It's hard to see how the PM can stanch an open revolt within his own ranks. Especially as he no longer has any public support.

The question is: where is Gordon Brown on continuing the current British policy towards Iraq? Should we expect to see troop withdrawals if he is elevated to PM? Will the U.S. have to replace the British in southern Iraq, or will we leave that part of the country to Badr Brigade or Mahdi Army control, and if so will these two militias fight for dominance?

Lots of consequences from U.K. council elections, which have been ignored over here.

London Papers: Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's Iran Stance Prompted Angry Bush Call To Blair

(Page 1 of 2)
May 7, 2006

(CBS/AP) Two London papers have speculated this weekend that complaints by President George W. Bush forced a British minister from his post because of his opposition to the use of nuclear force against Iran.

The Independent suggests that a phone call from the U.S. president to British Prime Minister Tony Blair led to the removal of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw Friday.

The newspaper reports that friends of Straw believe Mr. Bush was extremely upset when Straw pronounced any use of nuclear weapons against Iran "nuts."

Both The Independent and the Guardian write that Straw's "fate was sealed" after a White House phone call to Blair...

Fast Facts
Straw, 59, regularly described military action against Tehran as "inconceivable," a word neither Blair nor U.S. leaders would use.

link

Mud-slinging defines new era of open warfare as Labour unravels
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 08 May 2006

Intense in-fighting erupted in the Labour Party last night as supporters of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair hurled insults at each other over the Prime Minister's refusal to bow to pressure for a timetable for the handover of power.

In some of the most poisonous exchanges since Labour won office, opposing factions engaged in internecine warfare over Mr Blair's determination to resist demands to quit after the party's defeat in the local elections. John Reid, the new Home Secretary, one of Mr Blair's strongest supporters in the Cabinet, sparked a fresh round of backbiting after accusing Labour MPs of pursuing an agenda to "bring down" Mr Blair. One MP accused Mr Reid of "delusional, factional nonsense", adding "he's completely mad".

A defiant Mr Blair is planning to confront his backbench critics tonight at a private meeting of Labour MPs and warn that those trying to force him out are bent on turning the clock back to Old Labour.

Mr Blair will also use his monthly press conference at Downing Street to insist that he will stay to see the reform programme carried through. He will reject the calls by more than 50 Labour MPs who are threatening to submit a letter to Labour's ruling national executive later this week demanding a timetable for his departure by the end of July.

"Tony will not allow people who sign this letter to dictate the timetable," said said a source close to Mr Blair. "When the time is right, he will do so, but not now. You should look at the underlying ambitions of the people who put this letter together. They want a return to Old Labour.

"If you look at what happened in the elections in the south of England, that saw people move off to the Conservatives. Therefore the last thing we should do is consider any change of direction to the past. He will say the reform agenda must go on."

A string of former ministers lined up to call for Mr Blair to announce a date for his departure, including the former education secretary Estelle Morris, Kate Hoey and Nick Raynsford, who are not among the "usual suspects". But those calling for a timetable were infuriated by Mr Reid.

The Home Secretary said on BBC radio: "You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes ... this hasn't arisen spontaneously. The question is whether this is representative of the vast majority of the mainstream of the Labour Party. Do they want to shove Tony Blair out, stop the reform programme and go back in the direction of Old Labour? The vast majority of the Labour Party do not believe that, and it's why it's not going to happen."

Feelings were running so high that some Labour figures claimed that an aide to Mr Reid should be sacked for allegedly ringing up the BBC in advance of an interview with Gordon Brown to suggest difficult questions for the Chancellor.

David Hill, the Prime Minister's communications director, was also at the centre of wild allegations after he sent a text message on Saturday night to BBC reporters saying that the reports in the Sunday newspapers were part of a plot by known dissidents to oust Mr Blair. Claims that he sent a similar message to MPs were denied by Mr Hill.

There were also unsubstantiated claims that Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner and former media adviser to Mr Blair, was co-ordinating the fight-back for Mr Blair against the efforts by Brown supporters to oust him. Mr Blair's aides denied this.

As the row continued, the former cabinet minister Stephen Byers, a staunch Blair supporter, accused Labour MPs of plotting a coup to bring down Mr Blair. But Derek Wyatt, Labour MP for Sittingbourne, said: "We have got to be sensible how we transfer power, otherwise we won't just lose the next election, we will get thrashed."

Mr Brown used an interview on the BBC's Sunday AM programme, hosted by Andrew Marr, to call for an orderly transition of power. He revealed that Mr Blair was already talking to senior figures about the handover, and he urged "outriders" not to get involved in trying to bring him down.

