Blair's Morning of the Long Knives Radical Reshuffle Aims to Reassert Premier's Authority
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Summary
SO MUCH bloodletting had not been anticipated for the morning after the night before. The first part of the script went to plan. Labour, on the back of the worst two weeks of Tony Blair's long premiership, had been expected to do badly in Thursday's English local government elections. It performed dismally, being pushed into third place behind the triumphant Tories (with a 40-per cent share of the vote) and the disappointed Liberal Democrats (27-per cent); only the second time this had happened to Labour in the past 100 years. Heads would roll as a consequence.
But so many? MrBlair, the reluctant reshuffler, took a scalpel to his cabinet yesterday. At the end of a process whose scale, brutality and incisiveness belied the prime minister's reputation as a leader better at botching than managing change at the top level of government, more ministers had lost or changed their jobs than had kept them. Two of the three great offices of state (home and foreign affairs) have new people in charge.See the full content of this document
Extract
Blair's Morning of the Long Knives Radical Reshuffle Aims to Reassert Premier's Authority
Charles Clarke, the embattled home secretary, was the biggest casualty of Mr Blair's morning of the long knives. He is returning to the back benches, having paid for the debacle over the non- deportation of foreign convicted criminals...
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