VOTE REEVES!

Now, there's a phrase that dredges up some depressing memories.

Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, mind.

Can you imagine how scared they would all be?

I have to agree with you on this though, slap them like the bitches they are when they mess up and they won't do it.

Blair's contemptuous refusal to sack these ministers outright smells very nasty to me. It indicates to my mind that Blair must be well and truly "in their pockets". They know something about Blair, they've "got the goods" on him. Something that would bring the government down if revealed. That's my little theory.
I can't help but sense the hand of Gordon Brown in all this. He's getting impatient, so he's orchestrating these leaks in order to force Blair into a corner from which he can't escape. If my theory is correct, Blair can't sack Prescott/Clarke without risking his own downfall, so Brown is gambling that Prescott etc will be forced to resign and they'll then spill the beans on Blair, forcing his resignation too. Brown can then step in, sack anyone who is in the know about what was going on, and offer the electorate a clean slate, so to speak.
On the other hand, I could be entirely wrong. But ask yourself why John Major was made Con. party leader in 1990, especially in the light of something we didn't know about him until a few years ago (but at least a small circle of influential conservatives must surely have known about all along) and you get a glimpse into how it must work - blackmail. "John, old chap, we're putting you in Maggie's place, because she was becoming a loose cannon, but we think we can trust you to do as we say and not rock the boat, can't we? Because if *this* gets out, it will bring you and the government down, and you wouldn't want to do that to the Party, would you?"
Oh yes, Prescott has the same sort of leverage over Blair, I'll bet my socks on it. What a dirty, despicable bunch they all are.

Tom, you read far too much political journalism. Political journalists write a lot of crap in an effort to make their subject less boring than it really is. Forget conspiracy theories; they're usually wrong. Occam tends to be a better bet.

Prescott would never be asked to resign because most people these days, politicians and public alike, believe that a politician's love-life has nothing to do with their politics. We saw a lot of this with Clinton. The days when the words "For better, for worse" were widely believed to be meaningful and binding are long gone. Personally, I think that, if the one person who knows Prescott probably better than anyone else can't trust him, why the hell should anyone else? But I recognise that that's a highly unusual point of view these days.

Clarke hasn't done anything wrong. Well, of course he's done loads wrong in terms of ethics and competence, but he's just acting out his party's ideology. Labour aren't keen on deporting immigrants, like to keep the prison population as low as possible, and certainly don't think that the way to stop criminals reoffending is to keep them in jail. I can see why the public would want Clarke to resign, but not his colleagues.

Your theories about Major are so far off the charts you should seek medical attention. Firstly, people who've dealt with him professionally will tell you that he's one of the toughest negotiators out there, contrary to his public image. Secondly, any notion that he didn't rock the boat is just bizarre. He opened negoiations with Sinn Fein, he split his party ideologically for at least a decade, he doubled interest rates, causing an insanely high rate of repossessions and putting loads of people into massive long-term debt, and he faced down his opponents by suddenly resigning. What, in your book, would have constituted rocking the boat?

Re Prescott: I for one am in complete agreement with your views. I'm disgusted that the opposition parties agree that it is a "private matter" and has no bearing on his ability to do his job honourably - no it is not, and yes it does! Same thing applies to Major too, he should never have been allowed to become PM for the same reason.

Re my clinically sectionable Major theory: well it is only a theory, OK a wild theory, for which I have no bona-fide evidence, but let me elaborate.
Even if most people in the country now think that an affair is no big deal , I somehow can't quite believe that Conservative HQ would have the bottle to rely on that perception, and that they would feel perfectly safe with JM in No.10, "Oh, don't worry, if it comes out, no-one will mind these days"... Things were at least slightly different in 1990, I think that revelations of JM's affair could quite possibly have brought him down in the early 1990's, if not today.
As for whether Major rocked the boat, what I meant was that the party was anxious for him not to go out on a limb and "be his own man" too much in terms of policymaking. Now fair enough, the examples you cited may well have had the effect of rocking the boat, but the issue is, did Major do those things "off his own bat" or was he merely following the advice of policy committees etc? Of course, I don't know. But we could argue back and forth, eg I'm sure he didn't just wake up one day and say "I know! I'll negotiate with Sinn Fein" to cries of "No! You mustn't!" from all the Sir Humphries. Similarly, if I recall correctly (and I might not be, so correct me if I'm wrong, as it will blow a hole in my argument) we were already in the ERM when JM took over. Yes, Black Monday was a disaster, but the Chancellor was also to blame, to say nothing of the EU, and a certain Mr Soros and all his ilk. In these instances, was it MAJOR rocking the boat all by himself, ie, against the advice of his party, or was it merely the unavoidable effect of tory policy as a whole?

