With Gordon standing next to him in Downing Street, the new Aussie PM, Kevin Rudd, made it clear that no Chinese security forces would be pushing him around when the Olympic torch came to Australia. Gordon just stood next to him silently. Just like he did when Chinese security officers threw their weight about in Downing Street.
Chinese speaking Rudd also said he had a prior appointment and would not be receiving the flame personally. “We will not be having Chinese security forces, or the Chinese security services, providing security for the torch when it is in Australia. We – Australia – will be providing that security.”
David Pitt-Watson was Gordon Brown’s favoured candidate to replace the disgraced Peter Watt, who quit in the row over Labour’s donations by proxy and is under investigation by the police. Gordon sat in at the NEC meeting to personally push through the City fund manager’s appointment. LabourHome reported this morning that he “has changed his mind about wanting the job before he has even started”.
Downing Street’s spin machine went into over-drive to conceal what will look like a bad error of judgement by Gordon. The official line is, implausibly, that David Pitt-Watson has contractual duties which preclude him starting before the Labour Party’s annual conference in September. Guido has confirmed that this is far from true.
No. 10 has been desperately searching for a face-saving way out of the embarrassing situation for the last week. The person selected and championed by Gordon in the face of opposition by traditionalists has decided he doesn’t want the job. The Brownies plan is to maintain the pretence that David Pitt-Watson is to be Labour’s new General Secretary until after the party conference. At which time an excuse will be found and the acting General Secretary, Chris Lennie, will slip into the post. As preparations for civil war post Mayor Boris advance they couldn’t even keep that from leaking to bloggers….
*And you never thought to invite Guido…
This poll result is phenomenal:YouGov asked voters who they would choose from a list of politicians “at the peak of their powers” to be prime minister. Maggie Thatcher was the most popular with 27% wanting her back.
Brown was unpopular even among Labour voters: 43% of whom wanted Blair back, even Tony Benn was wanted by 17% of the party’s voters, Brown was the first choice of only 10% of Labour voters.
UPDATE : Guido forgot to quote the most important statistic, a mere 5% of all voters would rather have Gordon Brown as PM from the list of former PMs given.
He will no doubt have a laugh about this with Tibet’s Dalai Lama when he meets him. Unbelievable? See for yourself on GuyNews.TV.
