Showing posts with label John Reid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Reid. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Red Dawngate

I make no comment on whether this Mail on Sunday story alleging that John Reid attempted to have sex with "Red Dawn" Primarolo during his drinking days was behind his decision not to contest the Labour leadership, other than to say that we've all done silly things while under the influence, and that if the Brown camp have been puttting this sort of stuff about, it's no worse than what the Blair camp was putting round about "gay" Gordon in '94.

But it has left me wondering whether MoS muck-raker story-getter extraordinaire Simon Walters might have further instalments in store on why neither Alan Milburn nor Charlie No Trousers Clarke stood for the leadership either, despite confident predictions in the latter case that a challenge would indeed be launched.

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Monday, May 07, 2007

Reid begs the questions

Last September, in a rousing speech to Labour's conference that had him spoken of as a potential Prime Minister, John Reid said he intended to "play his full part" in helping Labour renew itself in government following Tony Blair's departure. It was a speech that was open to several different interpretations at the time and seems even more so now that Reid has revealed that the only part he will in fact play will be as a backbench MP.

So what's going on? As ever with Reid, there are quite a few theories, and they can be summarised thus.

1. He is genuine. He is coming up to 60, wants to take a break from government, and wants Gordon Brown to have the freedom to bring in his own people as he said yesterday.

Probability rating: 2/10. Reid is a politician to his fingertips, and it just doesn't square with what he said last autumn.

2. With the forthcoming break-up of the Home Office, Reid's role is about to diminish and Gordon was unable to offer him anything bigger by way of compensation. There is some speculation that he might have asked for a combined Defence and Homeland Security brief

Probability rating: 6/10. Gordon would have been happy to keep Reid in Cabinet in one of the two Home Office briefs, but not in a beefed-up role.

3. He has been forced out by some impending tabloid scandal. This is the theory currently running on Iain Dale.

Probability rating: 4/10. Reid has a fairly colourful past but it's unclear to me whny him resigning would make a tabloid newspaper any less likely to print something.

4. He is staging a canny tactical retreat to distance himself from what he sees as the impending disaster of the Brown premiership so that he can live to fight another day after the next election.

Probability rating: 7/10. There is no love lost between Reid and Brown and his decision not to serve could be likened to Iain Macleod's under Douglas-Home in 1963.

My conclusion, then, is that this is an act of deep disloyalty on the part of Reid which will weaken Brown and weaken Labour in the run-up to the next election.

If he ever does attempt a comeback, the Labour Party should remember that.

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Thursday, January 04, 2007

Reid: Disarmingly honest, or devilishly clever?

So what exactly is John Reid up to with his big speech today highlighting the need for his party to hold fast to its current political direction and demonstrate to the public that there is more to New Labour than Tony Blair.

On one level, it could be seen as almost an endorsement of Gordon Brown. He says that "personal attacks" on the Chancellor by the Tories will "rebound" and makes clear his view that Brown's achievements "tower above anything anyone in the Tory Party has ever aspired to or could ever aspire to."

If you take this comment at face value, he appears to be saying not only that Gordon is New Labour to the core, but that attempts by the Conservatives to portray him otherwise are doomed to failure.

On another level, though, the speech can clearly be read as a devilishly clever piece of duplicity, that in appearing to praise Brown he is really warning him that he will face a rival leadership bid if he so much as even thinks of lurching a millimetre to the left.

This is certainly how Brownite MP George Mudie, a former Deputy Chief Whip, has interpreted it. He said today: "I think it's an early attempt to put a marker down to get some of the Gordon Brown supporters to say 'we need a change of direction' so that he can say 'this is disloyalty to the leader and, therefore, I shall throw my hat into the ring or we shall find someone to do so'."

Mudie, who led the unsuccessful rebellion against university tuition fees in 2003, is a disappointed and disillusioned man, and some of what he says should be treated with a pinch of salt, but if this is the level of paranoia in the Brownite camp, it doesn't augur well for a smooth leadership transition.

