Liam Byrne: I’m afraid there is no money.’ The letter I will regret for ever

[LeftishBrit]

I am so sorry. David Cameron’s daily flourish of my leaving note at the Treasury helped hurt the party I love. And offered sheer offence to so many of the people we want the chance to serve. Party members ask me: “What on earth were you thinking?” But members of the public ask: “How could you do something so crass? And so bloody offensive?”

I’ve asked myself that question every day for five years and believe me, every day I have burnt with the shame of it. Nowhere more than when standing on doorsteps with good comrades, listening to voters demanding to know what I thought I was playing at. It was always excruciating...


Those negotiations were tough and bruising. And so in my final hours of office, I was writing thank-you notes to my incredible team of civil servants. And then I thought I’d write one letter more to my successor. Into my head came the phrase I’d used to negotiate all those massive savings with my colleagues: “I’m afraid there is no money.” I knew my successor’s job was tough. I guess I wanted to offer them a friendly word on their first day in one of government’s hardest jobs by honouring an old tradition that stretched back to Churchill in the 1930s and the Tory chancellor Reginald Maudling, who bounced down the steps of the Treasury in 1964 to tell Jim Callaghan: “Sorry to leave it in such a mess, old cock.”

Yet “the note” was not just stupid. It was offensive. That’s why it has made so many people so angry. And that why it was so wrong to write...


(More at link):

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/09/liam-byrne-apology-letter-there-is-no-money-labour-general-election?CMP=fb_gu


Well, it's about 5 years too late for an apology, Liam - though even if you'd made it a couple of weeks ago it might have made some difference; but at least I'm glad you have SOME sense of shame.

[happynewyear]

1. Its all been spent

by the 1%!

[Ken Burch]

2. Even more reason why the Blairite claim that Labour lost for being "too left-wing"

is absolute rubbish.

Why did he say nothing at all DURING the campaign?

Then again, why didn't David Miliband fly home, join Ed on a Labour podium. and denounce the "Ed stabbed his brother in the back" slur(which the Tories were spreading all over social media in the run-up to polling day)?

It looks more and more like the Blairites ran an internal sabotage campaign against Ed, and that Byrne and David were in on it.

[non sociopath skin]

3. An act of supreme stupidity even by Byrne's standards.

Of course, the people who took it seriously aren't much better.

The Skin