Should Blair stay or should he go?

GO

* 'We therefore ask the NEC, in consultation with the Prime Minister, to lay out, no later than the end of the current parliamentary session, a clear timetable and procedure for the election of a new Labour Party leader' - The letter circulating among Labour MPs calling for a timetable for Mr Blair's departure

* 'I am furious and the party will be furious about attempts to stifle or stop the discussion which needs to be had about a timetable for the orderly transition of leadership which is what we need and what party members want so that we can get on with the renewal of the Labour Party' - Andrew Smith, former minister

* 'If Tony Blair went in the next few days or the next few weeks I think it would be very helpful' - Kelvin Hopkins, Labour backbencher

* 'We have got a lack of trust in government at the moment and, in order to restore confidence, Tony Blair must tell us all when he is going to stand down and agree a timetable to elect a successor' - Geraldine Smith, backbencher

STAY

* 'Those people who are trying to shove Blair out, change the direction, use the situation to put us back to Old Labour - they are not going to win. There is no going back for this party. If we go back we are walking into the wilderness' - John Reid, Home Secretary

* 'The majority of the party are thinking why on earth are some quarters playing into the hands of the Tories when they want to be getting on with servicing their constituents? Setting a timetable is exactly what the Tories would want' - Hilary Armstrong, minister for social exclusion

* 'If we want to have an orderly transition, what we cannot have is the forced removal of Tony Blair as our leader. And for those people who are organising a coup against him, they are playing a very dangerous game and they should stop' - Stephen Byers, former transport secretary

* 'The response has got to be about policy and people's individual lives, not about this sort of internal discussion. I don't think the public are interested in that' - Lord Falconer, Lord Chancellor

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article362719.ece

Colin Brown analyses remarks on the leadership made by the Chancellor in a TV interview
Published: 08 May 2006

BROWN SAID: "A government after nine years has got two challenges, one is to renew in government ... the second thing is that the world is changing fast and we have got to respond. We will renew our party by new organisation and building up the membership again ... Our policies are about economic stability, but also security..."

HE MEANT: Blair has outstayed his welcome. He appointed Hazel Blears as the new party chairman and told her to take charge of 'renewal' without consulting me. When I say renewal, I mean starting with Blair.

BROWN SAID: "We've had a wake up call in these local elections, we've ... got to win a new Labour coalition yet again. We've got to build support where we have lost votes; we have got to understand that we have lost voters we want to have. These are natural parts of our new Labour coalition and if we put the right challenges to people and prepare ourselves properly for the future, I think there is a whole set of issues around security ..."

HE MEANT: Tony needs to wake up. He's leaving me with voters deserting in droves to the Tories.

BROWN SAID: "I mean we are in quite a unique position. We've got a leader of our party and a prime minister who says he will not fight the next election, who everybody recognises has done a very, very good job, but doesn't want to fight the next election. He has also said that he wants a stable and orderly transition and that he wants the chance to be able to organise that. I think ... the majority of people in the parliamentary party want ... an orderly transition..."

HE MEANT: We don't want Tony going off in tears like Thatcher, but ... he can't stay forever.

BROWN SAID: "Tony Blair said himself a year ago that he wishes to play his part in organising that stable and orderly transition. That's not a matter for me because we don't know who's going to be leader of the Labour Party, it's a matter for Tony and the party themselves,but at the end of the day I get on with my job... It's very important we don't lose sight of what the real issue of these local elections has been, that it is not only a wake-up call, it's a warning shot that we've got to address ..."

HE MEANT: Tony ought to listen to what the party is saying for once.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article362720.ece

but I would never believe Blair to be out till I see the pictures. Labour would never have gotten back into power without Blair and yethe's making it impossible for them to stay in power....

His image of his international role, not the "old Left" stalking horse Blairites always trot out, have destroyed any sustained effort for Labour to institute his "reforms".

He's not giving Brown a chance to turn round the Labour slide against the new "gentler" Conservatism currently being peddled with a young mediagenic candidate already in place. The NHS is now a joke. Pensions are a joke. Reorganizing education is a joke- none of them funny.

Of course,in the US we have no one on the Democratic side remotely near in place (maybe they haven't been born yet).
___________________________________________________________________

Labour at war as Number 10 condemns plot to oust Blair
George Jones | May 6

Telegraph - Labour was plunged into its worst infighting for a generation yesterday after Downing Street issued a warning of a plot by rebel MPs to oust Tony Blair and take the party back to the Left.

