New Labour Is Old Hat

In an interview in today’s Daily Telegraph, former Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell, who quit the cabinet during the local and European elections last month, has said he lost faith in Gordon Brown as leader six months ago.

This has prompted the ‘never say die’, government faithful to pop their heads above the parapet.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson, also in the Telegraph, said that Mr Brown is the "best man for the job".

Ex-Defence Secretary John Hutton, this time speaking on the BBC's Straight Talk programme, said Mr Brown had "many, many talents" and it was a "tragedy" voters did not see them.

OK John, tell Gordon to show us these talents and we’ll have a look at them!

Meanwhile, back to Mr Purnell who stated "It's a very different feeling being twelve years into government from the idealism of the start, but we need to recapture that idealism, not by living in the past or by aping New Labour or just sticking to the old tunes.
We need to open up New Labour, reinvent it and then eventually move beyond it."

Try running that one past the traditional flat cap toting, whippet owning voter who, back in 1997 thought that he was voting for the good old red flag waving Labour Party. See what they think about your New Labour now!

Et Tu Purnell?

Last night, James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, stepped down from the cabinet and told Prime Minister Gordon Brown to "stand aside".

With the government crumbling before his very eyes and almost certainly poor, no, make that bad results in today’s elections, poor old Gordon has nowhere to go now, so as a Parthian shot, why doesn’t he teach all of his ministerial toe rags a lesson by going to the Palace and calling for the dissolution of parliament?

He can then sit in his garden on sunny summer mornings, writing his memoirs, while his old “mates” are all out looking for a proper job!