Comments on: Blair’s squandered the lot http://www.sguy.net/2007/05/10/exclusive-brown-not-to-stand-hapless-band-of-staff-and-regulars/ the weblog of Steve Guy Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:13:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Jeremy Hargreaves http://www.sguy.net/2007/05/10/exclusive-brown-not-to-stand-hapless-band-of-staff-and-regulars/comment-page-1/#comment-38524 Jeremy Hargreaves Thu, 10 May 2007 21:43:30 +0000 http://www.sguy.net/2007/05/10/exclusive-brown-not-to-stand-hapless-band-of-staff-and-regulars/#comment-38524 I actually think that Brown and Blair have more responsibility for these situations than you give them credit for. No-one is standing against Brown because he has spent the last several years, and especially the last several months, running an extremely extensive and effective operation within his party to ensure that no-one does. Similarly one of the major reasons that the Conservatives have been such a failure is that Blair has, ever since 1994, set as his highest political objective, identifying what stance will split the Conservatives and prevent them from opposing him, and then adopting it. An example was on ID cards during Michael Howard's leadership - almost every Conservative MP opposed ID cards, except Michael Howard - so Blair really went to town on it at that time. Of course that isn't the whole story, but it's quite a large part of it. But I think you're quite right about Blair having squandered so many of his opportunities - for example on Europe. I actually think that Brown and Blair have more responsibility for these situations than you give them credit for. No-one is standing against Brown because he has spent the last several years, and especially the last several months, running an extremely extensive and effective operation within his party to ensure that no-one does.

Similarly one of the major reasons that the Conservatives have been such a failure is that Blair has, ever since 1994, set as his highest political objective, identifying what stance will split the Conservatives and prevent them from opposing him, and then adopting it. An example was on ID cards during Michael Howard’s leadership – almost every Conservative MP opposed ID cards, except Michael Howard – so Blair really went to town on it at that time. Of course that isn’t the whole story, but it’s quite a large part of it.

But I think you’re quite right about Blair having squandered so many of his opportunities – for example on Europe.

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