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A SLOW NEWS WEEK? [Or drop the dead donkey perhaps]

It could just be a “Slow news week” but there is a distinct impression emanating from the British press that the current Prime Minister Tony Blair has overstayed his welcome at number 10 Downing Street and the PM himself is largely responsible for the speculation which has now dragged on for well over a year.
There were several ways in which the leadership of a political party could have been passed to a successor but curiously the deviation from the expected “Rites of succession” have done more to fragment the party of New Labour than unite it.
The present leader might have put it to an elective process with several prospective candidates relying upon the membership of the party as a whole to decide who will lead them, or he might have selected a “Short list” from which a successor could be chosen. His choice was to actually name the person who would succeed him but he did not say when it would be leaving a matter for speculation and placing someone who it is said is “His Friend” at the mercy of an avaricious press who would do just about anything to fill the front page with a story. The mechanics of this particular “Rite of succession” call to mind the words of Puzzo when he wrote in the Godfather
”Keep your friends close and your enemies closer still” a view reinforced by an inventive press trying to sell copy.

For the Prime Minister to name his successor so far removed from the actual vacation from office was at best “Ill advised” for it was certain to beg the question “When will this be”? His reticence to give a definite date/time has only served to cloud the political scene and cause internal wrangling within the Parliamentary party promoting a disunity that the opposition could only dream of creating. The tactics seem at first sight flawed but whilst the press is obsessed with being the first to bring the news of when it will be they are unlikely to pay more than a scant regard to stories that would, a short time ago have claimed the front page.
The war in Afghanistan is not going well for the 36 nation alliance and recent losses have been buried deep inside newspapers giving the impression that the recent deaths of British soldiers are a mere bagatelle but despite reports of Taliban casualties the British losses are mounting, so much so that NATO has asked for a further 2500 troops to reinforce British and Canadian groups under attack. It is likely that the reinforcements will be British.
In the Middle East a precarious ceasefire has been brokered by the UN and much but not all of the fighting has stopped but one of the conditions of that ceasefire was that the respite could not be used to replenish arms stocks or reinforce positions held at the time of the ceasefire. Since the cessation of hostilities Israeli Special Forces have been in action in the Bequar valley to prevent the arms shipments from Syria reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon, a duty that should have been the province of the UN. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the engagement the fact remains that the conditions of the ceasefire were flouted but what is a binding condition for Hezbollah is also a binding condition on Israel who are also evading the strictures of the ceasefire but Israel are involving the UK in their deceptions indirectly because their arms shipments are being routed though both military and civil airports in the UK and this “Facility” is now being cited by Hezbollah as a reason why the UK did little to stop the bombing in Beirut.
The situation in Iran is becoming more dangerous by the day with Iran’s refusal to cease the uranium enrichment program, they maintain it is for peaceful purposes but coupled with their recent missile tests they are a very real threat to peace in the Middle East. Iran was one of the principal backers of Hezbollah and Israeli opinion holds that an Islamic nuclear bomb is a reality, which Iran is now capable of delivering to the heart of Tel Aviv.

The inflation rate of the British economy is likely to take a giant leap in the coming month with the near 100% rise in UK domestic gas prices, which will also have a “knock-on effect” on electricity prices and undermine the Chancellors economic strategy. More than half of the hike in gas prices can be attributed to the rises that Russia has sought to load onto the price of natural gas on the international market but equally a done-deal with Dubai over a year ago that was supposed to stabilise the gas price has to an extent now been de-stabilised by the current uncertainty surrounding the departure of the Prime Minister.

As Tony Blair takes the podium to address the TUC [Trades Union Congress] Conference in Brighton this week he must surely be remembering that same conference five years ago when the news of the attack on The World Trade Center began to hit the TV screens around the world. That was two wars ago neither of which has been brought to a conclusion despite the efforts of a 36nation NATO alliance.
A Prime Minister must have a grasp of international affairs and whilst Gordon Brown might be a “Close confidant” of his friend the Prime Minister his experience is largely fiscal. In choosing Gordon Brown as his successor as the leader of the Parliamentary Labour party the current holder of the office has, in effect usurped the elective process of his own party which up to now have chosen their own leaders. It was once the prerogative of the Monarch to choose the Prime Ministers who made a decision based upon the level of support that could be commanded from the members of the House of Commons. The support for this particular Prime Minister in waiting is waning. The media are in effect making the assumption that Gordon Brown will be the next Prime Minister based solely upon the recommendation of the incumbent Prime Minister that his chosen successor to lead the party will also be Prime Minister. It is not necessarily so. Dissent is growing inside the Labour party for a prospective leader that it is felt “Simply has not got what it takes to be a Prime Minister, resistance is also evident at the TUC conference.

The speculation of when the Prime Minister Tony Blair would “Step Down” has been the “Elephant in the room that no one mentioned” for far too long. It has had the time to create an instability that is fast becoming an issue that will not go away. Something as they say “Has got to give”. The current TUC conference is usually the precursor to “The shape of things to come” at the Labour party conference later in the year and whilst Tony Blair will not actually “Step Down” or give notice of his intent to do so at the podium this week his words will be laden with portents and innuendo’s that the announcement can be expected at the Labour party conference. In the meantime his ability to “Close” a situation, broker a deal, make a promise or carry on the day-to-day business of being the Prime Minister is compromised by his reluctance to provide a timetable for the transition of power to his successor.
By the same token Gordon Brown is in the position of being not quite a Prime Minister and a Chancellor that is waiting to take the final step up the ladder. The indecision is a detriment to both.
Anyone who is engaged in negotiation with the UK government might consider it prudent to wait until the transition takes place before striking an agreement that could change with the view of a new man.

As it stands the membership of the Labour party are separating into various factions
which is contrary to the intention of the Prime Minister who obviously intended to keep a universal unity during the transition?
Inside the Labour party a civil war has been simmering for a while. There are those members who want to see an end to Tony Blair as PM but have little faith in his chosen successor Gordon Brown, their plan is to remove Tony Blair from office whilst neutralising Gordon Brown at the same time. There are others who maintain that the PM should set a firm date and stand aside in favour of the Chancellor now.
There are letters circulating the corridors of power that prosecute both scenarios but the alignment of Cabinet Ministers with sympathies toward one or the other of the possible end results is a measure of just how serious the situation is becoming for a party elected by such a landslide. The parliamentary Labour party is in danger of imploding, not because they got it wrong [though they do have their critics], not because there has been a vote of no confidence in the house or some scandal that had far reaching consequences [though there have been many of those], not because it has no mandate to govern. No, the government faces a meltdown from within because its leader made the fatal mistake of elevating one of his lieutenants above the rest and then compounded the felony by a reluctance to specify when it would take place.

In between the TUC conference and the Labour party conference [24th-28th September in Manchester] there is a cabinet meeting planned for the 20th September at which a fly upon the wall may well be privy to one piece of information that could just save the party, the date upon which Gordon Brown will take office. The irony will be that although there will be no more than four days until the party conference the information will be on the front pages of every newspaper in the country within 24 hours. The delegates to conference may well find themselves dividing into pro/anti Brown factions as they arrive exposing the civil war that has been raging in their ranks for more than a year to the rigours of public scrutiny disseminating the myth that this is a party of unity.

JP.

Posted: September 13, 2006 , Modified: September 13, 2006

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