By Paul Goodman MP
So we have what the lobby is bound to label “the snowstorm plot” – or something like it. But are Hoon and Hewitt a conspiracy of two, or are they part of a wider, carefully-choreographed manoeuvre?
One suggestion at the Commons is that Hoon was promised the elusive EU Commissioner post which went not to him, nor even to Mandelson, but to Baroness Ashton. It’s one that the Labour Whips are sure not to minimise.
Hewitt is more interesting, in her way. Her father was Sir Lenox Hewitt, a former senior Australian civil servant and later Chairman of Quantas. He was apparently on extremely friendly terms with the late Otto Clarke, a former Second Permanent Secretary at the Treasury and Permanent Secretary of the Minister for Aviation, and father of…Charles Clarke. This is one of the origins of the Hewitt-Clarke connection.
Readers will need little reminding that Clarke isn’t Brown’s greatest fan. It’s unlikely, to say the least, that Clarke and Hewitt won’t have exchanged New Year greetings. Inevitably, a question in the corridors is whether a Minister, or more than one, or a Cabinet Minister (or more than one), will quit later today, perhaps in time for the Six O’Clock news?
Without resignations, it’s quite difficult to see the lever that would force Brown out. Some will argue that a new Labour leader would be better for us; others the opposite. What’s certain is that a general election now would be best for the country. Oh, and don’t forget: the voters didn’t get the chance to validate this Prime Minister in the first place.
P.S. Hewitt’s just said on Sky that she’s prepared to call for a secret leadership ballot… but not to say how she’d vote in that ballot. Risible.
