March 18, 2003
SHORT END:
Short: I'll be vilified for this - but I just can't walk out now (Marie Woolf, 19 March 2003, Independent)Clare Short's version of events goes like this: she was writing her resignation statement when suddenly she decided to stay in her job.Having nearly completed the draft valediction, she thought: "We've got to look after the people in Iraq; we've got to drive forward the peace process to get the Palestinian state; we've got to make sure there's not a humanitarian disaster." Resignation, the Secretary of State for International Development decided, would be "cheap" and "cowardly".
This account by Ms Short of why she was so spectacularly reneging on her public promise to quit the Cabinet over the Iraq crisis left her an isolated and humiliated figure yesterday.
Doesn't Mr. Blair really have to fire her? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 18, 2003 10:38 PM
Yesterday, I had opined that Short feared that her political career would be over if she resigned and then was later proven wrong on Iraq. I've changed my mind. Her political career IS over now; the craven way in which she's reversed herself on what should be a fundamental issue of principle has revealed her for what she really is, which is to say, a trimmer who at base cares for nothing beyond her position.
Posted by: Joe at March 19, 2003 9:23 AMTony Blair definitly needs to get a broom when this thing is over (perhaps even before).
Posted by: Melissa at March 19, 2003 10:31 AMThe middle way would be a Cabinet reshuffle, with Short put in charge of something like pensions.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 19, 2003 2:24 PM