March 20, 2005
PANIC IN HYDE PARK:
Panicked Blair orders Labour election revamp (BRIAN BRADY, 3/20/05, Scotland on Sunday)
THE Prime Minister has ordered an overhaul of Labour’s struggling election effort which will return Gordon Brown to centre stage and review the party’s widely disliked ‘negative’ tactics. [...]Scotland on Sunday can reveal that:
• Milburn met Blair privately early last week to plead with him to stick with his chosen election team, amid gathering rumours that Brown was set to return;
• Blair insisted that he would stick to his agreement not to allow the Chancellor to "hijack" the campaign;
• But after a humiliating public row with reporters on Blair’s first electioneering stunt of the campaign, the team was plunged into panic and Blair ordered a rethink;
• A rattled Prime Minister then approved proposals to return Brown to a central role similar to the one he played during the last two election campaigns.
It was clear last night that the hastily-arranged reshuffle is not guaranteed to resolve the problems with Labour’s campaign effort.
They certainly won't help themselves by jagging further Left and going positive. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 20, 2005 9:32 AM
The party in power, especially in a system like Britain's where the PM has so much clout, has no choice but to do some positive campaigning on its record and 'staying the course.' When things go wrong, the PM can only blame the man in the mirror.
Posted by: bart at March 20, 2005 11:19 AMThe bad part, of course, is any domestic policy problems or grumblings about future EU membership will be ignored in the post-election analysis if Labour loses seats or if Blair somhow is ousted. It will all be about Iraq and the war on terror in the media's election post mortems.
Posted by: John at March 20, 2005 11:24 AMAnything that leads to the end of that absurd 'special relationship' with Perfidious Albion which got us into a World War where we screwed up international affairs and domestic politics for almost a century is a good thing. If Blair gets ousted and the America-haters of the Labour Left come to the fore, nobody would be happier than I. It is what the Brits deserve and if it hastens our turning our backs on that cemetery known as 'Old Europe' so much the better.
Posted by: bart at March 20, 2005 11:55 AM