Demands for the Prime Minister to set a timetable for handing over power to Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, were denounced by No 10 and leading Blairites as an attempt to force him out of office by the summer. Months of internal bickering between supporters of the two men burst into the open as pressure mounted on Mr Blair to set a date when he would stand down after the party's heavy losses in last week's local elections.

Mr Brown repeatedly called on Mr Blair to plan for "a stable and orderly transition" of power but refused to endorse back-bench moves to oust him. He said a coup against Mr Blair would be "a recipe for disaster". No 10 denounced calls for Mr Blair to name a departure date as a Left-wing plot to remove him quickly and take Labour "back to its old ways".

After several Sunday newspapers reported that a letter was circulating among Labour MPs calling for "a clear timetable" to be drawn up by the summer, David Hill, Mr Blair's press chief, sent a text message to political journalists claiming that there was an attempt to "unseat" Mr Blair and "reverse" New Labour's reforms.
John Reid, the new Home Secretary and one of Mr Blair's staunchest Cabinet allies, went further, saying "you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes" to know that "Old Labour" plotters were behind the attempts to oust the Prime Minister.

"The whole thing has been generated by people who want to push Mr Blair out," he told The Politics Show on BBC TV. "They want to stop the reform programme and go back to Old Labour. They are not going to win. There is no going back for this party. If we go back, we walk back into the wilderness." Stephen Byers, a former transport secretary, told Sky: "We cannot have the forced removal of Tony Blair as our leader. Those people who are organising a coup against him are playing a very dangerous game and they should stop."

The infighting shows that strict party discipline, a feature of Mr Blair's early years, has deteriorated sharply and that the party is in danger of reverting to the internal ideological battles of the 1970s and 1980s.

At his monthly press conference today, Mr Blair will make clear that he has no intention of setting a date for his departure or announcing any form of timetable. He will argue that the Government must press ahead with its reforms if it is to win back the voters it has lost.

Mr Blair, who celebrated his 53rd birthday yesterday, has made clear that he will stand down before the next election. He has said he will serve a full third term but has repeatedly refused to say exactly what that means.

The letter circulating among MPs says that Labour's record is being overshadowed by "debilitating" speculation about his future. The MPs want to see a "dignified, orderly and efficient" transition of power.

A survey of 104 Labour backbenchers conducted by Radio 4's The World This Weekend showed that 52 thought Mr Blair should stand down within a year.

Downing Street's pre-emptive strike against the letter and the attempt to present it is a Left-wing plot angered Mr Brown's supporters. Andrew Smith, a former Cabinet minister, and a mainstream MP, said the party would be "furious" about attempts to stifle discussion about a timetable for the orderly transition of leadership. Glenda Jackson, one of Mr Blair's leading critics, said that only the "Blairite inner circle" could regard calls for the party to have a say in the selection of its leader as a coup.

Miss Jackson has threatened to stand as a stalking horse to try to force Mr Blair out. Her office said that was "an option that is being considered". But she wanted to see whether Mr Blair would consult over his departure. Party rules make it difficult for Labour MPs to unseat Mr Blair, as a leadership challenge can proceed only "if requested by a majority of the party conference on a card vote". However, Labour sources said last night that if the number of MPs calling on him to quit topped 100, he would probably have to bow to demands for a contest.

Mr Brown set out his stall as prime minister-in-waiting on BBC TV's Sunday AM programme, saying that he intended to devote "the next stage of my political career" to making sure that New Labour broadened its coalition and "renewed" itself after recent electoral setbacks. Although avoiding any outward show of disloyalty, he emphasised nine times the need for a "stable and orderly transition" of power. He said: "I have been in politics long enough and I have seen throughout the past 25 years that, when the Labour Party divides and extremists take over and the moderates lose control, that is a recipe for disaster."

While emphasising that he would not back any coup, he said that people would be expecting Mr Blair to organise the transition. "I know he is talking to people about that," Mr Brown said. The Chancellor's aides said he expected to be talking to Mr Blair in the coming weeks about the party's renewal programme.

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

Does anyone know what the everyday brit thinks of tosing Blair out? Any polls? ~ candy

Blair: Naming date would 'paralyse' government

Matthew Tempest and Oliver King
Monday May 8, 2006

Tony Blair defied his critics in the Labour party today and said naming a date for his departure from power would "paralyse the proper working of government" as well as damaging the country.
The prime minister told journalists at his regular monthly press conference that the people were "fed up with the endless speculation" about how long he would remain in power but said voters wanted him to "get on with the business of governing".

