This entry was posted on
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at
11:36 am and is filed
under Tony ‘King Blair.

Independent – Mark Steel: Don’t mention the war (or anything else): That’s a splendid achievement by the Labour Party to assemble such a bunch of candidates for the deputy leadership. Because nowhere else could you gather together six different people, and find they all support the war in Iraq and think Tony Blair is a marvellous bloke. Poor John McDonnell, the anti-war MP, is even struggling to be a candidate for leader. So there’s one person willing to stand who didn’t support their most disastrous policy ever, and they say “Oh go away, you’re not being realistic.”

Sorry, but there’s no sign of any of the main players (and their backers) wanting to risk what’s behind the retaining wall.

If this continues, we can expect to watch the new leadership stagger through the same hostile environment that dogged Blair (as their own people attack them and the Tories quietly pick up the scraps while avoiding the underlying issues themselves) and pretty much hand the next election to the Tories on a platter.

If the Tories win on this basis, they’ll inherit a perceived mandate for pre-emptive military strikes, torture, and detention without trial…. and they’ll have all the nifty new laws that Blair brought in to quieten the fuss at home this kind of thing usually causes.

Then the real fun will start.

I’d love to be this hopeful… but I’m not.

But I do have a little something to say about the faces I do not expect to see in government ever again.

With you shortly.

UPDATE (17 May) – I was saying something about charades, yes?

BBC – Brown will enter No 10 unopposed
Independent – Leading article: Why Tony Blair should go now
BlairWatch – The King is Dead, Long Live the King. Labour Party Members – Know your Place!