Rat leaves sinking ship
When Tom Watson MP, political blogger extraordinaire, signed on as an assistant government whip in September 2004, there was some cynicism about whether he’d be able to hang on to his reputation as an independent voice. After all, how can someone whose job it is to enforce the government line possibly provide retain their freedom to express themselves? The Guardian‘s Ros Taylor went so far as to produce her own extracts from Watson’s future posts:
If you could out someone as a treacherous hypocrite on this blog, would you?
That’s what I was asking myself on the fast new train from Worcester Shrub Hill to London this morning. (Thanks, Darling!) Can’t wait, really.
Posted by tomwatson at 05:45PM | Comments | TrackBack.
All of this makes it mildly ironic that about noon a news alert from the Beeb alerted me to the following:
Prime Minister Tony Blair says the letter signed by minister Tom Watson and others calling on him to go was “discourteous and disloyal”.
This turn of events strikes me as both worrying and reassuring. Worrying for the obvious reason: Blair and his cohorts are clearly about as out of touch with the mood of the nation as it’s possible to be without simultaneously putting the case for political union with Belgium and slagging off princess Diana.
“Disloyal”? Well… yeah. That’s pretty much the whole point, isn’t it? A junior minister feels that the Prime Minister is no longer an asset to party, government or country; he believes all three are more deserving of his loyalty than an individual politician; ergo he tells him so, and resigns. Accusing Watson of disloyalty to Tony Blair is roughly akin to accusing the TUC of disloyalty to big business. When Blair says he’d have preferred a quiet private word, one can’t but help suspect our beloved PM has dismissed several dozen of those private words by now, on the grounds that they’re ‘unrepresentative’. The sense that only a public protest could make the point has become pretty much overwhelming.
It terrifies me that the man who, despite everything, is supposed to be leading our nation could be suffering from such an extreme case of bunker mentality that he genuinely believes the country is still behind him. Who knows what else he might believe? That running a large chocolate company could qualify you to educate children? That greater police powers will protect our freedom? That declaring war on a country could make it more peaceful?
Despite all that, Watson’s resignation also makes me feel hope. Watson, one of the first bloggers in parliament, managed to work in the government and yet retain something resembling independence of thought. When he accepted the whip job, the fear was not that he’d become just another self-promotion machine (he’s a blogger, for heaven’s sake, of course he’s a self-promotion machine); it was that Tom Watson the independent voice would vanish. But he didn’t. The abyss hasn’t looked back. The cynics were wrong.
I know, I know. I’m naive, I’ve watched too much West Wing, and Watson is almost certainly banking on a position in a Brown (?) administration. He’s not exactly a disinterested party here.
But he is a Blair loyalist who has just resigned over what looks suspiciously like a point of principle. I think that’s something worth applauding.
I’ve had Watson’s blog on my RSS list for a fair while now, and all he ever seemed to discuss was the West Brom line-up. Maybe he had an ‘independent voice’ before he took the whips job, but he seemed anything but radical since then.
Perhaps normal service will be resumed tomorrow, when he returns to the back-benches.
Tom’s already posted the letter and the reply on his blog. Heh… the man is pissed with Blair.
It seems to me that the longer a PM or a President is in power, the more tendency they have to be completely out of touch and be surrounded by people who do not reflect what is reality.
Though, saying that, this problem seems to have afflicted GW Bush from day one.
I agree however at the broad thrust of the article. There is only a niggly feeling that he knew all this was going to come to a head anyway, and that he’s better off throwing in the towel openly now so he could be part of the next adminstration.
Certainly, if I was an ambitious politician, it would be worth considering.
You can kind of see how it happens. Noone likes leaving something they see as their project in the hands of others – that sense can only be increased when you’re running a country and the ‘others’ in question are your arch rival and his cohorts.
I don’t think it’s that, as some have been saying, Blair is so messianic that he doesn’t think the country can go on without him, Thatcher style. But I do think he doesn’t think the Labour party can – he’s the man who saved those ungrateful wretches from political obscurity, dammit, can’t they see they’ll be straight back there without him?
Well, I guess if the rumours about Straw turn out to be true then we’ll find out whether he’s right.
I still respect Watson for what he did. His blog may have been shite of late, but I don’t really think you can blame him for that: I don’t think you have to be a government minister to think it’s best to keep some of the stuff you learn in your day job off the internet. Glad he’s back, though.
True that. You mention that he does have himself in interest but it’s still a noble thing to declare that your allegiance to a people, an idea, a nation, is greater than your allegiance to a powerful leader.
which particular rumours about straw do you mean?
The Straw-as-Howe ones.
A few different places have discussed the speculation that one of the big hitters is going to follow Watson and co.
Sunny made a plausible argument on Comment is Free that Straw’s the man to do it. I’ve heard whispers from friends in Westminster that he’s not a happy man.
And… well, you don’t have to look far to see that I’m not the only one to have heard that.
But he is a Blair loyalist who has just resigned over what looks suspiciously like a point of principle.
Heh – but don’t expect the Blairistas to entertain such a thought even for a moment. For them loyalty to the Supreme Leader is the basis of their political morality. Disloyalty to Blair is akin to apostacy for them.