Clare Short Finally Quits

The Corinthian

She told BBC News: "The position the UK's adopting in the Security Council is totally dishonourable and breaches the promises that the UN would have the proper role in bringing into being a legitimate interim Iraqi authority.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3019871.stm

Whatever political repercussions she could have hoped for by her resignation are now neutered and her reputation in tatters with both sides of the British Labour party as a result of this belated resignation. Regardless of one's position in this conflict, I doubt if anyone would deny that she's either been remarkably naive, disasterably indecisive or both.

shotamoose

She was told a bunch of lies by Blair et al and was foolish enough to believe them. So on the one hand I've little sympathy but on the other I'm sorry that someone who seems to have believed that she could do more for the most disadvantaged by staying in power despite the slings and arrows has been proved so completely wrong.

gandalf

Sorry Claire too little and too late...you are the weakest link goodbye !!

Gandalf.

davelerave

she jumped to save bein pushed

Éomer of Rohan

she jumped to save bein pushed

Unlikely - if Blair had pushed her he'd have made her a martyr.

Sorry Claire too little and too late...you are the weakest link goodbye !!

Too right.

bonkey

Originally posted by The Corinthian
I doubt if anyone would deny that she's either been remarkably naive, disasterably indecisive or both.

She always struck me as someone trying to play a political game they just didnt quite have the skills for.....for more or less the reasons here.

jc

Clintons Cat

She was told a bunch of lies by Blair et al and was foolish enough to believe them. So on the one hand I've little sympathy but on the other I'm sorry that someone who seems to have believed that she could do more for the most disadvantaged by staying in power despite the slings and arrows has been proved so completely wrong.

Ok i have been harsh on Clare Short before but i think she probally did believe she would have a role/say in the reconstruction of Iraq.From her speach it appears Blair made her a number of promises regarding reconstruction that he was either unwilling or unable to deliver upon,leaving her comprimised vis a vie statements she made to the House.

To be honest i think the disapearance of both Cook and Short from the front bench is to the detriment of the left wing of the party.However Shorts resignation might be the opening gambit in a leadership challenge sometime before the summer.Her speach certainly brought the divisons in the labour camp into focus.

Sparks

i think she probally did believe she would have a role/say in the reconstruction of Iraq.

That's more damning than anything else. She abandoned protesting the invasion for the promise of a say in how Iraq would be rebuilt???
Feck that. Sack the so-and-so.

Clintons Cat

sorry to disagree,but what good would her resignation at that time of served?

Kudos to Cook for resigning,but Short leaving at the same time would have bearly have caused much of a ripple.Far better she stayed in the Cabinet having believed she had levered some Consessions from Blair vis a vie reconstruction.

Shorts beleif was the UN should have the pivotal role in reconstruction not a handful of Companies that paid Billions into Bushes Electoral campaign.

Sparks

sorry to disagree,but what good would her resignation at that time of served?

It would have shown that when she says she'll do a thing, she'll do it.
It would have been another protesting voice at a time when they were badly needed.

Clintons Cat

Yeah like anyone reported what the Anti war politicos were saying once the hacks got to ride around on tanks in the desert and hand out choclate bars to iraqi kids.

Sparks

That's sort of why there was a need for protesting voices...

Gordon

I just saw that on the news now and I was laughing out 'YOU TOOK YOUR BLIMMIN TIME!" But after reading CC's posts, I respect her want for seeing how things would go. I don't recall much of her speeches as to why she did not resign in the first place but I don't read the papers much either. As for Sparks' comments - very true, she could have had a significant impact upon many if she had also shown her feelings to a physical move.

Anyway, in the long run, good stuff, but maybe it is simply a way for shoving things under the carpet unfortunately.

davelerave

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
Unlikely - if Blair had pushed her he'd have made her a martyr.


Too right.

ya.what i meant to say was she would be sidelined in the summer,there's some sort of a reshuffle she would likely have been demoted then

shotamoose

She had some interesting things to say in her resignation statement to the house:

American power alone cannot make America safe ... undermining international law and the authority of the UN creates the risk of instability, bitterness and growing terrorism that will threaten the future for all of us.

and

the errors we are making over Iraq and other recent initiatives flow not from Labour's values, but from the style and organisation of our government, which is undermining trust and straining party loyalty in a way that is completely unnecessary.

I think she's making the same point twice. On the international stage, America's unchecked power risks undoing the gains made by international cooperation and, ultimately, America's safety and prosperity. On the domestic stage, Blair's secretive and presidential style undermines the trust and goodwill of everyone he needs to get things done - cabinet, party, frontline public sector staff. The result is "no real collective responsibility because there is no collective, just diktats in favour of increasingly badly thought through policy initiatives that come from on high".

bonkey

the errors we are making over Iraq and other recent initiatives flow not from Labour's values, but from the style and organisation of our government, which is undermining trust and straining party loyalty in a way that is completely unnecessary.

Sounds like a polite way of saying "Blair aint acting like a Labour member no more, and is more interested in running the nation his way".

Its a somewhat fair point, but the simple fact is that even the votes for supporting the PM all passed. Yes, there was a revolution within Labour on the various votes, but they never had enough to even say that the PM was lacking the moral majority.

So either Blair still holds the trust and condidence of the majority of his party (and aren't parties supposed to act democratically internally?), or he doesnt really but not enough of those who oppose him are/were willing to stand up and say it.

Clair Short may have decided to stay on to wring some promises out of Blair for post-war Iraq, but if she believed that then she really didnt know how the game was played. Where was her leverage from? Cook resigned, and he's far higher profile than her, and there was relatively little reaction. What made her think the threat of her resignation carried substantially more weight than his, letting her gain "promises". Not only that, but when did she get the ar5e-about-face notion that Tony Blair would even be in any position to make these promises when it was clearly Dubya running the show from day 1.

She has made such a cock-up of alternating between being a good little party-girl and being the dissenting voice that I think very people will actually care about the message she (finally) tried to send.

At best....she resigned because she finally woke up. Better than continued blind subservience though, I guess.

jc