Miliband, Johnson bidding to take over Labour leadership
Gordon Brown has yet to resign as Prime Minister of Britain. Yet prospective successors seemingly have already begun lining up to replace him.
David Miliband, Brown's Foreign Secretary, is being described as a likely successor.
Likewise for Alan Johnson, who insists that he has no ambition to replace Brown as Prime Minister, but is willing to run for the party leadership should David Cameron assume the office of Prime Minister.
"The Prime Minister has to be either David Cameron or Gordon Brown," Johnson announced. "I don't see any scenario where the Liberal Democrats could demand that Gordon Brown stands down."
For Johnson, new leadership in exchange for a deal to form the government -- as some speculation has held -- is out of the question.
"They are not in a strong enough position to dictate who the leader should be."
"I think the public would scratch their heads after watching Brown, Cameron and Clegg in the TV debates and then got someone completely different as Prime Minister," he continued. "That wouldn't work."
Of course, whether or not Gordon Brown steps down as Labour leader will be up to him. But if Brown does decide to step down -- or is turfed by his party -- British bookies have Miliband as the favourite to succeed him.
What will Cameron negotiate away to get the Lib-Democrat support?
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the coalition problem we had in November 2008. Should be fun, let's see how much Clegg demands for his cooperation.
Cameron will likely have to give up some of his austerity plans -- the Tories had planned to cut six billion pounds sterling from the national budget. Likewise, Cameron will have to find a way to re-structure public taxation, and hold a referendum on electoral reform -- most likely on proportional representation.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that Cameron will have to settle for 4 billion pounds of budget cuts. The referendum is as much a gamble as anything else -- Britons may reject it, just as Canadians have rejected a variety of PR schemes.