Under Pressure

[Ach-F]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45863000/jpg/_45863141_bigblears_226.jpg

Brown Pressure after Blears quits (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8080777.stm)


And Labour's future look Blear-y?


Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has quit the cabinet, increasing pressure on UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Her departure is the second top-level resignation on the eve of the European and English local elections. It led to stormy Commons scenes as Mr Brown denied his government was in "meltdown" and rejected calls for an immediate general election. Health Secretary Alan Johnson has been forced to deny he is ready to take over amid reports of a backbench plot. Mr Johnson told the BBC: "He is doing the job and there is absolutely no one who could do that job better."

He said Mr Brown's performance at prime ministers' questions had shown he had the "courage and tenacity" to lead the country "under circumstances made difficult for him". Other cabinet ministers, including Hilary Benn, Andy Burnham and Lord Mandelson, have also rallied round the prime minister and attempted to calm speculation he will be forced to quit. Plots denied
Meanwhile the BBC has seen a proposed letter from one Labour MP calling on Mr Brown to step down.

It has not yet been widely circulated but the BBC understands Mr Brown's critics intend to send out some kind of "round robin" letter to MPs, possibly on Friday, to test whether there is an appetite for a challenge to Mr Brown. BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said he understood while some backbenchers would be happy to sign any anti-Brown letter, others who have criticised the PM would refuse to sign because they believed bringing forward a general election would be "catastrophic". ........ ...... .......

Its not news to Brown as he knows very well the game of back stabbing.

[Ach-F]

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00818/carousel-news-1_818099a.jpg

Gordon Brown claims



Claim: The prime minister paid his brother, Andrew, ?6,577 for arranging cleaning services for his Westminster flat for 26 months.

Since reporting the arrangement, the Telegraph group has clarified that there "has never been any suggestion of any impropriety on the part of the Prime Minister or his brother".
Response: No 10 said the two shared a cleaner who worked in both their flats. Andrew Brown paid her and was reimbursed for his share of the cost. He did not do the cleaning himself or gain financially.

There was a formal contract for the arrangement, Downing Street sources add, stipulating the cleaner's hours of work and pay. The cleaner wanted to be paid by one person for National Insurance purposes.

Claim: Gordon Brown also claimed twice for the same plumbing work within six months of each other. Response: The House of Commons Fees Office said the mistake had been inadvertent and apologised for having not spotted it. Gordon Brown is understood to have repaid the sum involved - believed to be ?150.

Why Brown is falling apart. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8039273.stm)

[Ach-F]

Brown has been given at least one week to survive ........... ........... all the damage will depend on todays vote on EU parliamentarians and local councillors. Will he be in power next month?

[Dua]

Caroline Flint's resignation letter (e-mailed out by her husband)


Dear Gordon
I believe the achievements of the Labour Government to date have been monumental and you have played an immense part in the creation of those achievements. However, I am extremely disappointed at your failure to have an inclusive Government. You have a two tier Government. Your inner circle and then the remainder of Cabinet.

I have the greatest respect for the women who have served as full members of Cabinet and for those who attend as and when required. However, few are allowed into your inner circle. Several of the women attending Cabinet ? myself included ? have been treated by you as little more than female window dressing. I am not willing to attend Cabinet in a peripheral capacity any longer. In my current role, you advised that I would attend Cabinet when Europe was on the agenda. I have only been invited once since October and not to a single political Cabinet - not even the one held a few weeks before the European elections.

Having worked hard during this campaign, I would not have been party to any plan to undermine you or the Labour Party in the run up to 4 June. So I was extremely angry and disappointed to see newspapers briefed with invented stories of my involvement in a ?Pugin Room plot.? Time and time again I have stepped before the cameras to sincerely defend your reputation in the interests of the Labour Party and the Government as a whole. I am a natural party loyalist. Yet you have strained every sinew of that loyalty. It has been apparent for some time that you do not see me playing a more influential role in the Government. Therefore, I have respectfully declined your offer to continue in the Government as Minister for attending Cabinet.

I served six years as a backbencher and, therefore, I am not unhappy to be able to devote myself to promoting my constituency?s interests and to support the Labour Government from the backbenches. This is a personal decision, which I have not discussed with colleagues.

Yours

Rt Hon Caroline Flint MP

Clinging into power like somebody I know but it can't work in UK.

