“Malignant garden gnome” bump.
Posted on 05/08/2005 7:26:24 AM PDT by MisterRepublican
Tony Blair has been urged to quit as prime minister early into his third term, days after Labour's election win.
Despite securing an historic third victory, the government's Commons majority was slashed from 161 to 67.
Several Labour MPs have described Mr Blair as a "liability", among them ex-Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.
However, senior party figures including David Blunkett and Peter Hain have rallied in support of Mr Blair, urging MPs to "get behind" their leader.
Downing Street has said there is "no change" from Mr Blair's statement last year that he would serve a full third term.
Some MPs have suggested the prime minister should step down within a year to 18 months, with Chancellor Gordon Brown tipped as successor.
Mr Cook, who resigned from the Cabinet in protest at the Iraq war, told BBC1's Politics Show that Labour had won this election despite rather than because of Mr Blair.
The prime minister should be respected for having delivered two landslide election wins, he said, but it was now time for him to consider his future.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I hope Tony Blair stays, just to stick it to these idiots....
It's really their choice. If they want to be led by idiots, then so be it.
It's interesting though that these guys waited until after the election to make their proposal.
As was said on Sky this morning - the people calling for Tony to leave now are the same people who didn't want him there in the first place.
We should be thoroughly uninterested in what Robin Cook has to say - the man who looks like a malignant garden gnome, dumped his wife for his secretary and was cheerful to let Iraq rot.
Regards, Ivan
Welcome back!
Well, that certainly helps to explain it. Kind of like the American RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) support of President Bush.
“Malignant garden gnome” bump.
Malignant Garden Gnome BUMP.
Geez, what a perfect description...hehehe!! Amazing how many of them manage to weasel into the seats of power in any country and cause havoc. Welcome back MadIvan.
I think he more closely resembles the troll who lived under the bridge.
He should follow your lead and stick around. England needs Blair almost as much as Freerepublic needs you.
Robin Cook
Garden Gnome, facing the right way.
Regards, Ivan
A man in dire need of hair plugs.
Robin Cook's ex-wife has launched a devastating personal attack on him, accusing the foreign secretary of having several affairs before leaving her for his secretary.
In a book serialised in the Sunday Times, Margaret Cook gives intimate details of the pair's troubled love life.
She accuses him of taking six lovers, including his secretary Gaynor Regan - the woman he married after his divorce.
She also claims her 52-year-old ex-husband had a habit of drinking heavily, in one incident in 1987 passing out on the floor of a hotel with a brandy bottle.
The Tories scrambled to capitalise on the latest Labour scandal, with Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Howard calling for Mr Cook to resign or be sacked - not over his ex-wife's book, but because of his "disastrous" term in office.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Mr Howard blasted the foreign secretary's handling of the civil war in Sierra Leone, said he had "bungled" the royal visit to India last year and had "dithered" over the conflict in Kosovo.
"We don't need Mrs Cook's book to draw attention to the record of Robin Cook as Foreign Secretary and it is a disastrous record," he said.
A friend speaking on Mr Cook's behalf rubbished the claim that he had a drink problem.
"It is simply not believable that he could have had a drink problem, especially in 1987, when he was running the Tories ragged and making his reputation as the best parliamentary performer of his generation.
"No one who knows Robin and who knows how hard he works is going to believe this."
A Foreign Office spokesman said Mr Cook had declined to comment about the book.
A Downing Street spokesman also refused to comment on Mrs Cook's book, saying: "We are not in the business of helping to sell books."
'Jealous of Brown'
In her book A Slight and Delicate Creature, Mrs Cook portrayed the foreign secretary as cold and unfeeling, saying he abandoned her at London's Heathrow airport on the eve of a holiday when told his affair with Ms Regan had been discovered by the press.
Mrs Cook could provoke further tensions within the Cabinet by alleging that Mr Cook is increasingly jealous of Chancellor Gordon Brown and "hates" former Trade Secretary Peter Mandelson.
She also claims that her ex-husband suffered "terrible guilt" over sacrificing his left-wing, anti-nuclear principles for political advancement and writes that Tony Blair "sold his soul to the devil" to get Labour elected in 1997.
But in an interview with the Sunday Times, Mrs Cook, 54, denied she was trying to wound her former husband.
"I am really not motivated by revenge of any description," she said.
"If I had wanted to bring down the world around Robin's ears I would have written it very differently."
'Sex life suffered'
Mrs Cook said her 28-year marriage gradually soured as she realised her husband was taking a string of lovers.
Their sex life suffered during his affairs - and recovered when they ended, she said.
She recounted in detail the day in August 1997 when Mr Cook told her their marriage was over at Heathrow, after Mr Blair's press secretary Alastair Campbell telephoned to tell Mr Cook a newspaper had discovered his latest affair.
The couple divorced soon afterwards. Mr Cook married Ms Regan in 1998.
Mrs Cook, a hospital consultant, still lives in the Edinburgh house she shared with the foreign secretary.
If Mr. Cook is reading this, I'm sure he'll wince, as he wanted people to forget it. I didn't forget. A long memory is a rather tenacious female dog, isn't it Robin, old boy? :)
Regards, Ivan
That was part of the question. If Blair had led his party to a smashing victory, he would have stayed on. But since Labour lost most of their majority, and more than expected, Gordon Brown will be cashing in his chips from the Granta deal sooner rather than later.
It's amazing to me how many parallels there are between Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher. In both cases nontraditional, dynamic persons reformed their parties and win three election victories in a row -- yet too many of the "old guard" of each party never did like them.
The other item they have in common is the strong relationship they each had with the American President -- just as Churchill did.
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