Blair faces resignation call

[Lori Price CLG]

Blair faces resignation call

Prime Minister (Poodle) Tony Blair, dogged by speculation about his future, faced a call for his resignation on Sunday by a senior member of his Labour Party.

Lord David Puttnam, a Labour peer and personal friend of Blair, said months of negative headlines about Iraq would damage the party's electoral prospects and the prime minister should make way for Chancellor Gordon Brown.

<snip>

[VolcanoJen]

1. Works for me!

Now, if only Bush would pull an LBJ...

[Paradise]

3. works for me, too! n/t

[Lori Price CLG]

13. We need a treason trial for Bush...

We need a treason trial for Bush --with all penalties on the table, if he is convicted.
-Lori

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. well the brits may finally get rid of poodle (eom)

[Melodybe]

4. Awesome! This is bad for Bushco, really bad.

:toast:

[fujiyama]

5. That would be good news

if Blair stepped down. I'd also like to see what it does to the morale of the right here. It would be crushing in some ways. Then again, we saw that people here think strange - there could be a bizarre backlash, like how a lot of people here thought Spain was conceding to the terrorists by voting for Zapatero...giving Bush more support. Then again, it's different in Britain considering it wouldn't be because of a terrorist attack.

Plus isn't Gordon Brown close with Kerry?

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. The last sentence is where it may get tricky

assuming you are right and the traitors pick on it.

[the Kelly Gang]

7. Lord ( David) Putnam..former film director and very very clever

Labour should take note and ditch Blair if it wishes to remain in Government.

[annagull]

8. Hey tony--ya hear John Major and Maggie?

Soon to be in the dustbin of history---MaggieMajorTonyBlair!!!
Yea!! :toast::

[CJCRANE]

9. Latest poll shows

Labour would win by a slim majority with Brown but lose their majority under Blair in next election (according to BBC Radio 4).

[CJCRANE]

10. Latest poll shows

Labour would win by a slim majority with Brown but lose their majority under Blair in next election (according to BBC Radio 4).

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Ok why does this remind of.... hold it

hold to your hats, its coming... NIXON and WATERGATE

Only reason tricky Dick stepped down was... his party asked him
for the ahem, yes it's comming, yep, the good of the party

Nope I am not in a cynical mood right at the moment so stop
saying that

[T_i_B]

12. Blair dead in the water? No such luck

Do I have to keep posting this every time this subject comes up?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fopinion%2F2004%2F04%2F29%2Fdo2902.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=333043

Blair will not go this summer, and no, he will not go before the next general election. Here are at least three reasons. The first is that it is not in the nature of politicians to surrender their own political lives; they are like wasps in jam jars. They buzz on long after hope has gone. They go on because it is in their nature to do so, because all political careers must end in tears, and it is profoundly in the public interest that they should do, in the sense that politicians will work hardest and best if they know that their only exit is to be terminated in the Darwinian struggle for popular affection and interest.

He will not go because there are scores of his backbenchers who know that they were not propelled to Westminster because their electorates fell in love with their own blue eyes. They know that Tony won their seats, because he offered Middle England a kind of Tory Lite party that seemed economically sensible without some of the nastiness that they had come to associate with my great party.

They also know that they have absolutely no practical way of disposing of Blair, because a leadership election would necessitate the votes of 80 MPs, a quarter of the parliamentary party, and there are not enough of them with the guts to trigger it.

And the third reason why Blair will stay and fight is of course that there is no one to take his place. He is New Labour, for better or worse. Straw? Pshaw. Blunkett? Junk it. As for Gordon Brown, and the idea that the baton could be smoothly passed to the Chancellor - cheated of his birthright for a mess of seared tuna at Granita - it is fanciful. Even if it were possible, technically, to effect such a transition, it would be an insult to democracy, not least because Brown, like so many other Labour members, sits for a Scottish seat, and is currently passing laws for England when English MPs have no say over those questions in Scotland, and above all when he, Gordon, has no say over those questions in Scotland. I would go so far as to say that the West Lothian question is now so acute that no sitting Scottish MP has a hope of becoming prime minister.

[daleo]

21. Personally, I don't find Telegraph articles convincing

Granted, I am not in Britain, but as a Canadian I have had plenty of experience with Conrad Black's version of truth, and have not been impressed. Black may have got the boot, but the Telegraph still strikes me as a biased source.