If the Brownites genuinely believe Dr Reid is out to get their man, they should know better than to rise to his bait by putting the worst possible construction on everything.

Far better, surely, to simply throw the ball back into Reid's court by agreeing with everything he says and welcoming his very generous comments about the Chancellor's record?

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Thursday, November 16, 2006

But whose Big Clunking Fist?

The next election contest, said Tony Blair yesterday, will be "a flyweight versus a heavyweight." He said of David Cameron: "However much he dances around the ring beforehand he will come in reach of a big clunking fist and, you know what, he'll be out on his feet, carried out of the ring."

He's right about Cameron, of course. The public will find him out before long and the Tories will discover that they have massively overestimated the impact that Blair's departure will have on their electoral prospects.

But did Blair's comments constitute the long-awaited endorsement of Gordon Brown, as seems to be the consensus this morning, or could it be, as The Sun suggests, that John Reid could still be the one to send the Boy David crashing to the canvas?

After all, as the commentator Peter Dobbie wrote a few years' back, the Home Secretary does have something of a reputation as a pugilist in Westminster circles.

What does seem to be clear is that Blair has endorsed Brown or Reid, as opposed to any other candidate - which is exactly how it should be. The two of them are head and shoulders above any other candidates when it comes to experience, gravitas, and the ability to command an audience, and if there is to be a contest, then those should be the two names on the ballot paper.

In other words, it's surely now time for Hutton, Milburn, Johnson and all the other John Major-alikes to crawl back under their stones and let the real men fight it out.

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Reid still keeping options open

There has been much speculation in the blogosphere over recent days concerning John Reid's intentions towards the Labour leadership, for instance:

PoliticalBetting.com
Politaholic
The UK Daily Pundit
Guido Fawkes.

Two things appear to have kicked it all off - firstly Gordon Brown's rather ill-judged kneejerk reaction to Friday's acquittal of BNP leader Nick Griffin - which managed the not-inconsiderable feat of making Reid look like a liberal - together with a view in certain influential quarters that Brown will invariably end up becoming enmeshed in the loans-for-lordships affair.

I make no comment on any of this, other than to say that I don't believe Reid has ever ruled himself in or out of the leadership battle. As I wrote HERE ten days ago, "Gordon has the conditional backing of everyone that really matters. But they still reserve the right to challenge him if it all goes wrong."

Certainly this piece in yesterday's Guardian by Jackie Ashley - a journalist with close links to the Chancellor's camp - suggests that the Brownites are taking absolutely nothing for granted.

November 15 Update: Is the heavily law-and-order orientated content of today's Queen's Speech designed to help a Reid leadership bid? Mike Smithson thinks so.

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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Has Reid really done a deal with Gordon?

The Independent today has the "story" of John Reid's decision to quit the Labour leadership race and back Gordon Brown in return for keeping his job, a tale which had previously appeared initially on The First Post and subsequently on Guido.

"Reid is said to have told Gordon Brown he will not stand against him.
Reid "has realised support for a serious challenge isn't there," noted the article, adding: "Odds are that ... Reid will remain Home Secretary when Brown moves into No 10."

But is it true? Well, my bet is that if the Independent genuinely thought it was, it would have put it somewhere near the front page, not buried it in the Pandora column.

I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if there were to be such a deal in the near future. But if there is, I think Gordo will find the Foreign Secretary's job is the one Reidy really wants....

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Friday, September 29, 2006

Have we all misinterpreted John Reid?

Virtually everybody is interpreting John Reid's speech to the Labour Conference yesterday as the opening salvo in a leadership bid, and they may very well be right. It is not the only interpretation however, and Reid deliberately left things a bit ambiguous so that any of these interpretations can be retrospectively applied.

They are:

1. Reid has no intention of standing for the leadership. Yesterday's speech was purely the speech of a Home Secretary and any suggestion to the contrary is just media "froth." When Reid used the L-word, he was simply talking about the need for strong leadership in confronting crime and terrorism.

