Fighting like ferrets in a sack

Darling and Clarke under fire.

The fractures are starting to show in the Bruins’ government as his personal qualities and style come under the microscope, the micromanaging Prime Minister has come under fire from former Home Secretary Charles Clarke, and in turn it appears that Brown is briefing against Clarke. Similarly, Chancellor Alistair Darling is feeling the sharpened points of knives.

Clarke claims, in an interview in The Daily Mail that Brown is strangely tormented by the memory of Tony Blair, he also tears into “lightweight” Ministers, branding Jack Straw “extremely status-conscious . In another withering attack on Gordon Brown he warns of Labour’s aimlessness:

“We are conveying a sense of drift and uncertainty. Only Gordon can change this - if he is capable of doing so. Unfortunately, he hasn’t the confidence of the country because of the things he has done.

Gordon must stop being a ditherer. He lacks courage. He looks at his papers, dithers and isn’t sure.”

On Labour’s political prospects;

“We have 2½ years to an election and it’s unlikely that people will keep quiet much longer.”

Meanwhile The Sunday Times speculates that Chancellor Alistair Darling’s time could soon be up, and that he may be replaced by Brown ultra loyalist Ed Balls, and reveals that Darling was jeered at two city events last week in a demonstration that illustrates how much he is losing the confidence of the City.

One Labour MP close to No 10 said:

“People near to Brown are now talking openly about the need to move Alistair from the Treasury in a summer reshuffle.

“We spent 15 years slowly building trust with business and the City and Darling has managed to destroy that in a matter of months.”

The issue of a £30,000 charge on non-doms who have resided her for more than seven years is causing much of the heartache, with a sense that the Labour government is not nearly as keen on entrepreneurial skills as it publicly proclaims. Irish property developer Luke Comer, now resident in Monaco said;

“It does seem as if Labour wants to go back to the days of soak the rich…. People don’t realise that Britain was almost bankrupt before Margaret Thatcher came to power. Someone like Lester Piggott, the jockey, was risking his life every day and paying 98p in the pound in tax.

“With the government’s attitude they will drive people out of the system. I have made my living by the sweat of my brow. Labour have to realise that you can’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. Angela Merkel has a much healthier attitude. ”

Perhaps Phil Woolas should start taking an inward look at the inbred “defects” within Labour’s family before deciding which “elephant in the room” to shoot at!