Situations Vacant

I never thought that anyone could hate the Labour Party even more than Tony Blair does. But clearly, Gordon Brown manages to do this remarkable thing. Which is to say that he hates the Labour Party more than anyone else who has ever lived.

A decade or so ago, there was a fashion for saying that if Blair had indicated his intention to do this, that or the other, then he would never have won the Labour Leadership. None of these claims was ever credible. By contrast, imagine if Brown had said that he was going to offer Ministerial office to the Lib Dems. Is it conceivable that he would even have made it onto the ballot at all, never mind that he might actually have won, and that unopposed?

Based on his latest television interview, Brown is still adamant that he is going to have non-Labour Ministers. Since they cannot now be Lib Dems, then they must be Tories. So any Labour Party member appointed to office by Brown should know himself or herself to be, and should be reminded constantly of his or her being, at best the third choice, after both the Lib Dem whom Gordon really wanted and the Tory for whom he would have been willing to settle.

Well might we all wonder what self-respecting person would accept office under those circumstances. None, by definition, I submit: anyone who so accepts manifests an utter lack of self-respect, and richly deserves to have this pointed out at every opportunity. But then, well might we all wonder how a man who thought Paddy Ashdown Cabinet material could ever become Prime Minister in the first place. Of course, his error was to offer the erstwhile Emperor of Bosnia something insufficiently grand.

As to who will now become Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I am thinking of opening a book, and of offering even odds on David Trimble, with an outside bet on Brian Mawhinney, of whom younger readers will never have heard. In the meantime, everyone reading this who is not a member of the Labour Party should submit a Letter of Application and a CV via the "Get In Touch" page at http://www.gordonbrownforbritain.com.

But remember, no Labour Party member need apply: despite what are now this position's very light duties (the current occupant is actually part-time), your Leader-To-Be regards each and every one of you, without any exception whatever, as utterly unfit.