Daily Talk Forum

Full Version: Cabinet reshuffle was anything but calm
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
Caroline Flint, the Blairite Europe minister who the night before had lavished praise on Mr Brown after the departure of James Purnell, had quit the government with an astonishingly personal attack on the Prime Minister.

In her resignation letter Miss Flint accused him of running a "two-tier" government and treating her and other women ministers as "little more than female window dressing". As her departing words came through to the press conference the Prime Minister visibly blanched.

The reshuffle, which had been planned for Monday but was rushed forward to try to stop any more Cabinet ministers following Mr Purnell, was intended to establish that the Prime Minister was back in control of events. But the reshuffle was beset by a series of other unforeseen resignations as a steady succession of MPs took to the airwaves to demand that Mr Brown should resign in the interests of the party.

The announcement that John Hutton was standing down as Defence Secretary was the first to throw it into chaos. There had been no hint of it the night before when he too issued a statement in support of Mr Brown.

It's one of the worse kept secrets at Westminster that Mr Hutton, another Blairite, loathes Mr Brown. It is entirely mutual. Mr Hutton, who wished that Mr Brown had been forced out last year, was silenced when he was made Defence Secretary – his dream portfolio. As recently as Thursday afternoon Mr Hutton had been talking to colleagues about troop manoeuvres two months down the line.

Geoff Hoon went into Downing Street as Transport Secretary and left having quit the government to go to the backbenches. Margaret Beckett, the Housing minister, regarded as one of the safest pair of hands in the government, also quit after she was not elevated to the Cabinet. Then there was the stubborn refusal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to move which threatened to halt the reshuffle in its tracks.

Only five days ago an ashen faced Alistair Darling, challenged in a television interview over whether he would be moved from the Treasury in the reshuffle, virtually conceded his career as Chancellor was over. Mr Darling, in a resigned tone, replied: "It is up to the Prime Minister. He has got to decide the team that he wants to be in the next government ... Gordon and I work very, very closely together but at the end of the day it is his call."

Except, it was not. It became Mr Darling's call. In five tumultuous days Mr Brown had haemorrhaged so much authority that it was Mr Darling, the man he had pointedly failed to endorse three times, who called the shots.

Mr Darling, who privately signalled he was finished after he admitted billing the taxpayer for two properties having first denied he had done anything wrong, had gone from the most vulnerable minister to the most secure. He exploited his new found position by flatly refusing to move to any other job when he saw Mr Brown early yesterday. The reshuffle was unravelling.

The tables had turned after Mr Brown was first undermined by the manner of the parting of Jacqui Smith on Tuesday, even more so by the colourful exit of Hazel Blears on Wednesday, and then the bombshell announcement from Mr Purnell only minutes before the polls closed on Thursday.

Telegraph.co.uk
Reference URL's