UK Politics
Robominister in retreat
Published 15 January 2007
A sideways look at life in Westminster
Musical power chairs at the weekly PLP powwow. Robominister John Reid made a short-lived bid for the Labour leadership by parking his well-upholstered backside on the seat, to the left of chairman Tony Lloyd, usually reserved for the premier or most senior member of the politburo. No sooner had a grinning Reid taken the top off his pen to assume command than the door of committee room 14 flung open and in barged Prezza, a man who considers pecking orders a specialist subject. Even a figure as proud as Reid recognises flight is a safer option than fight when confronted by Prezza, so he beat an undignified retreat, vacating the chair to stand meekly at the side of the platform. My informant reckons those 30 seconds are as close as Robominister will ever get to the Labour leadership.
The No 10 fixer John McTernan proved he was on the ball as ever on the day privately educated Ruth Kelly was outed as educating one of her kids, er, privately. In a note to MPs on "points of interest", McTurkey overlooked the point everyone was interested in by ignoring Kelly Girl's predicament but finding room to include a baffling reference to a model posing in green paint. Scottish types who thought things couldn't get worse before May's Scots elections, by the way, are in for a surprise. Downing Street is to despatch McTurkey to "help" with the campaign. Brownites, speculating McTurkey may have the political lifespan of a mayfly after regime change, wonder if he'll find time for a spot of seat-hunting.
Tearoom talk turned to the price Kelly Girl will pay for the great school row. Cynics claim she was thinking of going on the chicken, eyeing safe Bolton South-East, where Brian Iddon is retiring, as she contemplates her small majority in marginal Bolton West. North-west Labourites were overheard declaring that avenue closed off, as gritty Lancastrians are certain to ask the £15,000 question.
Brrng, brrng. The phone rang with news of a "battle of the tie" after my last item on Labour and Tory whips teaming up to produce fraternity neckwear. I hoped the truce would never last and, thankfully, it hasn't. A row erupted over who deserves credit, if credit is the appropriate term, with Tory boy Simon Burns accused of glory hunting when, so my snout insists, it was the brainchild (an equally inappropriate term) of Labour's Tony Cunningham. Beardie Cunningham has a tie factory in his Workington backyard, I'm told, and dreamed up the wheeze to boost sales. I await the counter-call from "friends" of Burns.
Back to that PLP meeting where the minister for social insecurity, John Hutton, confused comrades by declaring "south-east England is the new Labour heartland". Given new Labour is fading fast and the party has few seats in the south-east, John the Hutt might be right for the wrong reason.
Spotted at a Walsall hotel with a Che Guevara T-shirt under his jacket: Lord Whitty of Camberwell, the last of the nomenklatura fit to be called general and secretary. The former union baron laughed in the face of perversity when a well-wisher suggested he would risk arrest for inciting terrorism if he sported the offending item of clothing in the Mock Gothic Fun Palace. Free the Labour One!
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
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