I have learned that Gordon Brown will appear before the Chilcot Inquiry on either Thursday 4th or Friday 5th March.
You heard it here first.
This effectively means that a March election is ruled out because it would have had to be called before that date.
Rumours that Piers Morgan has joined the Chilcot Panel, are, I understand, wide of the mark. :)
18 comments:
Snap election on March 25th...
Oh Contraire, perfect for Brown.
Brown calls the election for March 25th on 1st March as the schedule would dictate. Then he would not attend as he says it could be prejudicial to the election campaign. Perfect excuse. Makes March 25th even more likely now in my opinion.
You seem to have this first - if it's accurate, many congrats on another "Iain Dale broke it first" story.
I can't help thinking that it will be even more farcical than the Blair "quizzing" - the Chilcot team are incapable of a lawyerly duffing up. If there's one thing Brown is good at, it's coming out with loads of tosh in response to questions.
Personally I think Brown will go as late as possible to an election purely due to his addiction to power, so I think it will be in May.
The King of Wrong & sunonmars, I'm with you both on this one, in fact I would go as far to say we will have the announcement this weekend!
I agree with your early commentators. Accept a date now, only to defer it until after the Election, when a March 25th election is called (when Chilcot will basically have to take a break - which is even better news for Govt).
And there's a real sense Sterling and the Gilts market may not look pretty if the Govt tries to have a budget without big, big cuts (which may be the driver in the end to go sooner rather than later: currency collapse doesn't win elections)
One thing does not exclude the other. Brown could still appear before Chilcott - if he had the cojones, that is.
An election is the perfect "reason" for not to be able to attend.
If I was Cameron and I won the election, I'd change the Chilcott remit to make any recalls to the Inquiry to be under oath. Brown wouldn't know what to do first - throw a Tantrum (the new Brown-inspired shock-proof Nokia mobile handset) or pop another packet of Immodium.
Brown wold have to be utterly insane to have an election after the the budget.
March 25th. Pity it's not Feb 25th.
"Rumours that Piers Morgan has joined the Chilcot Panel, are, I understand, wide of the mark. :)"
But surely, it could only improve the standard of questioning from the Chilcot panel?...
FB
titus-aduxas said: "...or pop another packet of Immodium."
I don't think Brown takes Immodium as it is meant to prevent diarrhea and Mr Brown sames to have the verbal version in spades.
I suggest senekot as it is meant to prevent you becoming full of sh..
I think he'll call the election for end March in order to avoid appearing at Chilcot, the Budget and before publication of the 1st quarter 'growth' figures - which are likely to go negative again.
Me thinks that King of the Wrong is Right.
Calls election at rally on Sat and goes to Palace on Monday.
Surely Chilcott will be suspended during election campaign.
Economic numbers are terrible, retail sales in January down, sterling is in trouble,
the US has started moving to normalise their bailout, raising the discount rate to 0.75%. The interest rate level is not as important as the signal it sends to World markets.
The pound will be going to 1-1 against the US Dollar
Now let’s talk about Corus mothballing, we own 84% of RBS a bank that lent money to Kraft to rape Cadbury. Why not have RBS arrange a management Buy-out of the Corus Steel works in Redcar. If it is viable then we should compulsory purchase it from the Tata group and fund it by our “state” bank and get Britain working.
Signs and I just watched Brown the clown spill lies at the international conference for Progressive lefties. The man is delusional attacking Conservatives at every opportunity, for me it makes such sense to go for March the 25th that ditherer will mess it up. I am putting £20 on March 25th but no idea what his excuse to go for that date will be to counter the obvious claims by the Tory party of not wanting a budget, not wanting to appear before Chilcott not wanting negative first quarter 2010 GDP.
Knowing Brown he will dither
Brown wold have to be utterly insane to have an election after the the budget.
But Brown IS utterly insane. Either that or he is so thick skinned he takes no notice of what anyone else says.
Freak show of the year. Given Brown's pathological inability to answer any questions put to him, this should be huge fun.
Purnell just jumped ship and it now appears that the Israeli Embassy can renew your British Passport for you faster and cheaper than the UK one.
Calling the general election any date between now and the current parliament's expiry on 10 May is all that matters; attempting to minimise Labour's distress at Brown's economic debacle by pety date adjustments is interesting but a Labour thing.
Those Brown Labour supporters who posed as economists giving economic advice in their letters to the FT this morning should be ashamed of not daring to stand up for Brown's regulatory, financial and economic activities of the last thirteen years.
We are unanimous in what must be done to sort out Brown's mess; let's have the general election now to decide who is competent to do it.
Geoffrey Brooking
Maybe Purnell announced TODAY that he is standing down as an MP at the next election because he knows (or is expecting) Brown to call the election this weekend.
Otherwise, why now?
Not ruled out as it may be better for Brown to appear after Parliament is dissolved...or, even more convinvingly, to dodge it altogether once arranged.
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