The news last night from the Daily Mail was rather grim. I do not usually read the Daily Mail; preferring to get my news on politics from the main newspapers, bloggers and commentators.
The Daily Mail is serialising former secretary-general of the Labour Party, Peter Watt’s book. The Mail headline…
Brown’s election shambles: Man who ran Labour Party reveals chaos at No 10 in devastating new book
I am assuming that Mr Watt is completely familiar with the law on libel. It is unlikely – given that his charges about the prime minister’s behaviour are serious – he would be anything other than comfortable that he is not defaming the prime minister.
That said, the Mail article makes rather depressing reading for people who support Labour ideals. The Mail summarises the key claims:
In his book, Mr Watt, who resigned as Labour general secretary in 2007, claims:
- Mr Brown’s Cabinet ally Douglas Alexander said the PM’s inner circle wanted an early Election partly because even they didn’t like him – and they feared the British public would soon form the same view.
- The day Mr Brown called off the 2007 Election, denying he had ever intended to hold one, Labour chiefs had a fleet of limousines circling Parliament Square ready to take Ministers on the campaign trail, and had 1.5million leaflets ready to be posted.
- No10 is ‘completely dysfunctional’ under Mr Brown, who runs the country ‘by making it up as he goes along’.
- Sulking Mr Brown walked out of a Downing Street dinner party with US politicians because they sat down without his permission.
The story about the dinner party is rather disturbing. Petulance and childish behaviour is not something one immediately associates with the behaviour of a prime minister in public. ” Mr Watt also highlights Mr Brown’s ‘weird’ behaviour. He recalls the moment the Prime Minister threw a tantrum at a No10 dinner party for US Democrat politicians after guests sat down without his permission…..Mr Watt said: ‘For the rest of the meal he was monosyllabic, sulking because he had lost control of the seating plan…..The plates had not even been cleared when quite suddenly, without saying anything, he just got up and left. “He’s bonkers,” Vilma [Mr Watt’s wife] whispered. She was right.’
This week, Brown managed to see off the Hoon-Hewitt coup, but there was speculation in the press and in the blogs that there is more to come. There may still be more to come.
The Sunday Times reports this morning:
Now Geoff Hoon savages Gordon Brown over Afghanistan war
Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary behind last week’s attempted leadership coup, is set to inflict further damage on Gordon Brown with the disclosure that the prime minister vetoed the purchase of vital military helicopters.
Leaked ministerial letters reveal how, as chancellor, Brown repeatedly prevented Hoon from ordering life-saving battlefield equipment for Afghanistan and Iraq.
With nothing left to lose, Hoon, who was dismissed as an embittered traitor by Brown’s allies for the failed email plot, has the potential to undermine Brown’s leadership in the run-up to the general election.
The bloggers have long speculated about Mr Brown’s state of mind, his lack of ’emotional intelligence’, the dysfunctional nature of his administration and while much of this may be motivated by political leanings and, in the case of Mr Watt, anger; a picture of a man,who simmered away for years in-fighting with Blair, who is not fit to ‘get on with the job’ is emerging to those many of us who are not privy to the inner world of Westminster.
I find it all rather distasteful. I have no enthusiasm for a Conservative government, but after the events of recent weeks, I certainly have no enthusiasm for a government led by Mr Brown. It will be particularly interesting to hear Mr Hoon’s statement to the Iraq Inquiry… whatever his motivation(s).
I think our best chances are a hung parliament.
We aren’t very good with hung parliament’s in the UK… but one thing is for certain – Labour really does need a new leader. This isn’t going to be the last ‘revelation’ or very visible attack… there must be more to come?
[…] My postscript of last night has been superceded by my post today: A matter of principle or principal? […]
Don’t believe everything you read in the papers. As a business owner Gordon Brown feels like a steady pair of hands (and I am naturally Lib Dem not Labour)
I agree with Matthew Parris. Who would want the job so near to the election anyway?
Elizabeth… I never believe everything in the papers. I have qualified my comments very carefully… On the assumption that what Watt says is true – paints a rather poor pciture of a prime minister who should be acting in the interests of the country and not his own.
Events (as McMillan once said) will determine his fate later this year, if not sooner.
We shall soon see the lie of the land and national sentiment.
I think I have quoted Cromwell’s remarks to the Rump before but here we go again…
‘You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!’
The Labour Party has generally been around too long for any good it has done (most of which was done 1945-51 and to an extent 1964-70 plus stuff like devolution in the early years of its present manifestation). It is now part of the problem and not the solution. Boneheaded Labour tribalism is a block on anything useful being done. Put the Labour Party out of its misery, bring in PR (to which the bigger idiots in the Labour Party are irreconcilably opposed) and let us have a whole new progressive dispensation.
As you get away from London and “Blogworld” you find a population which is thoroughly sick of all politicians. People do not care much for Hoon, Hewitt et al. and have no respect for their views. As for “Watt” they will respond “Who.” Let’s just get the election over and done with is the general feeling.
I would neither rule out nor in a 4th Labour term. A political tsunami like 1997 seems unlikely. As the Duke of Wellington described the Battle of Waterloo: it will be a “damned close run thing”. If the outcome is a Conservative win then they will certainly face a fearsome opposition and a further election in around October may be needed. Unfortunately, as we have seen, the Tories have hardly demonstrated that they are are an effective opposition. If the outcome is a Labour win, things will continue much as now with Labour thinking it has received the “green light” to carry on with its present policies when, in fact, many of those policies need to be either abandoned or changed.
It will be interesting but I wish they would get on with it. The country certainly needs to get this sorted out. The likes of Hoon, Hewitt and Watt fiddling whilst Rome burns is helping nobody.
It is interesting and a shame to see how much similarity there is even across cultures.
But it seems to show a universal truth: Power corrupts. If only the citizenry paid more attention to the reins instead of letting the horses run back to that barn.
Yes, I read the dinner party one – a hoot.
[…] can do by way of a poster campaign, we could even deeper in the merde than we are already with the Watt’s revelations today that Gordon Brown behaves in a rather unusual way and the failed coup of last week. Still 5 months […]