Thursday - September 07, 2006

Blair Departing

If you think things are getting confusing in Washington then you need to go take a look across the pond. Things are getting a mite messy at Number 10 Downing Street. Tony Blair has been hinting that he will step down next year and the mad scramble over who will lead Labour and take over as Prime Minister is already underway

Gordon Brown looks like the likely successor at this point but things got really silly in the last few days as several government aides resigned in a huff after Blair refused to step down as PM immediately. Now Blair is going to have to make an announcement today to settle the mess.

It remains to be seen how this will affect the war on terror. Blair has been Bush’s staunchest ally so far but the next PM in Britain may not be as accomodating. With the mid-term elections coming up over here and the confusion over there, things are probably going to look a lot different this time next year. We’re all about to embark on a six-month long political roller coaster. Hang on tight ...

_{Brian Adcock - The Scotland on Sunday}

---

Britain’s Tony Blair To Respond
To Clamor Over Him Leaving Office
_{LONDON (FOX NEWS) - Thursday, September 07, 2006}

British Prime Minister Tony Blair planned Thursday to respond to the clamor of protest calling for him step down after eight government aides resigned — demanding he set a date to leave office.

Key officials sent strong signals that Blair intended to leave office within a year, as a senior minister urged the party to focus on the likely “energizing, refreshing transition” of the Labour leadership to Treasury chief Gordon Brown.

Pressure for the prime minister to announce a departure date has intensified in recent weeks, fueled by widespread anger at Blair’s handling of last month’s fighting between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants.

Many within Blair’s governing Labour party were furious at his refusal to call for an early cease-fire, a stance critics saw as tacitly allowing Israel to bomb Lebanon for weeks. Blair’s Downing Street office on Wednesday declined to immediately confirm reports that the prime minister intended to make a public statement on his future on Thursday.

But officials acknowledged Blair had decided to use a planned visit to a London school to set out his intentions, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported. Environment Secretary David Miliband — a key Blair ally — said on Thursday that Brown was the only person who should succeed Blair and claimed the party was excited about the prospect of his premiership.

“I would say the transition...the energizing, refreshing transition to Gordon Brown — not to anyone else — is a transition that is about ideas and values more than about dates,” he said in an interview with the leftist New Statesman magazine, published Thursday. Miliband, often mentioned as a potential rival to Brown, said he would not be “a runner nor a rider” in leadership and deputy leadership elections following Blair’s departure.

Eight junior officials said Wednesday they had quit rather than remove their names from a letter demanding that the prime minister step aside. They were among 15 Labour lawmakers who signed the letter, writing that while they supported the centrist direction Blair had taken the party, he was no longer the right man to lead it.

Tom Watson, the most senior of those to resign, quit his post as minister for veterans in the Ministry of Defense. Blair smacked back after receiving Watson’s resignation letter, saying he would have fired Watson if he had not quit himself, and calling his decision to sign the lawmakers’ letter “disloyal, discourteous and wrong.”

While the revolt of low-level officials was unlikely to dislodge Blair from office, it could help force him to speed up his departure, and raised fears that the eventual change of command would be rancorous and messy.

- More on the story at FOX NEWS ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 09/07/2006 at 04:24 AM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons •  
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