Cabinet reshuffle - so many missed opportunities

[chickenfeet]

Missed opportunity 1: Ruth Kelly to Northern Ireland - "Home rule is Rome rule"

Missed opportunity 2: Peter Hain to the Foreign Office - wait for the speech on why the government can't stop cricket teams going to Zimbabwe

Missed opportunity 3: Mike Gapes to DEFRA - OK you have to know Gapes to find this funny

Seriously though, a severe case of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. There is plenty of talent in the PLP that is going to waste because it doesn't coincide with the one quality required of a minister in Blair's government; utter servility. Oddly enough, even after all this time there are Labour MPs who don't equate the national interest with blind obedience to King Tone.

Comments

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

MO 1 and 2 - excellent!

I had to look Gapes up - I hadn't even heard of him before.

Spooky co-incidence: Former Health Secretary Frank Dobson said a reshuffle would be like "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic". - Quotation from BBC.co.uk (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4975938.stm)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I had to look Gapes up

I knew him well many years ago. He's the least rural person imaginable (besides being formerly of distinctly Stalinist tendencies).

[jen-c-w.livejournal.com]

he's a funny man. He's MP for my old neighbouring constituency, and you used to have him and a wholly ineffectual but utterly Tory tory together.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Plus, the Scots have increased their control of the Cabinet - Industry, Transport, Defence, the Home Office (again, Reid is in charge of a department that largely has no impact in his constituency), and - oh yeah - the Treasury.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

No big surprise. London has been the happy hunting ground for Scots on the make since 1603.

Don't forget that Blair himself is a product of the Edinburgh Bastille.