[Ach-F]

Elections 2009: Council Map (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/elections/local_council/09/map/html/map.stm)

Labour received a drubbing, I cannot see how Brown can survive in coming days.

[Dua]

Falconer urges leadership debate (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8087814.stm)


Former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer has called for an urgent debate on Gordon Brown's leadership, as Labour braces for "terrible" election results. The former cabinet minister told the BBC he was "not sure" Labour could unite while Mr Brown remained leader. But Alan Johnson, touted as a possible leader, said: "I don't agree that regicide gives you a unified party."

Meanwhile, new Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has predicted Labour's European election results will be "terrible". Lord Falconer, who was a close ally of former PM Tony Blair, told BBC One's Politics Show the cabinet was "incredibly strong in terms of personnel" while he claimed the Conservatives "look vulnerable". "If we could bring ourselves together we would stand a real chance of making the changes the country needs," he said.

"I think we are moving moderately quickly towards the need for a change and that change may be a change in leadership." "We need unity above all. Can we get unity under the current leadership? "I am not sure that we can and we need to debate it urgently and I think probably it will need a change in leader."

Election results

He said he admired Gordon Brown "greatly" but said he had an "inability to hold the party together". He pointed to James Purnell's resignation as Work and Pensions Secretary and the intervention of previously loyal backbencher Barry Sheerman, who called for a secret ballot of MPs on the leadership. Meanwhile, Cabinet Office Minister Tessa Jowell said that Mr Brown would be prepared to step aside if he became convinced that "he personally was an obstacle to Labour's recovery and achievement".

"Gordon Brown loves the Labour party. He is Labour through and through," she told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend. She said the cabinet had to take some responsibility "for the fact that the government is in a very difficult place at the moment" and said voters hated parties which were "more obsessed by themselves than they are with them". "That team has got to rally round Gordon and build the strength that the evidence of a team and a government working together can do." But Conservative frontbencher William Hague called for an immediate general election. He told the BBC: "We have a weakened prime minister and a weakened cabinet and the country is crying out there for the general election so that they can choose the prime minister and the cabinet."

UKIP ranking

Last week saw the departure of six cabinet ministers from the government and devastating local election results for the Labour Party, which saw it lose control of its four councils and its vote share drop to an historic low of 23%. Peter Hain, who returned to the cabinet as Welsh Secretary in Friday's reshuffle, also predicted bad European election results - due out Sunday evening. He told Sky News' Sunday Live: "The results are going to be terrible - there's no point beating about the bush on that - terrible for Labour.

"And I suspect terrible for all the mainstream parties, as indeed the council elections were." BBC political correspondent Norman Smith said analysts would be looking at whether Labour slipped behind the UK Independence Party in the results. The new Home Secretary Alan Johnson - the man widely touted as a possible replacement for Mr Brown - told the BBC he did not agree with Lord Falconer.

He added: "I think Gordon Brown is the best man for the job. "You're never going to get a politician that is absolutely perfect in every respect, Tony Blair wasn't, none of his predecessors have been." He said Mr Brown was "a man of immense substance" who had "led the world" in dealing with economic problems. "And I believe that he can do that job very very well and can lead us into election and can win that election." Earlier, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson defended Mr Brown and said Labour could turn things around if it concentrated on policy and sorting out the expenses and economy.

He told Mr Brown's Labour critics: "Stop taking shots at the prime minister because you are simply going to make the situation for the party and government even worse." He added: "If we get the policy agenda right, and if it's sufficiently bold and decisive then the public will take a different look at us. "At the moment they're being entirely distracted by noises off, by people who are not keeping their nerve." The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

[Ach-F]

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00820/carousel-news-mandl_820028a.jpg

[mwanakijiji]

Hivi hizi kashfa za gharama zikija kwetu si ndio itakuwa mshike mshike!

[Ach-F]

Hivi hizi kashfa za gharama zikija kwetu si ndio itakuwa mshike mshike!

Mwanakijiji

Mshike mshike haiwezi tokea Tanzania si unaona ya EPA na IPTL etc. Hakuna noma ndivyo tulivyo, high hopes utendaji na uwajibikaji zero.

