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Talk about Newsnight

Paul Mason's Idle Scrawl

Yes, Hilary Benn will stand for deputy

  • Paul Mason
  • 27 Oct 06, 07:37 PM

As you read here first two days ago, Hilary Benn MP is to stand for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. He will apparently announce it tonight at his constituency party meeting. It is nice to be right - and I am glad the rest of the media is catching up: the Scrawl may be Idle but he is not very often wrong :)

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THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT FROM GLOBAL WARMING

One interesting prospect, resulting from the increasing prominence of global warming on the political agenda, is who will benefit. In the US it is possible that Al Gore may be better placed as the Democratic front-runner than he has been for years. In 2000 he was criticized for lacking charisma. Now, with his film career blossoming (historically not a bad career move for great US politicians) and accordingly had a charisma transplant, perhaps he should ask Hilary Clinton to join his dream ticket. They would be well placed for him to win the Presidency, as well as the popular vote (which of course he already did in 2000), the second time around; as did Richard Nixon – though hopefully Al Gore would better live up to the subsequent challenges.

In the UK the surprise beneficiary may be David Milliband, already the leading dark-horse contender. As Minister for the Environment, he is ideally placed to lock horns with Brown; and gain the massive publicity needed to catapult him to be a real contender. At 40:1 in the betting, I for one have placed some money on him!

  • 2.
  • At 04:38 PM on 30 Oct 2006,
  • Flyingbolt wrote:

Three days before the first item has been posted here - and then not a single mention of Hilary Benn. Are his political ambitions really of such underwhelming interest to the nation? I suppose so; his own father hasn't bothered to leave a message either.

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