Tory reshuffle
I was too intemperate in my description below of the Tory reshuffle as 'terrible'. It's much worse than that.First, it's a wonderful example of Howard's opportunism. It appears -- whether or not it is true - that he did it only to try to pre-empt a government reshuffle. His expediency is well-known, but obviously the more he makes policy merely to try to score short-term political points, the more he looks like a future IDS, not PM.
Second, despite his desperate attempts to appear a centrist politican, every passing month sees his policies, and his team, become more right-wing. Let's say it slowly -
John Redwood is back in the shadow cabinet. John Redwood.
To a person of a certain age, the mention of John Redwood (at least until recently) just brings back images of Theresa Gorman, a striped-jacketed Tony Marlow, and possibly that later moment where he was so desperate to become Tory leader so he formed an allicance with Ken Clarke. Of course dig a little deeper you get that disgraceful and hypocritical speech in Cardiff.
posted by Matthew @ 9/09/2004 08:23:00 PM
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