Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Dear Gordon Brown,
Well, well, well.  You’ve certainly livened things up a bit, haven’t you.  In one of the most cynical moves of this entire post-election period, you have thrown yourself on your sword (at least, that’s what you want us to think) in an attempt to outflank the Conservatives.  While this will definitely have put [...]

 
From the Telegraph:
Labour’s general election campaign is in crisis amid damaging rows between senior cabinet ministers and a new poll showing support for the party dropping to a six-month low.  In one particularly bad-tempered incident, Lord Mandelson ordered Harriet Harman, the party’s deputy leader, to “shut up” and told her he did not want to [...]

Dear Gordon Brown,
It wasn’t long after Kraft’s audacious takeover bid for Cadbury got the green light that the unions starting stomping their feet about potential job losses.  The deal ends more than more than 150 years of independence for the maker of Dairy Milk, which will now be subsumed within the world’s second-biggest food company.  [...]

“Lord Mandelson remains crucial to the fate of Labour – but his allegiance, as he argued yesterday, and has done for months, is to New Labour, not Old. Everything he does now is aimed at protecting the political project he nurtured into being. His sole aim is to ensure that New Labour is able to [...]

Dear readers,
Today your task is to decide which leader is in the biggest mess.  You get a choice of three!
1. Gordon Brown: As we all know, Geoff Hoon, the former Defence Secretary, and Patricia Hewitt, the former Health Secretary, have written to all Labour MPs calling for the leadership issue to be sorted out “once and for all” [...]

Dear Peter Mandelson,
As we approach Christmas, there is plenty to be happy about – not least having a few days off work and reading about more Labour infighting in the press.  Rumours are flying around yet again, not only about whether Brown will survive until the election but whether you will survive as well.
First we had signs [...]

“Afterwards they would say that nothing so became his leadership as the leaving of it. He would become something of a hero. The British detest their politicians until they are powerless, when the most unexpected previous figures of fun and hate turn overnight into national treasures. So it would be with Gordon Brown: the man [...]

Meet Jack Dromey.  He is the deputy general secretary of the Unite union and is “very likely” to be chosen as Labour’s candidate for Leyton and Wanstead according to senior party sources.  He is also Harriet Harman’s husband.  Let’s take a quick look at this:

The constituency has a Labour majority of 6,857 over the Liberal Democrats, [...]

Dear Brian Cowen,
I don’t know whether you have had time to watch what’s been happening in Westminster over the past couple of weeks as Gordon Brown’s government descends into chaos.  To be fair, being Irish Prime Minister has probably been just as bad, from what I’ve been reading, but there are a number of interesting parallels [...]

“Labour MPs despair of Gordon Brown. They recognise that he is leading his party to something like annihilation at the next election. They know that no party leader can realistically recover from the blows he has sustained over the past few weeks, and they know that if Gordon remains in office, his last months will [...]

Dear readers,
Yet again, this Labour meltdown produces correspondence that tops anything I can produce on this blog.  The Mail on Sunday has published emails sent by Peter Mandelson to Derek Draper last year before Mandy returned to the Cabinet, explaining what he really thinks about Gordon Brown.  Sit back and enjoy the article….
“Peter Mandelson’s claim [...]

Dear Gordon,
We both love the Labour party. I have worked for it for 20 years and you for far longer. We know we owe it everything and it owes us nothing.
I owe it to our party to say what I believe no matter how hard that may be. I now believe your continued leadership makes [...]

Hazel Blears’s article in the Observer this morning:
“When Gordon Brown leads Labour into the next general election, our campaign must rest on three pillars: we need to fight on a platform of practical policy, not personalities; once we have a solid offer, we need to sell it in plain words, directly to the voters; and [...]

Ruth Kelly said: “It’s been a tremendous privilege to have worked with both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, two towering figures in the Labour Party, government and on the world stage. But, as well as a frontline politician, I’m also proud to be a mother and a wife. To have been able to hold these [...]

Dear David Miliband,
You just don’t stop, do you.  After the PR catastrophe of your article in the Guardian a while back, I would have thought that you’d play it safe and praise Gordon Brown to the heavens in your speech to the Labour Party conference yesterday.  I was wrong.  You had planted so many covert [...]

Dear Jackie Ashley,
It seems that as the cooler autumn temperatures set in, a nasty bug is going round Labour voters to the point where they are all having the same mild delusions about Gordon Brown suddenly not being as incompetent as he was a week ago.  In your article for the Guardian this morning, you [...]

A dozen MPs have asked for leadership nomination papers.
Junior whip Siobhain McDonagh was fired after saying she wanted a debate on the leadership of the Labour Party to be out in the open.
Six Labour ex-ministers have signed an article in Progress Magazine calling for a “new narrative” from Labour which “has to be more than a [...]

Dear David Miliband,
In contrast to the criticism that Jack Straw has received over the past few days for being decidely sluggish in his defence of the Prime Minister, your antics have gone largely unnoticed.  Your silence was equally deafening, and now we know why – you’re moving within striking distance of Brown as you can [...]