2. He hasn't made up his mind. The speech was a toe-in-the-water exercise, more than likely prompted by the Frank Luntz survey on Newsnight on Monday evening showing him as potentially the most popular leader among floating voters. If this interpretation is correct, JR would have been heartened by the response in the hall.

3. He is leaving open the option of running for the leadership, but the primary purpose of yesterday's speech was to keep up the pressure on Gordon Brown. This view rests on the theory that what happens next depends on whether Gordon behaves himself. If he does, he gets the endorsement. If not, he gets challenged.

4. His purpose was not to put down a marker for the leadership at all, but to reinforce his own position against the possibility of dismissal by Prime Minister Brown. The phrase "I intend to play my full part" could be translated: "I mean to extract a firm promise from the bastard to keep me in my current job. Or else."

5. He is definitely a candidate for the leadership, although he will not actually announce it formally until Tony Blair names the date for his departure. The remarks about others not being diminished when one shines could be read as an appeal for Brown to accept a position in his Cabinet.

If I have to take a view, I'm going with a combination of Nos 3 and 4 for now, as I genuinely do believe that Reid hasn't decided and that Blair is still keeping open the option of endorsing Brown at the last minute.

I think it was telling that Trevor Kavanagh, who must know Reid fairly well, said on Newsnight this week that he didn't think Reid really wanted the job. Against that, he is a politician, and somebody who doesn't want to be PM probably has no business being in the Cabinet in the first place.

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Thursday, September 28, 2006

So where does it all leave us?

So as Labour bids farewell to Manchester, as well as John Prescott, what conclusions can we draw from the week's events? I would draw the following:

1. By dint of his conference tour-de-force on Tuesday, Tony Blair has earned the right to stay on into the summer of 2007.

2. Gordon Brown has largely recovered the ground lost in the aftermath of the abortive "coup," but remains on probation.

3. Provided there are no further attempts to hustle him out of the door, Mr Blair will continue to hold out the possiblity of endorsing Brown, while making him sweat for it until the very last minute.

4. If however the infighting erupts again, and the polls show they can win, the Blairites will run John Reid against the Chancellor.

That's my objective assessment of the situation. My personal view remains however that to challenge Brown would be a mistake that will only help the Tories, and that the Blairites should stop threatening an alternative candidate and accept this.

Of all the punditry I have read about the conference, the piece that made the most sense to me was the piece by David Clark in today's Guardian.

"Parties that spurn leadership favourites for internal reasons unrelated to merit tend to regret such decisions. Labour passed over Denis Healey for Michael Foot in 1980 even though he was far better qualified for the job. The Tories did the same to Michael Heseltine 10 years later in revenge for his role in deposing Margaret Thatcher.

"Labour can avoid that fate, but only if it is willing to put the spite merchants in their place and choose the only candidate with the substance and experience to govern successfully and win the next election. That means uniting behind Gordon Brown."


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Wednesday, August 16, 2006

John Reid: The backlash begins...

Every Labour politician who has ever been spoken about as a potential alternative leader to Gordon Brown has eventually suffered a media backlash, and it is already clear that John Reid will be no exception.

Today's piece by Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail is fairly typical of the kind of thing we can expect as the prospect of a bloody battle over the corpse of New Labour grows ever closer.

"One wonders why Mr Blair's assumed heir apparent Gordon Brown, who is on paternity leave, did not think it right to return to London to restore order. Perhaps he has taken the view that, far from improving his chances of becoming the next Prime Minister, Dr Reid has, in fact, dramatically reduced them.

"For the spectacle of this sinister old Marxist seizing control is enough to make most of us feel like taking to the hills. It should also persuade Labour MPs that this rather scary figure is unlikely ever to work his way into the affections of Middle England."


The change of mood was also reflected in a piece on Political Betting.com which last Friday was reporting a sharp tightening of Reid's leadership odds in the wake of his performance over the terror raids.

