's a world of difference between stategists and successful strategists. Witness (as recent examples) the First World War and the current debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Chuck Unsworth
Military Commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan had both conflicts wrapped up very quickly. But they have had their hands tied by dithering Government policy, an inept part time Defence Secretary and the hordes of Milliband like clones who tell men of experience and courage what to do whilst safely ensconsed behind their paper-clip mountains.
Oh forgot, 35 years of experience proudly wearing the uniform.
Oh, yes, the First World War! Always good to come up with a current example.
Iraq and Afghanistan are not debacles, no matter how much the lefty keyboard strategists want them to be.
Patrick Mercer, asserted with great conviction: "I don't care who you work for, whether it is a milkman or the Prime Minister, you have to be loyal to your boss," then came the acid test of his principle of loyalty when David Cameron was compelled to send Mercer to the backbenches.
Mercer agreed it was right and proper to resign but when he was asked "is David Cameron a man of principle," Mercer responded to that question with a two fingers gesture and publicly knifed his boss. He showed even more
disloyalty with his total disregard of the needs of the Tory party by marching across to the tent of Gordon Brown, of whom it was said was out to destroy the Tory party.
Whereas others wanted our boys to come on home Colonel Blimp
proclaimed we cannot win with hi-tech gadgetry, the Prime Minister needs to guarantee more "boots and bayonets" because you see Colonel Blimp believes "There’s nothing more important to troops than a medal" and "To have a chest full of medals and to be in a prestigious fighting unit is the business"
I would have thought that there was nothing more important to troops and their families than for them to come on home safe and sound and to hell with medals.
Perhaps the reason why Mercer joined the Tory party and entered the Brown tent demanding the Prime Minister gives more taxpayers money to the armed forces is to do with
exclusive loyalty to his Army which certainly seems to supersede loyalty to his leader, the Tory party, or any other consideration.
Like Mr Magoo, Patrick Mercer will likely get himself and the Tory party in more sticky situations, and with the logic of Tweedeldum that earned him all sorts of derogatory names we can but wait with bated breath for his next rendition of Knucklehead.
Anon 5:04
OK I'll show you mine if you show me yours, eh? 35 years in uniform? Which one? ASDA, Tesco or Sainsbury's? Some of us know when not to try to impress...
How come the military commanders still seem to be fighting a war, then?
I'd agree that the political masters have let the military down - in a big way. However it's the responsibility of the senior military to a) establish exactly what the politicians want to do, and b) tell the politicians if that is achievable or not. The pity is that in this case the yes-men in senior military posts clearly did not (apparently) tell the politicos that they would take six years and more to get to this unsatisfactory point.
Or maybe you regard the current situation as being one which was desired at the outset of hostilities.
@ Verity. History repeating itself, no doubt. Have you any real knowledge of, say, the Afghan Wars? The Mesopotamian wars and so on?
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