"To state a timetable now would simply paralyse the proper working of government, put at risk the necessary changes we are making for Britain and damage the country," Mr Blair said.
After a weekend of calls from disgruntled Labour MPs, including allies of Gordon Brown, to name a date Mr Blair said he would fight any attempt to reverse the New Labour project, something which would, he said, return Labour to opposition.

Asked about whether he would allow Gordon Brown enough time before a general election to become known to the electorate Mr Blair repeated his promise to "do it with the time necessary for any successor to establish themselves."

Conceding that Labour had lost many middle England voters in the local elections on Thursday night Mr Blair denied that Mr Brown was incapable of winning them back.

"Absolutely not," he told reporters, "Otherwise I would be going on and on."

Tonight Mr Blair will repeat his demand to be allowed to carry on directly to MPs in the private weekly meeting of Labour backbenchers.

A BBC survey of Labour backbenchers ahead of the meeting found only four supporting Mr Blair's stated aim of serving a full third term. Instead, 26 want him to depart immediately and another 26 want him to go within a year - although 29 backed him to go "when he likes".

The new chief whip, Jacqui Smith - appointed in Friday's reshuffle, and whose job will be to contain Labour dissenters - today took the unusual step of a public interview to dismiss calls for a timetable.

She told the Today programme that a timetable for Mr Blair's departure would only suit those who have opposed New Labour since its inception and play into the Tories' hands.

"But I think when people start pushing for a date for that change we do need to take a deep breath and ask 'well, who is it who would gain from forcing the pace to set that date?' she said.

"Firstly, I think it would be those, and I don't put the vast majority of my colleagues in this category, but it would be those who want a fundamental change of direction, who have never supported the prime minister or, in fact, the New Labour policies and programme.

"The second group of people who would benefit, of course, are the Tories. They can't wait to get a date on the wall planner in Conservative Central Office so that they can start planning how to defeat our next leader and prevent us from winning a fourth-term election."

And the ex-cabinet minister, David Blunkett, this morning warned rebels thinking of signing up to an open letter to Mr Blair naming a departure date to "cool it".

He likened rebellious MPs to "sixth formers" putting their names to "round-robin letters".

"Instead of people going around suggesting that they want people to sign a round robin letter, as though we are in a school sixth-form, we [should] actually acknowledge that there is hurt and distress from councillors and activists from last week," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

One backbencher, Clive Betts, called on Mr Blair and Mr Brown to resolve the leadership question between themselves to avoid "corroding the atmosphere" of the parliamentary Labour party.

He told Today: "I do believe that the only way forward that can stop the speculation, stop the disagreement, is for the prime minister and the chancellor to sit down and come to an agreement themselves about a timetable and also about the nature of the handover."

Mr Betts said he was not concerned about whether it was made public or not.

He added: "I had people say on the doorstep to me... that they wouldn't vote Labour again while Tony Blair remained prime minister and that is an issue that we have to address."

With an atmosphere approaching civil war within Labour echelons in the aftermath of the local election defeats, Mr Blair's dramatic reshuffle and a succession of sleaze rows and affairs, Downing Street communications chief David Hill is reported to have sent out a text message to all Labour MPs demanding unity.

Mr Blair's close friend, the EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, was also spotted over the weekend back in the capital.

Yesterday the chancellor, Gordon Brown, used the phrase "a stable and orderly transition" 10 times in a TV interview, while a series of ultra-loyal Blairites, headed by the new home secretary, John Reid, defended the prime minister's position.

Mr Reid said pressure to name a date was "actually...about forcing Tony Blair out", while the former transport secretary, Stephen Byers, told Sky: "If we want to have an orderly transition, what we cannot have is the forced removal of Tony Blair as our leader.

"And for those people who are organising a coup against him, they are playing a very dangerous game and they should stop."

At his own press conference this morning, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, said of Mr Blair "the sooner he goes, the better", describing the situation as "civil war at the highest levels of government".

The Liberal Democrats' leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, echoed that. "The interests of individual Labour politicians must not trump the interests of the British people," he said.

"Tony Blair must name his departure date. The country cannot afford significant leadership distractions at a time whenthere are serious problems with Iraq, the Home Office and the NHS."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1770114,00.html

in Blair, Bush and Harper. It's as if they all read off the same cue cards.

This could certainly be Bush on Iraq.

"To state a timetable now would simply paralyse the proper working of government, put at risk the necessary changes we are making... and damage the country..."

Even David Emerson, when he jumped ship from Lib to CPC in Canada, used startlingly Bushite language considering how rancid Bush's poll numbers are here.

