We Need Miliband - but with a Bit More Guts ; Cabinet Plotters Are Circling the Pm, with the Foreign Secretary Coming Out in Pole Position Today. But Would-Be Successors Must Deliver a Real Alternative If They Are to Save Labour

Evening Standard - London › July 30, 2008

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Summary

DURING the latter stages of his tenure, John Major felt so insecure that on weekends at home in Huntingdon, it is said he was prone to looking at Ceefax on the television to see who was plotting against him.

Technology may have moved on, but Gordon Brown is similarly exercised by the headlines. So much so that last Saturday night, he was so enraged by talk of a coup against him that he told his aides to call Jack Straw and order him to pledge his loyalty.

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We Need Miliband - but with a Bit More Guts ; Cabinet Plotters Are Circling the Pm, with the Foreign Secretary Coming Out in Pole Position Today. But Would-Be Successors Must Deliver a Real Alternative If They Are to Save Labour

The Justice Secretary was first spotted as a young man by Barbara Castle. The Labour veteran hired him as an adviser in 1974 because she appreciated his "guile and low cunning". It comes, therefore, as little surprise that one of the great survivors of British politics is in the thick of it again. Straw led Tony Blai...

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