The Hain Murphy Merry Go Round
They say never do the same job twice, but that obviously doesn't apply if you are a member of the Cabinet or a manager of Newcastle Utd. Peter Hain succeeded Paul Murphy here, and now Paul Murphy is succeeding Peter Hain in Wales, having already been Secretary of State for Wales once before.
A rumour did the rounds in Westminster that Shaun Woodward would be given the Welsh job on top of the Northern Ireland one, which would have looked like a move towards a department of the regions. But that proved erroneous.
If the logic of this merry go round reshuffle is to be sustained you might think that whenever Mr Woodward is moved his job should return to a resurrected Peter Hain. But then, in contrast to Peter Hain, Paul Murphy has always been regarded as the ultimate safe pair of hands. Peter Mandelson got a reprieve from Tony Blair, but Peter Hain will have to work his passage, and answer all the Met's questions to their satisfaction, before he can start dreaming of a return to the front bench.
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I'm surprised the PM didnt take the 'opportunity' to shake-up the whole system of representation in cabinet of the devolved nations. A single devolved minister would make much more sense based on the ever dwindling amount of responsibility each secretary of state has and also the relatively little parliamentary time each sec of state is currently required for.
However, if combining three offices into one would mean less bureaucracy then the PM probably didnt even contemplate it in the first place!
Peter Hain should never have stayed in his job from the day it was made known he had made a major blunder. Ok I accept that he has gone from blunder to blunder but whenever he fails to declare £103,000 he has to go. How can Gordon Brown justify his support of Hain? Eventually the right thing has happened. Why is it politicians only resign whenever the law is involved?
The labour party stink of sleaze. Harriett Harman is also under a cloud after accepting donations. Alastair Darling is pushing this country into a recession and nobody is stopping him. Petrol again is going to be on the up. Why don’t we all just work for nothing and have done with it?
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Regards doing away with the position of Secretary of State for NI, Scotland and Wales, before 1972 we had a "Govenor of Northern Ireland" (which seemed to me a far more colonial position than Lord Lieutenant of Ireland!) - so merging all three into one would be the first time there hasn't been a direct Westminster appointed representative in some shape or form in Ireland for some considerable time (and this coming from a Unionist!). So it'll be interesting how this pans out...