Dear Geoff Hoon,
I wonder what it must be like for a Labour cabinet member to witness his government fall apart at the seams. After the incredible retreats on non-doms, capital gains tax and the 10p tax rate, one wonders what credibility the government has left (if any). And now, faced with the prospect of defeat in the Commons over the plans to extend the detention limit for terror suspects to 42 days, Labour are forced to retreat yet again to avoid humiliation.
Apparently you have been given the task of brokering a deal with the Labour rebels. While any changes to this ridiculous law should be welcomed, it ends up making Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith look even more ridiculous, especially after the PM’s recent comments. At the beginning of this month Gordon Brown insisted that he wants to “win the argument” in Parliament over the detention limit, and declared as recently as yesterday that there will be no major watering down of the proposals to detain terror suspects for 42-days. You can therefore imagine my alarm when I read this morning about Gordon Brown trying to do precisely this - water down the proposals outside of Parliamentary debates in order to avoid yet another humiliating defeat at the hands of his own MP’s.
The obvious conclusion from all this is that Gordon Brown has lost control of his party and has lost control of this country. The backbenchers have realised that they can overturn anything that the PM says if they want to, and he will always have to dance to their tune. There is only one word that can describe the current predicament of the Labour government - paralysis.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
2 responses so far ↓
Katie // May 16, 2008 at 11:48 am
Labour’s only retreating until the by-election is over.
Like the “dropping” of the bin taxes for the local elections (they’re back on again now) and the “dropping” of the pay-as-you-go-to-work road pricing taxes before the general election which didn’t happen. They’re back on again now.
42 days detention will return. Just like the other policies. Because New Labour think that the electorate can’t remember more than about a week in the past.
Letters From A Tory // May 16, 2008 at 11:57 am
Exactly. Do they think that backtracking on the 10p tax mess will make people forget the uncertainty and anguish they inflicted on people?
42-day detention may get through the Commons if the rebels have their way in the same way that the tax changes will now go through, but the damage will be done by the rebels making the government bend over in front of the worlds’ media.
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