Clare Short ... steps up personal attack on Mr Blair.
Posted on 05/13/2003 9:40:04 AM PDT by John Lenin
By Peter Fray, Herald Correspondent in London
May 14 2003
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Clare Short ... steps up personal attack on Mr Blair. |
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The former British cabinet minister Clare Short has stepped up her personal and damaging attack on Tony Blair's leadership, calling on him to resign in favour of his arch rival, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, before the next election.
Just hours after her spectacular resignation speech to Parliament, during which she said Mr Blair had become presidential and "obsessed with his place in history", she called for an "elegant succession" to Mr Brown for the sake of the Labour Party and country.
"We need to keep this Labour Government, it has a good chance of another term," she told The Guardian and Financial Times newspapers. "But we must keep it well led and true to its values - and it's making mistakes at the moment."
She said Mr Blair had achieved an enormous amount and it would be "very sad if he hung on and spoiled his reputation".
"The job is, without falling into horrendous splits, to try and ensure we keep up the quality of the government and, indeed, organise an elegant succession."
Ms Short, a leading member of the left and the former International Development Secretary, resigned on Monday morning, claiming that Mr Blair had failed to keep his promise to give the United Nations a "central role" in the reconstruction of Iraq.
She cited the British, US and Spanish Security Council resolution which envisages the allies controlling Iraq's reconstruction for a year. But she has used her resignation speech and subsequent interviews as opportunities to attack the style and substance of the Blair Government, which she said had undermined the public's trust and strained party loyalty.
She said the cabinet had increasingly been ruled by Mr Blair, his cronies and a few unelected advisers. "There is no collective responsibility because there is no collective - just diktats in favour of increasingly badly thought-through policy initiatives that come from on high."
Ms Short has been on political death row in the Blair Government since she called the Prime Minister "reckless" just before the start of the Iraq war.
In an about-face at the time, she was persuaded not to resign - and Mr Blair declined to sack her - and stayed to play a role in the British war cabinet. But she was expected to be a victim in a forthcoming ministerial reshuffle.
Her failure to leave the cabinet before the war badly damaged her credentials among many Labour backbenchers, who, either publicly or privately, share her views about Mr Blair and his Government's centralised style.
But as a key and vocal supporter of Mr Brown, she is likely to emerge as a lightning rod for differences between the Chancellor and Mr Blair over the euro, and moves to reform hospital and university spending.
Mr Blair and the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, have denied Ms Short's claims that Britain has reneged on plans to involve the UN in the reconstruction of Iraq.
Her ministerial position was filled by Baroness Amos, 49, a Blair loyalist, who becomes the first black woman in a British cabinet. She was appointed within 30 minutes of Ms Short's resignation.
Bet she LOVES Bill Clinton. Ugly old hag.
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