UK: Clarke (Home Secretary) axed in Cabinet reshuffle

[muriel_volestrangler]

Charles Clarke has been axed as home secretary as Tony Blair seeks to regain the initiative after a night of losses in English local elections.

Details of the reshuffle are still emerging but Jack Straw is to be moved from the Foreign Office and Geoff Hoon will be the new Europe minister.

Labour came third in the national share of the vote in Thursday's polls, losing more than 200 seats to the Tories.

Chancellor Gordon Brown said it was a "warning shot".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4975938.stm

The Safety Elephant is gone! Hurray!

[Kutjara]

1. Does Phony Tony think...

...that if he cuts away enough of the dead flesh from his public persona, he'll once again be the supermodel everyone thought he was back in '97?

If so, he's badly deluded. He can sack his entire cabinet and replace them with fresh faces and he'll still stink like last month's pork. When I look at him now, I see a Norma Desmond figure, desperately hanging onto faded glory as his legacy burns around him.

Time to throw out the trash.

[maddezmom]

2. John Reid to replace Clarke

according to reports on BBC

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Excuse the profanity, but, in John Reid's own words

"Oh fuck". He said that when he was given the Health department a few years ago - he's the aggressive type, and health didn't exactly fit his style. He's had defence more recently, which fits his gung-hp attitude. Having him in charge of prisons, police and criminal law could be just as bad as Clarke. And Blunkett.

[Kutjara]

4. It's clearly an attempt to appear...

...'tough on crime' after the recent foreign prisoners debacle. Typically for a government utterly bereft of ideas, they've stuck some 'hard man' in the Home Secretary job, to 'sort things out.' Of course, he'll be an utter failure and his strongarm tactics will have absolutely no affect on crime but an overwhelming effect on civil liberties. Then they'll all pat themselves on the back for a job well done and move onto the next disaster.

[sweetheart]

10. Yawn whatever

That he didn't move gordon brown shows he's lost the plot completely.

He's killing the labour party, he should retire in 1 day, if he
were honourable. He is killing his own cause for peets sake, and
he himself has got to take responsibility.

He must pay the price for bush, Does a front bencher need to nominate
a no confidence vote, or how does it work to patricide a party?

[Kutjara]

12. Technically, any MP can...

...call for a vote of no confidence but, in practice, if the motion is to have any chance of success, it needs to be backed up by a big voting bloc. Typically, that requires the backing of the opposition party and a lot of behind-the-scenes dealmaking to get a significant number of the government's own party to vote for it. So the vote is usually called by the leader of the opposition party.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Brown's probably the most popular senior government member

If he moved him, it would be a power grab for an elective dictatorship.

For Labour to kick out Blair:

A bid to oust Tony Blair as party leader would require a challenger to have the backing of 20% of Labour MPs.

That translates to 71 out of the 355 MPs elected on Thursday.

If a would-be candidate secures this level of support they must then write to Labour's general secretary announcing their intention to run.

The contest would then be decided at conference by an electoral college of unions, MPs and constituency parties.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4529713.stm

Anyone can call a no confidence vote in the whole government, I think, but that triggers a general election if it succeeds - so Labour backbenchers may not vote for that.

[sweetheart]

14. Closer to the PM's office

Brown could turn the foreign office
or the home office in to a step
between the treasury and the PM'ship.

It would give him valuable exposure and
experience, whilst proving the team
still young enough to truly change up.

Blair is gone already, so in kremlin watching,
i'm just curious how these planets rotate around brown.

[sweetheart]

15. Can a non-person run?

Can 20% of labour MP's nominate my dog just to get labour
party doing its job, or does there have to be someone with a
knife involved. I heard that was the end of hazeltine's
hopes of leadership, that he held the knife. That is a fool
problem to have when the knife so dearly needs to be plunged.
It's unfortunate that labour can't have an internal no-confidence
vote and force a leadership contest within its ranks.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. There's plenty of MPs who would run against Blair

who would never think they'd get elected themselves, but would do it for the sake of helping get rid of him - Jeremy Corbyn, for instance. The year before Heseltine ran against Thatcher, Sir Anthony Meyer did. I think the problem is getting the 71 names to go public.

I understand what you meant about Brown now - I had thought you wanted him out totally. I don't think it's vital for him to try Home or Foreign Office; he's doing more international stuff now with debt relief and aid.

[BooScout]

5. Well he went kicking and screaming didn't he?

I think he was a tad hacked off to say the least.

[izzie]

6. I just knew that Blair would do him self in when he went with Bush

Bush is just leaving more s--t behind him than any one I can think of. He really is a law in him self or thinks he is.What a mess but then if we do not like what he does do we really have to go with the constitution and Bush? After all Bush has made the old thing out of date.

[beyond_the_pale]

7. Is this quote British humor because its just weird . . .

Titanic

Some Labour backbenchers believe Mr Blair must go further than just overhauling his team.

Former Health Secretary Frank Dobson said a reshuffle would be like "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic".

"Quite frankly we need the party under new management,"

[Kutjara]

8. Not particularly...

I've heard the same phrase used by Americans. It's just a modern equivalent of 'fiddling while Rome burns;' ie, focusing on trivial matters while disaster looms.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. If you mean is he refering to the Colbert routine

then probably not. He's just using the standard cliche, I think.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Yesterday's Steve Bell:

Looks like Blair found his scrubbing brush ... :evilgrin: