A Milburn warning and a leadership challenge

Former Cabinet Minister Alan Milburn returns to the fore in the Indy this morning.

The arch Blairite ,never considered a fan of the Prime Minister,warns the party not to shift left and says

the old top-down approach to governance will no longer work". He believes the Prime Minister's focus on the economy has left a dangerous void on other domestic policy issues, and he predicts that Labour will lose the general election expected next year unless it develops a wide-ranging, forward-looking agenda

The attach comes as the Spectator's Matthew D'Acona will reveal today that Charles Clarke another former minister with scant regard for Brown is set to launch a leadership battle if as expected the party does badly in the Euro election next month.

The idea, is for a former Cabinet minister - "probably Charles Clarke" - to test the water and see if he can secure 30 or so signatures from Labour MPs. says D'ancona

How Clarke nearly became foreign secretary

Benedict Brogan trumps the New Statesman on his blog by revealing that tomorrow's edition contains an interview with Charles Clarke.

The former home secretary,no fan of Gordon Brown claims that after his sacking by Blair

that the day after his dismissal the prime minister told him, ruefully, that he had planned to make him foreign secretary so that he could be "a credible opponent to Gordon as the leader of the party".

One wonders how things may have been different if Clarke had gone to the foriegn office.

"I couldn't imagine his timing was accidental"

An interesting post from Martin Bright over at the New Statesman.

He is talking about the article with Charles Clarke that has caused so much controversy this week.

He says of the article

We had a long-standing request with Mr Clarke for a piece about Labour's travails and he chose this moment to accept our offer. I shouldn't imagine his timing was accidental

. and of its content

His analysis of the uses and abuses of "Blairism" is sound. His description of the mood of the party is pretty accurate. But I would like to know what he means when he says that he and and others will not "permit" the disaster to happen. It also confirms we in my belief that Clarke and others who were sceptical about a Brown premiership should have put up a candidate last year.

Is Clarke the stalking horse ?

Well not surprisingly Charles Clarke's timely intervention in the New Statesman has set the Brown out rumour into motion yet again.
The hints that he made in the article were turned into facts on his Today appearance earlier this morning.
More important perhaps the Timeline of three months that he gave the premiership.

Now people are asking what he was up to.Never a fan of Brown, he was one of only a handful of MP's who failed to endorse the coronation last year.So is he to be the stalking horse candidate of somebody in the cabinet.?

He made it clear that there is dissatisfaction in the cabinet over Brown's ability to govern.The move this week was clearly intended to obstruct the relaunch.

We await further moves

Clarke urges Labour to forget about Blairism and move forward to survive

Charles Clarke has some harsh words for his party and any attempt to return to Blairism in the New Statesman this week

the term "Blairite" is being deployed to characterise the policies and personalities of some who question the party's current direction and urge Labour to face the future.

said the former Home Secretary

The party must move on from Blairism whose tax cutting agenda he blames for the debacle over the 10p tax rate.Blairism will also not help the country during the economic downturn according to Clarke.

there is no Blairite plot, despite rumours and persistent newspaper reports. There is, however, a deep and widely shared concern - which does not derive from ideology - that Labour is destined to disaster if we go on as we are, combined with a determination that we will not permit that to happen.

What you do when you're team loses,write a letterto the Times

Charles Clarke's letter to this morning's Times has been the talk of the blogosphere today.

The former home secretary attacks Ed Balls' timely interventio last week against people briefing against Gordon Brown saying His injunctions about the “indulgent nonsense” of “private briefings against the Labour leader” certainly come from one who is well acquainted with this kind of activity

A reference to the fact that Balls was the undeclared leader of the sources used by Gordon Brown when attacking Tony Blair.

According to Iain Dale

This kind of attack is interesting for various reasons,It is further evidence of
the disintegration of the New Labour project ,that Charles Clarke isn't beyond
doing some very effective off the record briefings himself and,it adds further
fuel to the debate about what Clarke's 'endgame' is.

James Forsyth agrees

having spent ten years undermining Tony Blair whenever it suited them, the Brownites don’t have the standing to call for party loyalty.

But according to Jon Craig,there is another reason for the attack

Ed's response? "I think Charles and I were both in a bad mood this weekend after our team, Norwich City, lost 2-1 to West Brom - and he chose to kick me rather than the dog," he said.

Clarke attacks Brown over smoked salmon and scarmbled eggs

More trouble for Gordon Brown as the Mail carries an interview with former Home Sec Charles Clarke as we know not one of his biggest fans


In it he says

Clarke now accuses Gordon Brown of not having 'the confidence of the country', of being 'controlling', 'dithering' and presiding over a third-rate Cabinet.

The Prime Minister cannot bear anyone who challenges him."

And "

People want the security of confidence about where we are going. They are fed up with a stop-go, chop-and-change approach, taking up things and then dropping them,Voters don't know where Labour stands.

A case of sour grapes?,not according to Calrke who was sacked form Blair's cabinet following the revelations over foriegn prisoners.