MR MAJOR'S BASTARDS

Just in case some of the politicos out there have forgotten. Harmony in politics is not always so, when one side of the party want one thing and another side of the party another.

The snippet below was taken from this article

In the Number Ten tape he is remarkably frank, discussing the options which faced him when he knew he was going to lose last Thursday's first Maastricht vote. Most damaging of all, he implies that he would like to sack his rightwing Cabinet colleagues, but fears the political storm he would have to face.

The tape shows Mr Brunson (whose voice is less clear, presumably because his microphone was either detached or switched off) sympathising with Mr Major over his difficulties.

Mr Major comes through more clearly: "The real problem is one of a tiny majority. Don't overlook that. I could have all these clever, decisive things which people wanted me to do but I would have split the Conservative party into smithereens. And you would have said I had acted like a ham-fisted leader."

Mr Brunson raises the problem of the three rebel cabinet ministers who threatened resignation if Mr Major agreed to the social chapter in order to secure ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. "I'd better not mention them in this room," he says, but they are believed to be Mr Howard, Mr Lilley and Mr Portillo. Why, Mr Brunson asks, should he not simply sack them?

Mr Major: "Just think it through from my perspective. You are the prime minister, with a majority of 18, a party that is still harking back to a golden age that never was, and is now invented (clearly a reference to the time of Mrs Thatcher's leadership). You have three rightwing members of the Cabinet who actually resign. What happens in the parliamentary party?"

Mr Brunson observes that Tory MPs would create a lot of fuss, but that Mr Major is prime minister. He could easily find three new cabinet members.

Mr Major then bares his soul. "I could bring in other people. But where do you think most of this poison is coming from? From the dispossessed and the never-possessed. You can think of ex-ministers who are going around causing all sorts of trouble.

"We don't want another three more of the bastards out there. What's Lyndon Johnson's maxim?..."

At this point someone, presumably an ITN technician, realised what was happening and pulled the plug. "Johnson's maxim" was his reference to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, whom he declined to sack on the basis that "it's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in".

The Number Ten tape demonstrates that Mr Major also fears rightwingers could gain a standard bearer who might challenge him for the leadership if he were to get rid of them from his cabinet

VOTE BNP AND GET THE BASTARDS OUT

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