Dear Editor, In many respects this is a defining moment in Gordon Brown’s and New Labours period in office. As we all saw in the by-elections just before Labour came to power in 1997, scandal hit governments never tend to re-emerge out of the ashes. This government, just like John Majors in 1996, has lost its moral authority to govern.
We know it, government ministers know it, Labour MPs know it, opposition MPs definitely know it, but the one person who is still in permanent denial is Gordon Brown.
As a former Labour Party member I saw the start of the rot in the party when Blair decided to invade Iraq in 2003, and of course we all know what has happened since.
Gordon Brown’s ministers are still leaving his sycophantic club at a record rate, even though they tend to back-track on their various anti- Brown comments on a daily basis.
Why these Ministers won’t stand up to Gordon Brown bemuses me greatly and I often wonder if there is still a bully-boy mentality coming from No 10.
It was sad to see Labour MP’s step back from deposing their leader a few weeks back and at a time which could have changed politics in this country forever.
But no they decided, for reasons only known to them, to keep Gordon Brown in his job and now we see the whole Party moving to a point where they could face oblivion in the next election.
All I can say is that Labour MPs are living in cloud cuckoo land at present and it is as clear as daylight that they actually voted to carry on with the same leader and the same old style, as a vote to keep their own jobs going right up to the wire.
In my local newspaper this weekend I read that my constituency MP David Winnick is agreeing with Brown’s move to borrow ourselves out of recession. This seems very old Labour to me and wasted comment, because whatever Old or New Labour say now, the writing is on the wall and a new Tory dawn is biding its time.
Ian Payne,
Thornbury Road,
Walsall.
