Monday, July 28, 2008

Labour's Summer Of Discontent

Going on a summer holiday just isn't going to happen for Brown and his New Labour Party. They will be taking their work with them, preparing to do battle as the old squares up to the new.

Top of the reading list is the matter of that letter to the cabinet, reported in today's Daily Telegraph and reported here  by the Orange Party yesterday. 

After Blair changed the Party rule book to make it well nigh impossible to oust him, the letter to cabinet is only device available to prise out Brown. 

That is, unless he decides to do the honourable thing and resign on the grounds of ill-health. And it really has to be sorted before the end of September and the Labour Party Conference. 

But the fight is actually over ownership of the Labour Party. 

One the one hand, New Labour trying somehow to cling on to power. 

On the other, true Labour, never happy with way the Party was highjacked back in the 90s but, until now, quite content with the power it brought. 

They make very uneasy bedfellows. And there may be two very different 'letters' flying around! 

Janet Daly has a excellent piece in today's Telegraph with the spotlight on the Blairite New Labour camp strategy and their plan to stave off a general election until the spring. 

For true Labour, there's former minister, Michael Meacher, in today's Guardian. Meacher, thrown out by Blair, is in the McDonnell camp and to put it politely, no friend of New Labour. He's joined by Gordon Prentice who is actually calling on Brown to resign so there can be a leadership election.  

And, as so often has happened in the past, the referee is John Prescott. Speaking on TV yesterday he didn't really support Brown. But he did tell Labour MPs one thing: give the guy a break and let him have his holiday. 

But a holiday is just for a couple of weeks - not for the full parliamentary recess.

So in the meantime, it's the battle of the beaches - Dave and Sam looking drop-dead gorgeous, but more Provence than Padstow. Gordon and Sarah? Well, Sarah looks nice.

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