Short:arse

How the hell can anyone take Clare Short seriously? This preposterous figure, who shed her "left-wing" pretentions just as soon as Blair gained the leadership of the Labour Party in 1993, and who sat mute in Blair's cabinet for six years, now cliams that she is "ashamed of the government" and wants to see a hung parliament - ie; Labour MP's in marginal seats losing to Tories or Lib Dems.

Blair came out as a Thatcherite long before he offered you a seat in the cabinet, Clare! And I note that, in the "Independent" of 14th September 2006, you refer to "the New Labour C0up" - the kind of language that a lot of us on the left were using at the time when you were backing Blair's attacks and witch-hunts against the left.

The fact that you have now - belatedly and in reaction to the Blair spin-machine's personal attacks upon you - come out against Blair and his government (in particular, his foreign policy), is not to your credit. Nor is the fact that you are now calling for the defaet of Labour at the next election: it just makes you look pathetic and stupid. Just as your appearances on platforms organised by the SWP and the "Stop the War Coalition" calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq reveal you -as a supporter of the declaration of war - as someone who cares not a jot for the well-being of the Iraqi people, but merely as a craven opportunist who seeks to use the Iraq war for domestic advantage. Short, you are now so eactionary, nationalist and debased that I wouldn't even rule out your supporting "Respect" at the next general election. After all, you already appear on the "Stop the War Coalition" platform, which is -in effect- a "Respect" platform. If they can tolerate you (as an ex-war monger) and you can tolerate them (as friends of misogynistic fascists in Iraq, Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan)...then you people are obviously made for each other: as anti-working class scum.