Of all the blunders made by Gordon Brown and his henchmen, few were as easily avoidable as that which led to Caroline Flint’s resignation. Equally, few do more to illuminate a simple, but vital truth: Gordon Brown just isn’t very good at politics.
Flint might have been a troublesome minister and far too close to Hazel Blears for her own good, but so what? And, sure, perhaps she was being presumptious when she asked for a better job as the price for her loyalty and willingness to make a fool of herself by defending the beleaguered Prime Minister in public. But, again, so what? There are plenty of jobs avaialable and, let’s face it, not too many even semi-plausible candidates to fill them (Hello, Mrs Kinnock!). It would have been easy to keep Flint happy.
But no, because she had the wrong sort of friends or because she was getting ideas above her station or because she had, somehow or other, questioned the Great Gordo’s authority Flint had to be punished.
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