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LONDON, Sept. 6 — Prime Minister Tony Blair sought to face down a revolt within his Labor party today as seven junior aides resigned to protest his refusal to quit.

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The spectacle of Mr. Blair fighting off such challenges, in such sharp contrast to the euphoria of his rise to power nine years ago, recalled the memory of Margaret Thatcher’s final days as her authority seeped away in 1990.

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And this is the hallmark of all representative systems. A leader is elected with all kinds of promises, hopes and aspirations regarding progressive change. Then a decade or so later the electorate and even the party faithful get fed up and turf the bastard out. All the while forgetting that this "bastard" was the darling of the people not that long ago.

Only to elect another leader will all kinds of promises, hopes and aspirations regarding progressive change....

power must really be a buzz for someone to cling on so fiercely, when everyone in the country knows exactly what humiliating end is coming:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1369608.ece

it's been Chretien/Martin II (or maybe I) for a long time now:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,1866494,00.html

The leftwing Labour MP John McDonnell yesterday described the events of the last few weeks as being like an episode from The Sopranos. The Blair-Brown feud has never reached the levels of blood-letting in the mafia television show but easily matches it in personal viciousness, paranoia, scheming and general pettiness.

The two-hour showdown at Downing Street has been a long time coming, dating back to the Granita pact in 1994, when the two men met at the north London restaurant to carve up the Labour leadership. That deal, far from a peace pact, created a dysfunctional relationship that has disfigured the government for a decade.

... and in the end, Gordon Brown gets to repeat the glorious trajectory of Prime Minister Paul Martin !!

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[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Geneva ]