Thursday, April 27, 2006

Labour on the ropes

What a day yesterday was. The Lib Dems on 24 % or as much as 28% in the areas that will matter next week according to Bob Worcester.

Then the Labour Party starts to self destruct in front of our eyes.

The "two shags" story will probably disappear as fast as it appeared unless there are further revelations. Prescott is in any case (in my opinion) a bit of an exception. Partly because nobody takes him that seriously, partly because everybody assumes he will go when Blair goes and partly because a lot of people seem him as a quite amusing "jack the lad" who can be relied upon to mangle the English language at the drop of a hat.

The issues surrounding the NHS are unlikely to go away quite so easily despite all the extra money put in by this government. Patricia Hewitts reception at the Royal College of Nursing conference in Bournemouth was hardly surprising but add to the overall picture of an embattled government in crisis. And this issue will run and run. The cuts in staffing and the resolution of the deficits in the National Health Service will take some considerable time to resolve.

As for Mr Clarke he is being urged to resign. He should resign if only because of the 288 foreign offenders that were released after he knew about the problem in July 2005. However he shows no signs of being willing to go and it looks as if Tony Blair wants to hang on to him.

What Next?

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A nice thumping loss at local elections next week ?

(BTW more relevations about Prescott are due in the tabloids - but I agree that this will get lost in the rest of the furore )

Anonymous said...

A cynic would say that the two shags story was "stimulated" to detract attention from the other two controversies. For once I thought the Telegraph had an excellent headline: "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" over photos of Prescott, Jowell and Clarke. Very good.