Annie Get Your Gun

‘NO matter how little happens, how much remains in a state of impoverished decay, Tony Blair raises his hands up and points to tomorrow when everything will be just groovy and cool.

Spin on this

You imagine our Tone walking into the Hutton Inquiry with the sounds of little Orphan Annie in his head: “When I’m stuck with a day that’s grey and lonely, I just stick out my chin and grin, and say, ‘Oh, the sun’ll come out tomorrow…’”

And tomorrow is a brave new dawn when, as the Independent says, Tone will announce plans to end the culture of spin and stave off accusations that he is too presidential – a “one-man band” – by giving back powers to Cabinet ministers.

A Downing Street aide tells the paper what we can expect tomorrow.

“He [Tone] now accepts that his relationship with his Cabinet is more important than he realised. He acknowledges that he has not invested as much time with ministers as he should.”

In other words, he’s up to his neck in the brown stuff and he wants his team to protect him.

And that’s a cue for his old mucker (or muckraker) Peter Mandelson to mastermind this new Government strategy, where blame is shared equally between all the Cabinet members, although Tony, as we know, will take full responsibility.

The Telegraph seizes on the re-emergence of the man who is credited with being “the inventor of the Labour spin machine” with the headline: “Mandelson to direct Labour spin.”

But no spin is the new spin, which surely means that Mandelson will direct nothing. In essence, he will do nothing.

Although Tony will take full responsibility should nothing turn into something…’

Posted: 1st, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink