It is salutary to remind ourselves that the disgust at Brown is not
confined to the (so-called) 'quality' press. It is there equally in
the Mail, the Express and The Sun. So here is the 'doyen' of Fleet
Street's political editors, Trevor Kavanagh, now in retirement.
displaying his ability to get to the heart of the matter without once
waffling!
xxxxxxxxxxx cs
=============================
WE'RE fed up with Gordon Brown. All of us. It's not just Hazel
Blears, Charles Clarke and my fellow Sun columnist David Blunkett.
It's the Cabinet. The Labour Party. The whole country is sick to
death of him.
OK, there are a few diehards, like Schools supremo Ed Balls, whose
own fate is tied to this Prime Minister - and even he is exasperated
beyond words with Gordon.
Peter Mandelson, brought back to the front line with a peerage,
spends most of his time with his head in his hands.
Front-benchers can barely suppress their despair - or, worse, their
mirth - when their leader mucks it up again.
Polls show Labour is shot to pieces, with barely a quarter of the
national vote - and that probably exaggerates its support.
Party chiefs fear it will crash to just SEVENTEEN per cent in next
month's local and European elections.
There is no way back from this living death.
Yet we are stuck with Mr Brown and his government for another year of
bickering, dithering and dissent.
New Labour, Old Labour . . . it makes no difference. They're both out
for the count.
I blame the recession - and David Miliband.
But for the credit crisis, Gordon Brown - an embarrassment to his
party then as he is today - would have been out on his ear last year.
Collapse
But for Mr Miliband's flirtation with a banana, we would have seen a
leadership contest and Mr Brown would have been history.
Instead, as banks crashed like dominoes and the economy teetered on
total collapse, the ex-Chancellor seized "the moment I was born for".
Today, the issue of Mr Brown's survival is a live issue again. The
plotters are back. Westminster is seething.
Hazel Blears - "Little Miss Dynamite" - scored a direct hit on the
PM's woeful YouTube outing and his treatment of the Gurkhas.
Blairite big-hitters Clarke, Alan Milburn and Frank Field - among
many others - are actively canvassing for a coup.
They see Health Secretary Alan Johnson as the party's only plausible
saviour. All they need is Jack Straw or Lord Mandelson to tell Gordon
his time's up.
Mr Johnson - an amiable, TV-friendly ex-postie - is no election-
winner but he could save a few Labour MPs from being swept away on
polling day.
Maybe nothing will come of all this. Labour is hopeless at scrapping
failed leaders.
Yet how on earth can this Government limp on for 12 more months?
There are huge issues, especially on the economy, crying out for action.
Yet at this time of national crisis, Labour is rudderless and adrift,
utterly lacking in the authority to govern.
It cannot take decisive action for fear of defeat at the hands of its
own MPs.
After last week's fiasco on the Gurkhas and MPs' expenses, it dare
not upset any of the various factions within the Parliamentary Labour
Party.
Helpless and trapped, Mr Brown can only rage impotently at staff and
passing journalists.
The PM certainly won't allow Lord Mandelson to take on the unions
over the privatisation of Royal Mail.
Thanks to Labour's ties to the public sector giant Unite and a
collapse in outside funding the party is once more a wholly-owned
subsidiary of the trade unions.
Despite the urgent need for big savings, no tough decisions will be
taken to cut our ballooning state debt.
Critical
There will be no action to ensure public pay follows the same
trajectory as private earnings - downwards.
Nor will struggling private workers cease to pay more into civil
servants' gold-plated final salary retirements than their own
pittance of a pension pot.
These are the critical issues facing Britain today. And tomorrow. And
for decades to come.
Every day lost in avoiding these colossal challenges will cost us
dear in the long run.
Yet Labour is criminally wasting precious time and money.
And leaving a lame duck Prime Minister to fritter away our future.
confined to the (so-called) 'quality' press. It is there equally in
the Mail, the Express and The Sun. So here is the 'doyen' of Fleet
Street's political editors, Trevor Kavanagh, now in retirement.
displaying his ability to get to the heart of the matter without once
waffling!
xxxxxxxxxxx cs
=============================
4.5.09
Plotters need to ditch lame duck Premier
By TREVOR KAVANAGH
Blears, Charles Clarke and my fellow Sun columnist David Blunkett.
It's the Cabinet. The Labour Party. The whole country is sick to
death of him.
OK, there are a few diehards, like Schools supremo Ed Balls, whose
own fate is tied to this Prime Minister - and even he is exasperated
beyond words with Gordon.
Peter Mandelson, brought back to the front line with a peerage,
spends most of his time with his head in his hands.
Front-benchers can barely suppress their despair - or, worse, their
mirth - when their leader mucks it up again.
Polls show Labour is shot to pieces, with barely a quarter of the
national vote - and that probably exaggerates its support.
Party chiefs fear it will crash to just SEVENTEEN per cent in next
month's local and European elections.
There is no way back from this living death.
Yet we are stuck with Mr Brown and his government for another year of
bickering, dithering and dissent.
New Labour, Old Labour . . . it makes no difference. They're both out
for the count.
I blame the recession - and David Miliband.
But for the credit crisis, Gordon Brown - an embarrassment to his
party then as he is today - would have been out on his ear last year.
Collapse
But for Mr Miliband's flirtation with a banana, we would have seen a
leadership contest and Mr Brown would have been history.
Instead, as banks crashed like dominoes and the economy teetered on
total collapse, the ex-Chancellor seized "the moment I was born for".
Today, the issue of Mr Brown's survival is a live issue again. The
plotters are back. Westminster is seething.
Hazel Blears - "Little Miss Dynamite" - scored a direct hit on the
PM's woeful YouTube outing and his treatment of the Gurkhas.
Blairite big-hitters Clarke, Alan Milburn and Frank Field - among
many others - are actively canvassing for a coup.
They see Health Secretary Alan Johnson as the party's only plausible
saviour. All they need is Jack Straw or Lord Mandelson to tell Gordon
his time's up.
Mr Johnson - an amiable, TV-friendly ex-postie - is no election-
winner but he could save a few Labour MPs from being swept away on
polling day.
Maybe nothing will come of all this. Labour is hopeless at scrapping
failed leaders.
Yet how on earth can this Government limp on for 12 more months?
There are huge issues, especially on the economy, crying out for action.
Yet at this time of national crisis, Labour is rudderless and adrift,
utterly lacking in the authority to govern.
It cannot take decisive action for fear of defeat at the hands of its
own MPs.
After last week's fiasco on the Gurkhas and MPs' expenses, it dare
not upset any of the various factions within the Parliamentary Labour
Party.
Helpless and trapped, Mr Brown can only rage impotently at staff and
passing journalists.
The PM certainly won't allow Lord Mandelson to take on the unions
over the privatisation of Royal Mail.
Thanks to Labour's ties to the public sector giant Unite and a
collapse in outside funding the party is once more a wholly-owned
subsidiary of the trade unions.
Despite the urgent need for big savings, no tough decisions will be
taken to cut our ballooning state debt.
Critical
There will be no action to ensure public pay follows the same
trajectory as private earnings - downwards.
Nor will struggling private workers cease to pay more into civil
servants' gold-plated final salary retirements than their own
pittance of a pension pot.
These are the critical issues facing Britain today. And tomorrow. And
for decades to come.
Every day lost in avoiding these colossal challenges will cost us
dear in the long run.
Yet Labour is criminally wasting precious time and money.
And leaving a lame duck Prime Minister to fritter away our future.
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