Nowhere did I imply (I think) that JM was anything less than a skilled negotiator, indeed, knowing nothing about the man except how he came across on TV (studied, calm, assertive without being aggressive in tone) I would have thought he'd be an excellent diplomat. That is not inconsistent with my argument. What I'm questioning is whether he acted/negotiated "as his own man" so to speak, or was he in a position where others had leverage over him and could tell him what to do? I think the latter is the case, which in no way detracts from his skills as a negotiator.

Again, it can be argued that the extent of the swing to Labour in May 1997 was partly caused by the (rightful) perception of the tory party as "sleaze-ridden" in the eyes of the electorate - which, if true (I mean 'if it was true that that was a factor in how people voted', not 'if it was true that they were sleaze-ridden': they were) then that somewhat undermines your assertion that extra-marital affairs and sleaze were no big deal in the 1990's, the period when Major was PM. Sleaze played a part in bringing down the conservative gov't in '97, and I say that if Major's affair had been leaked at that time, it would have hastened or worsend their demise. I think it is reasonable to assume that his affair was known about by a small number of people, contained within the con. party (if Labour had known, they'd have surely leaked it to the press just before the 97 election?) Therefore, in summary, while I admit that my "blackmail" scenario is only a theory, and I could well be wrong (I'm not in David Icke mode about it!) I think you were a little unfair on me to dismiss it as utterly preposterous to the extent that I should seek help.
Thanks for replying to my comment, though.

> did Major do those things "off his own bat" or was he merely following the advice of policy committees etc?

In the case of Sinn Fein, he was going against the advice of decades of policy committees and bedrock Tory ideology. In the case of his surprise resignation, I seriously doubt that any committee would ever suggest such a huge gamble.


> was he in a position where others had leverage over him and could tell him what to do?

Since so many of his colleagues wanted him gone, can you explain why none of this shadowy league got rid of him?


> we were already in the ERM when JM took over

Nothing to do with it. What I was talking about was the way he dealt with the ERM, not that we were in it in the first place. Doubling interest rates pushed repossession rates so high the housing market was flooded and collapsed. He could have got out of the ERM earlier, without bankrupting thousands of Britons.


> Nowhere did I imply (I think) that JM was anything less than a skilled negotiator

You said I should ask myself why he was made leader. His being one of the toughest negotiators in the party seems to me like such an adequate explanation that no further is required.


> that somewhat undermines your assertion that extra-marital affairs and sleaze were no big deal in the 1990's

I asserted no such thing. You're conflating two very different issues. Yes, people are even more relaxed about affairs now than they were then, but I put it to you that nothing like as much damage would have been done to the Tories if all that had been discovered were a bunch of extra-marital affairs. What really screwed them in the eyes of the public were reports of the details of what they were getting up to with their mistresses. People, regardless of whether they condemn infidelity, find stories of kinky weirdness highly amusing. Having sex in Chelsea FC kit? Being found dead with an orange in your mouth? The problem wasn't their being viewed as unfaithful so much as their being viewed as laughing stocks. Plus, of course, there was the entirely right charge of gross hypocrisy against a party who were always trying to promote family values and a return to old-fashioned morality. No-one thinks the Labour Party want a return to old-fashioned family-based morality, so there's no political hypocrisy in Prescott's behaviour.

Trust me: if the story had been leaked that Prescott not only had a mistress but liked to lick her forehead while wearing stockings, wellies, and Mr-Spock ears, he'd be gone by now. And he'd have his own TV show by next week.