Forward in a Unified Way

If you’ve not already read about John Reid over at Chicken Yoghurt, I recommend you do so immediately.

Reid really is a man apart. Blair, it won’t surprise you to know, angers me enormously; every time I hear him spout another of his inanities in that carefully contrived faux-sincere manner of his, it sets my teeth on edge. Blair’s lack of understanding of civil liberties and their importance to a democratic society poses, I believe, a genuine danger to our freedom.

Reid doesn’t anger me in the same way; Reid frightens me silly. This is a man who will say absolutely anything in pursuit of his agenda without showing the slightest hint of embarrassment. This is a man whose direct gaze you would do well to avoid; his eyes appear to be windows into a rather unpleasant alternative universe. This, worst of all, is a man who makes Tony Blair look scrupulous.

He’s now Home Secretary.

Yesterday, he was sent out on the attack against anyone who would dare challenge the authority of man who gave him that job last Friday. I wonder how Blair persuaded him to conduct this assault. It’s a mystery to me, so it is.

So what did the scary one say about challenges to Blair’s leadership?

The whole thing has been generated by people who want to push Mr Blair out. They want to stop the reform programme and go back to Old Labour.

Ouch. Did Cameron tell him to use that one, do you think? We all know that the Tory strategy is to argue that Brown is the “roadblock to reform” and a return to old Labour. Now, Reid’s essentially doing the same. It could be argued that he isn’t referring to Brown but to the “usual suspects” but we all know that it’s more than just the usual suspects this time and that Brown is desperate to take over.

Reid’s comment demonstrates something about the priorities of the current government under Blair. Reid clearly considers the short term survival of the Prime Minister to be more important than Labour’s prospects at the next general election. Here, he is publicly promoting the very strategy which the Tories intend to use against Labour once Blair goes. That is undeniably not going to help the party's cause come election time.

Edit
Oops, I got my quotes confused. That'll teach me to blog late on a Sunday night. The rest of this post attributed a quote to Reid which was actually said by Brown. Apologies.

Tags: News, Politics, John Reid, Media, Tony Blair