Revealing words
- 18 Apr 07, 03:37 PM
Words can be terribly revealing particularly when uttered by someone like Tony Blair who's so careful and so skilled at deploying them.
Today at PMQs David Cameron picked up that David Miliband would not try to follow Tony Blair as Labour leader. "Will the PM now explicitly endorse the chancellor?" Cameron enquired. To which our departing leader replied "I will make my decision, (pause), I will make my statement at the time I decide to stand down". Decision, heh? So perhaps he's not yet made up his mind.
Lest you think this is the crazy petty fogging semantics I draw your attention to his answer to me at yesterday's news conference when I asked him for his advice to Mr Miliband. I don't give advice, he replied after a long pause, to someone "in that situation".
What could he have meant? I'll tell you. He meant the situation of someone agonising about whether to run.
There is, you see, a Miliband campaign waiting to roll. There is, as I reported yesterday, no Miliband to lead it.
PS You may have thought that yesterday's interview with the environment secretary left him "wiggle room" to announce he'd run at a later date. It did but at the moment I do not believe he'll exploit that wiggle room and neither do many of those who dearly wish he'd change his mind.
PPS I'm writing this on Blackpool Pier. I've come to sample the mood ahead of the local elections.
