Clarke: Labour 'destined for disaster'

Charles Clarke, former home secretary

Wednesday, 03, Sep 2008 05:36

Former home secretary Charles Clarke has launched a sweeping attack on prime minister Gordon Brown, saying Labour is destined for "disaster" if its continues on its present path.

While denying rumours of a Blairite plot against the prime minister, Mr Clarke used an interview with the New Statesman to describe a "deep and widely shared concern – which does not derive from ideology – that Labour is destined to disaster if we go on as we are, combined with a determination that we will not permit that to happen".

Mr Clarke urged Labour MPs to stop looking to the past and concentrate on their future.

"'Blairite' is a lazy and inaccurate shorthand," he wrote.

"It is intended not to illuminate but to diminish, marginalise and insult.

"This deceitful nonsense has to end. Everyone in Labour needs to stop obsessing about the past and start obsessing about the future."

Mr Clarke was forced to resign by Tony Blair after the foreign prisoners row, in which foreign convicts released from prison were allowed back on to the streets of Britain without being deported.

While maintaining irritation at the former prime minister for some time, Mr Clarke is known to be loyal to Mr Blair, and his wing of the party, and hostile to Gordon Brown.