[T_i_B]

22. The basic argument

about why Blair is not likely to be forced out anytime soon still holds true. The fact that it was written by Boris Johnson is neither here nor there. Many UK DUers have been trying to say the same thing about Blair's chances for months now.

The only real fault in his case is his presumptions over the West Lothian question but other than that, yes I'm afraid that "new" labour MP's do tend to lack any sort of balls and for better or worse Blair does define his party to such an extent that many cannot imagine life without him.

[daleo]

23. I guess I can believe the lack of integrity among labour members

I have seen the same phenomenon in Canada over the years. Mulroney destroyed the progressive conservative party here, and his back benchers were so enamoured of him that they willingly jumped off the cliff. So, I know it can happen. I suppose if Brits feel that there is no alternative to Blair they will go along. It is a shame when there is no real political alternative available on such a fundamental matter as waging war.

But I still dislike the Telegraph.

[leesa]

14. I'm for it....followed by a war crimes trial.

[AP]

15. The right wing really wants to get rid of Blair before Nov because

once Kerry gets elected, the heat will be off the Labour in the UK (they'll be able to fix everything people are complaining about) and Labour will be in great shape for the next election.

The ONLY reason Blair called the last election when he did was to make sure that the next election would take place after Bush was potentially gone.

It was one of the most brilliant things labor has done in the last 4 years, and it's probably going to pay off for Blair.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. The timing of the last election had nothing to do with Bush

because a British government has up to 5 years before it has to have a new election; thus whenever Blair called an election after Bush got elected, it would have guaranteed that the next one would be after the 2004 US election.

Blair called the election when he did because he'd had 4 years, and the polls said Labour would win comfortably. It was much better to have the election then than wait another year, and run the risk of something going wrong in that year.

Calling an election after about 4 years in power is standard in Britain when the government is clearly ahead in the polls. If you really think that was one of the most brilliant things Labour did, then you have an even lower opinion of Blair than I do.

[AP]

17. It had everything to do with Bush. If he waited another year, Bush would

have had more time to fuck up British politics, making it more difficult for Blair to get reelected. Bush called the election before Bush could get all his ducks in a row.

I should have been more clear. Blair called the last one before Bush could sabotage Labour's chances at winning. And he'll get the next one, hopefully, after Bush is gone.

I think as right wingers see Kerry's chances of winning increase, they'll be putting more and more pressure on Blair to resign, and they'll be spinning furously to make him look bad.

They must know the jig will be up once Bush is gone, and Blair will be able to redeem himself.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Ouch. I think I just got whiplash

from watching you do a U turn so quickly.

First
"The ONLY reason Blair called the last election when he did was to make sure that the next election would take place after Bush was potentially gone."
and then
"If he waited another year, Bush would have had more time to fuck up British politics, making it more difficult for Blair to get reelected. Bush (typo for Blair, I presume) called the election before Bush could get all his ducks in a row."

Seriously, the timing of the 2001 election was not a good, bad or ugly decision; it was business as normal in British politics, and nothing to do with Bush. We're not the 51st state yet.

Your faith in Tony is quite sweet, really. It's just as likely that once Bush is gone, it will put more pressure on Blair, since he will be the only major warmonger left.

[AP]

20. It was so obvious to me that Blair new that Bush was going

to create a complicated international situation which wasn't going to help labor.

If he had waited another year (and maximized his term) it would have become harder for labour to win a majority.

And I totally stand by my original point. If Kerry wins, Labour will be off the hook because they won't have the US trying to fuck things up for Labour. As the chances of Kerry winning increase, the hysteria about damaging Blair will increase, since a vote of no confidence this summer will be the right wing's only hope.

If Bush's chances of winning increase, Tories will sit back because they'll know that Bush's second term will provide ample opportunity for sabotaging labour in preparation for the next election.

[Vladimir]

19. Exactly right and besides

I think in this case the longer Bliar waits the more screwed he is going to be. Last time around he could have rolled a die to decide when to hold the election and would have won comfortably, now he needs to weigh his options. His biggest problem is that the British no longer trust him, and that trust will be near impossible to win back. Labour is in a very peculiar position - with the domestic agenda as good as it is they should be looking forward to another landslide, not staring down the barrel. But they are on the backfoot, and if they win it will be due to the incompetence of the other parties not due to some genius strategy. Bliar's biggest ally in this election will be the stupidity of his opponents.