Today, however, Mike Smithson was posing the question whether some of Reid's past indiscretions might catch up with him, including an occasion on which he called the pictured Jeremy Paxman a West London Wanker.

My own view on the matter has not altered since I penned last week's Saturday Column. In an ideal world, Reid would be the first choice of very few Labour MPs or party members and I do not currently expect him to beat Mr Brown in a straight contest.

But if the party's poll ratings were to plummet and Reid's public approval ratings consistently topped those of the Chancellor, they might, repeat might just have to bite the bullet and elect him.

Update: I somehow neglected to include this excellent post from Iain Dale depicting Roy Hattersley's likely reaction if Reid becomes Prime Minister.

The Lardy one apparently told Scottish radio listeners that he would SHOOT himself if the Home Sec got the job, though sadly no link to the original story appears to exist.

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Monday, August 14, 2006

Greasy pole: is Reid up or down?

As previously billed my newspaper columns and Podcast this weekend focused on whether Home Secretary John Reid's leadership chances have increased as a result of last week's terror raids.

Interestingly, Iain Dale is taking a rather contrarian view on this, arguing that his sidelining of Prescott and apparent eagerness to assume command will be unpopular with Labour loyalists.

My own view is that the chances of a Reid candidature have increased, but not necessarily the chances of a Reid premiership.

I agree with Iain to the extent that there is a fair amount of hostility to Reid and his right-wing, populist agenda within Labour circles, and that if he was to be chosen to succeed Blair, it could only be as a choice made out of electoral desperation:

"A Reid premiership remains unlikely. But what if the Labour Party’s poll ratings started to go into freefall and the public appeared increasingly bored by the prospect of Mr Brown? In that scenario, the press could start to get behind him as a tough leader capable of restoring the Government’s flagging fortunes and re-enthusing a jaded electorate.

"The momentum could then build to a point where not only would Dr Reid look silly if he did not stand, but the Labour Party would look silly if it did not elect him."


On a similar theme, I was suitably honoured to be asked to fill the Guest Slot on PoliticalBetting.Com today, in which I look at the role that Alan Johnson could play in the leadership shake-down.

My current thinking is that Johnson may well stand for both the leadership and the deputy leadership, but with the latter as his main goal.

Leaving my own punditry aside, however, the most interesting article I saw on the Labour leadership this weekend was from Oona King in the Observer.

Although the main thrust of the piece was to call for a woman deputy leader - no great surprise there - the degree of venom directed at Tony Blair was astonishing coming from someone who was previously regarded as a such a loyalist.

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Friday, August 11, 2006

It's shaping up for Reid v Brown

Odds are shortening on a John Reid leadership challenge after his assured response to the terror raids, says Mike Smithson on PoliticalBetting.Com.

Hard to disagree, and I'll be saying a fair bit more about this in my weekend newspaper columns and podcast which, as ever, will be available here on Monday.

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Thursday, May 25, 2006

The best John Reid story of the week

Amid all the sound and fury about John Reid and the deportation of foreign prisoners debacle, together with some mischievous speculation about the whereabouts of his PhD thesis, Stalin's Gran lightens the atmosphere with this delightful story about what the Home Secretary saw in his wife. Enjoy!

Monday, May 22, 2006

Will Reid run?

The political prospects of Dr John Reid formed the main subject-matter of my Saturday Column and accompanying Podcast this weekend.

Dr Reid could easily become the latest in a series of Home Secretaries to drown under the weight of the department’s mountainous bureaucracy. But alternatively, he may – just may – manage to turn the situation round, and establish himself as a credible alternative contender to Gordon Brown for the Prime Minister’s job.

Interestingly, Guido Fawkes is today urging punters to get their money on Reid, in the wake of last week's declaration by Mike Smithson that Gordon will ultimately be beaten.

For my part, like Smithson, I reckon Alan Johnson is a marginally more attractive alternative bet, given his power-base within the union movement and Reid's relative lack of popularity with MPs.