British Prime Minister Tony Blair delivered a message after his party lost in local elections:
“No more Mr. Nice guy.
“Really.
“Honestly.
“Not kidding you…”
The political carnage was so great that perhaps Hollywood is eying it to make a new movie “Friday the 5th” (it doesn’t have as catchy a sound as “Friday the 13th,” but it’s “high concept.”
The changes were more extensive than President George Bush’s recent changes at the White House (unless you include the surprise booting out of CIA Director Porter Goss for still sufficiently unexplained reasons). Times Online describes the political massacre:
Tony Blair moved to shore up his precarious position yesterday after Labour’s dismal local election results with a ruthless and extensive reshuffle sending out the message: “I stay on.�
He sacked Charles Clarke for the foreign prisoner fiasco and threw down the gauntlet to Gordon Brown by promoting supporters such as John Reid and Alan Johnson, who might become leadership alternatives to the Chancellor. He also refused to prepare the ground for the long-promised “orderly transition� to Mr Brown.
At the same time he demoted four senior ministers, John Prescott, Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon and Ian McCartney, who have been seen as more sympathetic to the Chancellor. He stripped the embattled Deputy Prime Minister of his policy role and left him with his title and trappings of power, including a grace-and-favour flat and a country residence.
He angered the Chancellor and his backers by appointing without any consultation with Mr Brown two avowed Blairites, Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith, to the posts of Labour party chairman and Chief Whip. The occupants of those jobs will play a vital part in an eventual handover. Mr Brown’s supporters said that Mr Blair had shown he had lost interest in the transfer of power.
In a further provocative act, Mr Blair told his new chairman that he wanted her to conduct a “root and branch� reorganisation over the coming years — hours after Mr Brown called for a renewal of the party. Mr Blair, without consultation, told Ms Blears to “work up an ambitious 2010 vision of the party and map how we can migrate to that rapidly.� One leading Brownite called the reshuffle an “act of war�.
Clearly, Blair didn’t want to just sit back and grieve. In popular buzzword language: he wanted some closure (so he fired and demoted some people.)
The Telegraph:
There was a clear implication that simply blaming recent headlines, or reshuffling the chairs on the deck, would not be enough. As one of Mr Brown’s allies later put it, more bluntly: “The problem is systemic and it’s not going to be resolved until Tony goes. He’s lost touch with reality.”
Yesterday Mr Blair executed a “night of the long knives”, in which he changed almost all the members of his top table. Although the Prime Minister’s recent reshuffles have been characterised by prevarication and fudge, this time he was brutal, refusing to take “no” for an answer from those, such as Charles Clarke and John Prescott, who were going to be demoted or chopped.
Ministers seen as loyal and competent – John Reid, Margaret Beckett, Alan Johnson – were promoted. Those deemed not to have performed well – Ruth Kelly, Hilary Armstrong – or to have been less than supportive – Jack Straw, Ian McCartney – were shunted aside. Mr Brown was informed, rather than consulted, about the changes. The promotion of his key adviser, Ed Balls, to the job of Economic Secretary was seen as a consolation prize.
The Blairites claim the Prime Minister is more bullish than ever. “This is not the reshuffle of a man about to leave office,” a Downing Street aide said.
A Cabinet minister, who is close to Mr Blair, insisted that the Prime Minister had not been “knocked off stride” by recent events. “Tony’s got a resilient and calm personality,” he said. “The critical thing is not the reshuffle but the ability to withstand buffeting.”
So how has all this helped Blair? Defeated members of his own party would like to see him be given the boot, according to The Independent:
Reg Freeson, the former Willesden and Brent East MP who was deselected when Ken Livingstone was chosen as the Labour candidate in 1983, lost his Brent council seat. He said: “There’s an underlying failure of Labour Party attitudes and principles. Blair should step down tomorrow. Tonight if possible. I’ve been saying it for quite some time and it is reinforced by this election crisis. The sooner he resigns the better….Of course he should announce a firm timetable for standing down and I don’t mean a timetable 18 months from now.”
Mick Salih, leader of the Labour group on Stoke-on-Trent council and a councillor since 1993, added: “He should have stood down 12 months ago. I don’t think he’s a socialist prime minister. He is a Tory in disguise and we have all been fooled. He should go as soon as possible.”
Albert Clarke, 69, was a Labour councillor in Newcastle-under-Lyme for 16 years until he lost his seat on Thursday. He said: “I think he should have stood down last year. I am as red as you can be, and I would still tell him to his face that he should stand down. He shouldn’t set a timetable, he should go. Full stop. If he had gone last year, we would not be in this position.”
Rick Everitt, who was defeated as a Labour councillor on Bexley council, said: “He should stand down as soon as possible, definitely before the Labour Party conference in the autumn. Tony Blair has made a great contribution to the party, but the public and party activists have lost faith in him because of the Iraq war and his failures over the health service.”
And at least one defeated candidate blamed the defeats on the Blair’s stance supporting the war in Iraq:
The former mayor of Brent, Abdul Sattar-Butt, blamed the collapse in the Muslim vote for the loss of his seat. He said: “Muslim voters here told me I should be ashamed of the Labour Party. They said the Labour Party’s hands are covered in blood. It is what Tony Blair has done with the Iraq war that lost the elections. The Labour Party should just kick him out and say, “You are no good, just please go.”
Will the majority party’s fate be the similar in the U.S. in 2006?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.