Peter Watt has been all over the news lately with his book "Inside Out" about his time as Gen Sec of the Labour Party.
One of his revelations is about the "Election that never was" when Brown became known as The Bottler for calling off a snap election, he said at the time that he never intended to call an election at that time. Watt now claims that the Labour Party spent £1.5m in the 2 weeks before and had a fleet of limousines waiting to whisk ministers off on electioneering duty.
Keith posted about this at the time but here is a little reminder of those events.
As Cllr Steve Bedser was unsure if he would be back from Bournemouth in time, Keith was asked to chair a meeting of the MG/Rover Consultative Group. Just before the meeting started in bounded Steve and Richard Burden MP both with big grins on their faces looking like 2 young Labradors let off the leash after a period of confinement. Steve gleefully enquired if I had paid for a full week at Blackpool, the venue for the Conservative Conference, as I would be wasting my money and would have to return for the General Election. They were absolutely certain that there would be an election and no doubt everyone who had been at their conference would have been just as certain, only for that certainty to be dashed by "Bottler Brown". How galling for them all to see the polling figures today and think back to those halcyon days before we all came to know Mr. Brown so well.
Incidentally Mr. Bedser has now decamped to Kings Norton for the local elections in May. Perhaps he doesn't fancy going up against Sue this time after Ken defeated him in 2008.
