Are Charles Clarke's attacks on Tony Blair and John Reid a Geoffrey Howe moment? Is this the equivalent of the pro-Europe Tory minister resigning and saying to the party that the anti-Europe Mrs Thatcher had to go?
No, was the general consensus (and the full argument is set out by Michael White in his blog this morning).
Although the former home secretary gave a series of interviews (to this paper, the Times, Radio 4 and Newsnight) this was more a personal message to the PM and to commentators and historians in an attempt to vindicate his stewardship at the Home Office. He has been hurt by John Reid's red-top populism and for blaming him for leaving a department "not fit for purpose". He also feels that Tony Blair made a mistake in sacking him and not handing him the prize of the Foreign Office. But this is an embittered attack from a man who was not a great home secretary. It might be the first significant Blairite split but it is not ideological in the way the Geoffrey Howe and Margaret Thatcher split was.
He knows his remarks will damage Tony Blair --the prime minister's chances of staying on are probably less now than they were a week ago -- and it shows just how disconnected the PM is from the Labour party. What do backbenchers feel? However, Blair is actively fighting to stay on, otherwise why would he have embarked on a series of major policy speeches last week and again this week?
This has more of the feel of a party leadership that has lost its nerve and is having a public psychological breakdown -- it is emotional rather than ideological; about psychology more than policy. If that wasn't a problem for Labour before it certainly is now.
It is a strange process whereby party bosses want to win the next election but don't appear too sure anymore how to do it or who might lead it. The answer for many is Gordon Brown but this shows that, in the centre of the Blairite camp, that prospect still causes deep unease.
Big conversation at the BBC A welcome to the editors' blog club for the BBC, which launched a new interactive site yesterday entitled The Editors. It is, according to Helen Boaden, director of BBC News, "a new blog written by editors from across the range of BBC News outlets -- TV, radio and interactive -- about their issues, dilemmas, and highs (and lows) they face in doing their jobs." You can see it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/.