No "timetable". No "cutting and running".

I should put together a list of linguistic overlap. It goes beyond pillaging ideas, or being ideological fellow travellers; they use the same language even when linguistic comparisons could be directly unhelpful to their prospects.

Some wishful thinking involved here, I would say

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2173633,00.html
(snips below)
_{Twelve years after the Granita pact with Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister’s hand was forced by the party’s backbenchers}

IT WAS the moment the tide turned; the moment members of the parliamentary Labour Party, for so long derided as Tony Blair’s poodles, finally bit back.

The Prime Minister’s destiny had hitherto been in his own hands. If, as expected, he stands down next year, historians will look back to the confrontation with his exasperated MPs in a crowded Commons committee room as the turning point.

Mr Blair came to the weekly meeting of MPs and peers expecting to repeat the message from his Downing Street press conference that morning, a pledge to stand down in time to allow his successor to settle in before an election.

His advisers assumed that the Prime Minister’s legendary powers of charm and persuasiveness would win over his unsettled parliamentary party, as he had so often at similar gatherings in the past. They were wrong.

After one of the most dramatic hours in PLP history Mr Blair knew that he was no longer the master of his own fate. And both he and Mr Brown knew that the party expected them to sort out the differences that had dogged what should have been one of the most successful political partnerships of all time.

Two devastating interventions from MPs who had tried to keep out of either camp set the tone. The most ominous moment came early on when Lord Soley, former PLP chairman and impeccable loyalist, told them: “If you don’t sort it out there will be a stable and orderly transfer of power, but from a Labour to a Tory government.”

Then Joan Ruddock, a veteran of CND years, told them: “The mood music between you is all wrong. You have got to reach an agreement.” And that was the way it went on.

By the end of it Mr Blair had promised Gordon Brown “ample” time; the signal all took to mean that he would probably go next year.

The inner circle most fiercely loyal to Tony Blair, the so-called Blairite “ultras”, had accused MPs seeking a timetable for his departure of plotting a coup. Swiftly it became clear that their weekend fightback may prove to be their last stand.

Once the meeting was under way, a string of mainstream MPs told an ashen-faced Mr Blair and Mr Brown, who sat near him, that the power struggle between could no longer carry on.

Facing Mr Blair on the far wall of Committee Room 14 as he rose to speak was a dramatic reminder from history of what happens when an absolute ruler with an unshakable belief in his divine right to govern fails to heed his critics in Parliament. A large oil painting vividly portrayed the violent scenes as MPs held the Speaker, Sir John Finch, in his chair and read out their grievances against Charles I before the King dissolved Parliament in 1629.

...

Andrew Smith, one of several supporters of the Chancellor who spoke out, urged Mr Blair to set out a timetable for his departure. ...

Kevan Jones articulated the mood of anger at attempts by Mr Blair’s inner circle to portray his critics as harbouring a yearning to return to the extremist Labour policies of the 1980s. Helen Jones made a similar point. “We won’t take lessons off those people, some of whom weren’t even in the Labour Party in the 1980s, about going back there,” Kevan Jones declared, before telling Mr Blair bluntly: “Tell your people to shut up.”

The intervention that brought most applause was that of Joan Ruddock, a mainstream MP from Labour’s soft Left, who told Mr Blair that it was no use trying to ignore the fact that the local election results were bad for Labour; they had been bad.

Nor was it tenable to brand those voicing concerns as Old Labour dinosaurs. “We are not dinosaurs,” Ms Ruddock said.

Others directed their criticism at both Mr Blair and Mr Brown. Paul Murphy, the former Northern Ireland and Wales Secretary, referred to the forthcoming by-election in Blaenau Gwent and told them: “You have got to sort it out.”

Mr Blair used his customary technique of making eye contact with every questioner, however critical, but failed to mollify them. Mr Brown stared downwards in brooding silence; other than Mr Blair, only backbenchers spoke.

When he rose to make concluding remarks, a chastened Mr Blair was forced to go much further than he intended. “We have to ensure there is ample time for whoever is my successor to win that fourth election,” he said. The word “ample” was the commitment his critics had sought.

The Chancellor, clearly believing that Mr Blair has made a vital move towards accepting that his time in office is limited, said that he should be allowed to go in “an orderly and dignified and sensible and proper way.”

But in what appeared to be an attempt to make sure Mr Blair does not back down from his promise to give his successor “ample” time, Mr Brown said that Mr Blair would be having detailed talks with “senior colleagues” about handing over power...

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}