Monday, March 20, 2006

Blair-must-go watch: Linford beats Guardian to it!

"You have been sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

That was my blunt message to Prime Minister Tony Blair in my columns and accompanying podcast this weekend. After months of toying with the idea of firing Cromwell's Golden Bullet in his direction, I have to confess it gave me immense satisfaction to let him have it at last!

Of course, if it was just me (and Bob Piper!) he'd ignore it - but it isn't just me and a consensus now appears to be developing across the political blogosphere that Blair will be gone by the time of the Labour Conference this autumn.

Most devastatingly of all, the Guardian has now come out and said, in a leader entitled Nine years is enough published this morning, that Blair should go this summer rather than attempt to see out a decade in Number 10.

I don't think the Grauniad has quite the monopoly on progressive/left-of-centre political thought that it thinks it has - it's a fact that this Government is far less concerned about what it thinks than it is about the Sun, for instance - but this editorial will undoubtedly be seen as a further nail in the Prime Minister's political coffin.

I'm just glad I managed to beat them to it...!

March 21 update: A Newsnight poll published last night reveals that
half the population now want Blair to go. This is, surely, the tipping point...

3 comments:

skipper said...

I've just found a note of talk I gave htree years ago in which I advised my adult class Blair should stand aside for Brown. I won't claim the Blair-must-go Prescience award though as people have been calling for him to go-including members of my longstanding class- almost since he came to power. More to the point is Guido Fawkes' citing of betfair reducing odds on Blair going between April and June from 8-1 down to 4-1. When the guys who win and lose money on such things are forecasting for Blair's departure, it's sign he can't hang on much longer. I think he'd love to stay on till the ten year mark but suspect he'll have to start organuising that US lecture trip before the end of the year. Be sure he'll fix it so he surprises us when he finally decides to go.

Bob Piper said...

Paul, he might pay attention to a 'sensible' chap like you, but he sure as hell hasn't listened to most of us in the Party for years.
Skipper... some of us have been calling for his head ages BEFORE he came to power.

janestheone said...

What is "devastating" about an editorial in the Guardian? that rag would like nothing better than a Tory government, and so would too many Labour Party members. Well you're going to get your wish boys, I forecast a hung parliament in 2009 followed by Tory gains at by-elections and a Tory administration to follow. And Paul, what has come over you? Because the Daily Filth, known among old-fashioned Labour voters as the Grauniad (because they still think papers are produced on hot metal) has expressed a point of view about the Labour leadership, don't confuse that editorial with something of more worth than a piece of lavatory paper.