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Farewell Digby?

By Jonathan Walker on Apr 14, 08 10:42 PM in Politics

Digby Jones, now Lord Jones of Birmingham and a Trade Minister in Gordon Brown's Government, is reported to have told business leaders he will quit the Government before the next election - because he doesn't want to support the Prime Minister.

The generous view is that this is simply Lord Jones being consistent with what he has always said, that he's not in the Government to back Labour (or any other party), but simply to back British industry.

A less kind view is that this is yet another vote of no confidence in Mr Brown.

The received wisdom at Westminster at the moment is that Gordon Brown's Government is in trouble. One of the latest blows came when backbencher Graham Stringer claimed today that people were "disappointed" with the Prime Minister's performance since entering Number 10.

It's worth remembering that the Commons is in recess, with MPs enjoying their Easter break (which began some time after Easter this year). There's a tendency for the media to focus on rows and splits during this period, as there's very little actual governing taking place.

But Labour does seem to have a problem with discipline. Many MPs seem to think it's okay to criticise their leader - and Lord Jones isn't the only Minister who has expressed a few words of dissent.

Once a party leader gets into this position, it's very hard to get out of it. Mr Brown has one trump card in that there's no obvious candidate to replace him, but loyal Labour MPs will be hoping he can reassert his authority quickly once Parliament returns next week.

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2 Comments

Martyn said:

While they probably want Gordon Brown to re-assert his authority, there are probably quite a few of those Labour MPs who remember thinking what a stupid idea of Gordon's it was to employ a right wing motor mouth like Digby in the first place. It is harder to reassert authority when the very problem causing you to need to was such an own goal.

Sid Langley said:

Own goal? What about the 'let's have an election' fiasco?

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