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Clare Short quits (no, really)

 
 
Ganesh
10:11 / 12.05.03
"I am sad and sorry that it has ended like this."

Following the 'bullet in the right place can change the world' tipping theory, does anyone reckon that Short resigning when she originally said she would would've changed anything?
 
 
Lurid Archive
10:21 / 12.05.03
Nah. Robin Cook's departure was the real blow to the Blair government and that didn't change a thing. Short's resignation would have had no impact. The most she could have done would have been to salvage some credibility. As it is, she is going when she failed to achieve any of her goals with regards to Iraq and at a time when the PM may well have sacked her anyway.
 
 
Lullaboozler
10:29 / 12.05.03
Given that the million or so people who marched changed nothing, the complete lack of evidence on WMD changed nothing, the failure to secure a 2nd UN resolution changed nothing and Robin Cook's masterful resignation (if there was ever going to be a right bullet, that was it) changed nothing, I think Clare Short resigning would have done diddly. She was a spent political force as far as Blair seems to be concerned. The person more hurt by this is Gordon Brown, as Clare Short is seen as a 'Brownite'.

Blair is now a juggernaut. No-one will oppose him and his mad ideas - the Parliamentary Labour Party seem to have lost what little spine they had left (last week's vote on Foundation hospitals proved that), the press/media are all too busy doling out their usual celeb crud and the Stop the War march just proverd that Blair doesn't even care about public opinion anymore.

Just got to read the WMD/religious discrimintaion threads to see that.

Gah. Time to rev up those emmigration plans.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
17:12 / 12.05.03
D'ya reckon she'll change her mind again in a couple of days?

I'm with Lurid on this one. Nobody really gives a fuck about Short- she "has previous" when it comes to consistency. Cook should have hurt the government... but he didn't.

The thing that does worry me, however, is what happens when everyone loses faith in "Labour" ? Who've we got? The Tories are, well, Tories. As well as being a bit shit. The LibDems couldn't even make up their minds about whether war on Iraq was a good idea. Much as I'd like to believe that a fundamental lack of faith in the parties on offer would lead to an anarcho-syndicalist utopia, I'm not that stupid.

Mister Tony may well have broken democracy in the UK.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
23:43 / 12.05.03
(Gah. Time to rev up those emmigration plans.
Yeah, let's all move to Barcelona, at least they know how to protest against their disgustingly right wing government there. What's an English(wo)man without something to fight anyway?)

I think this whole thing just reeks of a pathetic lack of willpower. She made her bed when she didn't quit and now, when it really starts to get tough, she's running away. Short has managed to demonstrate a total lack of responsibility and commitment over the last few months, her timing has been off and I remain unimpressed with her efforts to express herself. She should have dealt a double blow and left with Cook, at least it would have created even more drama and more gleeful laughter in amongst the stress.

The person more hurt by this is Gordon Brown, as Clare Short is seen as a 'Brownite'.

Brown's already hurt. This will make very little difference to his status, at least in the eyes of the public, he's never going to redeem himself because he's just not camera friendly and that's a terrible political crime.

Mister Tony may well have broken democracy in the UK.

Well, we'd better get on with reclaiming the Labour party then.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:23 / 13.05.03
I think one reasonably plausible explanation is that Short is deeply credulous and not very bright - ie, she genuinely believed Blair when he claimed that the Iraqi oil would be kept in the hands of the Iraqi people, or that the UN would be given a significant role in post-war Iraq (not that I think that latter promise mitigates anything, really, but some do). Now that the inevitable violation of these assurances is taking place, she's woken up a little, but it's too late for her to save face with... well, anyone.

Her name stays on The List.
 
 
Lullaboozler
10:25 / 13.05.03
I don't believe that for one second she was taken in by Blair - she is a politico after all, and you don't survive long in that game by being naive.

George Monbiot's latest missive here puts an intersting perspective on it.

Some of the Guardian's readers will, for all her faults, have shed a few tears at the departure of our development secretary.
Clare Short may have failed, in March, to act upon her threat to resign over the war with Iraq. But even those who have turned against her will miss that splash of colour on the front benches, the old Labour warrior who still spoke the language of feeling, and who, as if by magic, had somehow survived the control freaks and the little grey men for six vivid and tumultuous years. Westminster will be a bleaker and a colder place without her.

Well, dry your eyes. Clare Short survived because she was useful. She was as much a creature of the control freaks as any of the weaker members of the frontbench. To understand her role in government is to begin to understand the nature of our post-oppositional, postmodern political system...


Now, while I don't always agree with everything GM says and he is undoubtedly putting forward the negative side of the argument, he seems to have a point here.
 
 
sleazenation
21:21 / 13.05.03
I still give Short more credit that it seems most of the rest of the board does.

As minister for overseas development Short's biggest opportunity to really make a difference was always going to be in a post conflict environment, regardless of the rights and wrongs of that conflict.
 
  
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