I'm not quitting, says Brown

[Morris Onions]

Gordon Brown said today that he would not be resigning as prime minister as his former cabinet colleague David Blunkett joined the chorus of Labour MPs criticising aspects of his leadership.

Shortly before departing on a trip to the US, Brown said that he was making the right long-term decisions for the country and that he was "starting a job that I mean to continue".

With Labour still languishing in the opinion polls and new figures showing house prices falling at the fastest rate for 30 years, Brown gave interviews to the BBC and Sky in which he insisted that he was determined to do what was right rather than court short-term popularity.

But Brown's judgment was called into question in three separate developments:

• Blunkett criticised the Treasury for publishing "inaccurate" figures about the impact of the abolition of the 10p starting rate of income tax when Brown was chancellor last year.

• Richard Lambert, the director general of the CBI, said that "ill-considered political decisions" taken over the last 12 months had made the climate for business "distinctly chillier".

• And Lord Jones, the trade minister, was forced to issue a personal statement endorsing Brown after it was reported that Jones will quit before the general election because he does not want to endorse Labour in a campaign.

Blunkett's comments are significant because the former home secretary is a Labour loyalist. But, in an interview on Radio 4's The World at One, Blunkett said that the decision to scrap the 10p starting rate of tax was being felt "very heavily" on the local election campaign trail.

"The statistics produced by the Treasury over one year ago when this was first mooted were inaccurate. People were talking about a very small number of losers that could be compensated .

"But the people who are losing out, in much larger numbers than was ever predicted, are those who do not have children and who have not reached 65. I think we owe them something."

Blunkett said that people in this category could be "crucially affected" by the loss of as little as £2 a week. He said it was unrealistic to reverse the decision, but that the Treasury should do more to compensate losers.

....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/15/gordonbrown.labour

[LeftishBrit]

1. Is there some new group: "Dreadful Former Education Secretaries against Brown"?

Or is it "Dreadful Former Home Secretaries..." - let's wait and see if John Reid joins up. And Michael Howard?

Michael Portillo once said of Blunkett, "I like him, though he is too right-wing for me." Yup, too right-wing for a Tory!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

2. Personality is no longer the issue

New Labour is still a centre-right party on economic issues, and that is why the working class vote is sifting away. A coup d'etat from the Labour Right will not bring a long-term poll boost.