[Ach-F]

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00820/carousel_brown_820475a.jpg




http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00820/SNN0804A--682_820348a.jpg

Crash Gordon


LABOUR was heading for a crash in the European elections last night - leaving Gordon Brown sweating on a make-or-break showdown with party MPs this evening. The PM was braced for just 15.3 per cent of the national vote, with tiny UKIP coming SECOND in polling for the European Parliament on 17.4 per cent. There were fears that Labour would finish third after BBC projections put them on 15.3 per cent, with the Lib Dems fourth on 14 per cent. That is a hammer blow to the PM, and will leave Labour MPs even more scared of losing their seats at the next election. The Tory result was a projected 28.6 per cent - the same as the last Euro election in 2004, and not nearly as strong as David Cameron was hoping.


Labour slumps to historic defeat

Voters in European polls deliver a damning verdict on Labour, as it is beaten by UKIP and sees the BNP gains its first MEPs.



Time up for some .....

[Ach-F]

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00820/carousel_news_1410_820694a.jpg
ANOTHER Labour WAG quit the Government today before launching a scathing attack on Gordon Brown.


Environment minister Jane Kennedy delivered her broadside as the PM was preparing for tonight's make-or-break showdown with Labour MPs. She accused Brown of demanding an oath of loyalty and resigned after refusing to make the pledge. Speaking just hours after Labour plunged to its WORST election results in 100 years, Ms Kennedy sensationally accused Downing Street of acting like the hard-left Militant Tendency by secretly launching "smear" campaigns against Labour MPs. And she warned that Labour could face a catastrophic meltdown at the next General Election unless Mr Brown stepped down.

She said: "I believe we are in such a situation that we are now fighting for the future of the Labour Party. "This is the point where we need to turn the corner and give the Labour Party a fighting chance." In an astonishing onslaught on the PM, the Liverpool Wavertree MP said: "I was asked to give an assurance that I would support Gordon Brown in order to stay as a minister.
"I was unable to do that.
"I have been unhappy for some time about leaks against colleagues and smear campaigns orchestrated from Number 10. "It is not the way I do politics. I fought against that behaviour all my career, including opposing Militant Tendency in Liverpool. "I have been listening to my party members, constituents and councillor colleagues - all have been as disturbed as I have been for a long time regarding the style of leadership. "The Labour Party is bigger than one man and we have a duty to regain the support and confidence of the British people."

Pledge

Meanwhile former minister Frank Field today warned Labour cannot win the coming General Election with Mr Brown as Prime Minister. Mr Field, who was one of a handful of Labour MPs who refused to nominate Mr Brown as successor to Tony Blair in 2007, said that his premiership had been "inept" and Labour's current standing was now "pitiful". Writing on his internet blog, Mr Field accused supporters of Mr Brown of trying to "terrorise" Labour MPs out of removing him by claiming his successor would be forced to hold an immediate General Election in which many of them would lose their seats.

In fact, a new leader would be within his constitutional rights to go to Buckingham Palace and inform the Queen he had no intention of holding an election until next May, said the Birkenhead MP. Mr Field wrote: "Labour cannot win with the present Prime Minister. I was one of the seven who would not support his coronation after Tony Blair was shoehorned out of Number 10. But even I didn't think a Brown administration would be as inept as this one." Later Ms Kennedy backtracked claiming the PM himself did not directly ask her for a pledge of loyalty and the decision to go was her own.

However she said it was made clear that she was expected to give assurances about her loyalty and said: "I wasn't able to give that assurance and so I have not been reappointed." Ms Kennedy was considered a member of Labour's WAGs ? Women Against Gordon ? group. Members Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint were among seven other ministers to leave the Government in the last week. No 10 denied that a loyalty pledge had been demanded.

A spokesman said: "The Prime Minister was aware of Jane Kennedy's intention to stand down. "He spoke to her this morning. She explained her reasons and he said that he regretted the fact that she had decided to stand down but if that was her decision, then that was a matter for her. "He did not ask for any pledge of loyalty from her or any other minister." A Number 10 source added: "Jane Kennedy has decided to stand down and resign, which happens in reshuffles." Ms Kennedy was not offered a job, but made it clear she wanted to leave the Government, the source added.

Tonight party backbenchers and Peers will decide if it is time to kill off the battered Premier.

The PM is preparing to buy them off by promising an Iraq War probe and will shelve plans to sell off the Royal Mail within days. The crunch showdown will take place in the Commons at 6pm. Failure to deliver the knockout blow will leave Mr Brown strengthened and give him a clear run over the summer with no prospect of a coup in the near future.

WAGS = women and girlfriends of rich footballers (Came from)

Crunch time what crunch?