Nice One!

lol for the strapline!

Dear Tom,

Chin up.

Chris

Think. A protest like this can only achieve two things - to retrench the leader, as to submit to your demand would show only weakness and encourage dissent in future, and to feed the media frenzy, making the business of government ever harder, and the prospect of an ignominious resignation and humiliation of the leader more likely.

So, you're either massively disingenuous in your letter to Blair, wishing him a humiliating end, OR you're astonishingly naive, OR you're far too concerned about your own precious morals to be the slightest bit worried about the Party and the country.

Not a good list of options. I fear that you will not look back on this episode with a great deal of pride.

Now, does this mean the blog might get interesting again? Here's hoping.

Well done Tom, and well said. Here's hoping your party can sort itself out in time for the next election so there's a real contest.

Having read your letter I have to ask if I've got this right?

You think Tony's done a great job.
You agree with his policies.
you are loyal to him.

Then you say "I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country. How and why this situation has arisen no longer matters.'

sorry, but it does matter. Why did you resign? It doesn't seem to be for ideological or personal reasons, so why?

i'm an idiot, please spell it out for me.

A good letter Tom. It shouldn't have come to this, but when your time is up you need to recognise that it is time to go. Sadly, there is little about the PM at the moment which makes you think he truly understands the state of the country and - in particular - how many see his leadership.

You'll be back :-)

So, Tom, where in his letter does our Tone say he was going to sack you anyway? He says you did a good job so could this have been a case of unfair dismissal?
I'm sorry he's going to get away with it. He should be in court really.
Well done for standing up to be counted.

I work in the public sector and spent the first half of my career under the last lot. Like you, I am proud of (most of) what the Labour government has achieved since 1997. However, I do not think that your action today is the best way to preserve those gains. Gordon Brown, I am afraid, is unelectable as PM. If you want any proof, perhaps you should read today's "Sun Says".

Well, I agree with Tony. You'll have the rest of your life to regret your mistake.

Tom, I admired your integrity today. You did the right thing and I support you for it.

Do you mind if I have one minor gripe? I'm not one of your citizens, I am a subject of the queen. This is probably one of the areas your government has gone wrong, in forgetting that it works for us.

"There is no fundamental ideological divide in the Labour Party for the first time in 100 years oif history".

Really? I see plenty.

But that's all by the by. Blair should have gone when it became clear that he had either lied or been disastrously incompetent on Iraq. The fact that he didn't go is a testament to his own self-regard. It's also a sad indictment of the parliamentary Labour party and their willingness to put popularity before principles.

I support your resignation, Tom, but I wish you and others had acted when it really mattered. Labour renewal? I'd like to see it, but I'm not sure that it's possible now. Blairism - the unwavering focus on spin, popularity, and short-term solutions to the exclusion of all else - is already endemic. The Tories have it too.

Bonjour de France
I do not agree Tony on Irak and compromission with US International polcy. But I think that it is a little stupid to create such a mess few mounth after an election. Can't you find an agreement, in order to redistibute the power inside the gov?
The world needs stability these times.

Hey Tom - excellent move, and great to see from the title of this post that you're not taking it too seriously!

It's a no-brainer in my view, and I'm surprised that someone didn't do it sooner. With Blair's public popularity hemorrhaging, the press baying for blood, and a new man who hates our Tone heading for No 10 it's obvious that any carrer politician with future job prospects in mind should be the first to leave the sinking ship. Well done!

Let's just hope that Brown wins the leadership election - seems pretty safe, but you never can tell. If someone like Alan Johnson got the job I guess this might not be such a great idea!

Dear Tom,

As a loyal party member with 19 years of campaigning under my belt I would like to commend you on the actions that you have taken. I too have been wrestling with my conscience for the last few weeks over how, as someone who has loyally supported our party and its leader for many years feels to believe that we now need clarification as to when he will retire from office. We cannot move forward with our reforms and new policies if they are constantly overshadowed by the future of the premiership. It is neither good for the party or for the country as a whole.

No doubt lesser MP's will criticise you for your actions and fall in line behind the Prime Minister but you have said succintly what many people in this country and within the party, not just the usual suspects but those of us who have remained loyal to our leader over the years now believe.

Tom,

I salute you in your decision to remain a signatory of the letter after pressure from the Whips office.
The Labour party has far more to offer than any other political party to the ordinary working people of this country, and your action has hopefully ensured that come the next election, Labour will remain in Government for a long time to come.
Thank you.

poons

You've got balls, and you've done the people of Britain proud. Blair doesn't have to become another Thatcher.

Now that's what I call a blogging MP. Why don't the others have your sense of humour? Apart from the fact that they are scumsucking, po-faced thieves, I mean.

Best of luck to you Tom.

Hi Tom,
I think it's been years since I've read your blog, should really have looked at it before now, but after seeing your lovely piccie on the news I thought I'd better have another looksie to see how you were doing... it's certainly been an interesting day!

Thanks for taking a stand on this issue. The country has been patiently waiting for the succession for years now, and I'm no longer certain that any Prime Minister is capable of knowing when their time has come. Tony has certainly held on long enough that the succession isn't going to be smooth, but hopefully his actions are only really damaging his reputation.

Good luck for your future, I'm sure it will be fab!
EmmaGx

Dear Tom,

What are you and the rest of the PLP thinking? Do you think it's fun for us, the footsoldiers of the Labour Party to do street stalls or canvassing when the party is disintegrating? Read the polling data, when the Leadership was out of the news, we were still polling mid thirties, now we are flatlining on 31%, meanwhile the Tories have the 40% they will need to form a government at the next election. Why is the PLP so incapable of pulling together and giving Tony Blair the decent sendoff he deserves, and making a fresh start under a new leader? Like the Pakistan Cricket team the other day, you seem intent on pressing the self destruct button when it looks ike you are winning.

The only person who benefits from bad headlines is David Cameron, and do you really want a politically bankrupt morally spineless flipflopper to make your scottish colleagues second class MPs, and for policy to be "growth shared between tax cuts and public services" one day, and flat rate income taxes the next? Bringing down the Government will only let this man in, because if Blair is forced to leave, it will split the party, and split parties dont win elections.

Please think about us on the streets, as we have to defend your actions.

Arjun

The labour party is tearing itself apart at the moment and it is really sad to see. Whilst I will not be voting labour this time round (i believe that it needs a period in opposition), I believe that the Prime Ministers comments are correct. The impatience of some is leading to the downfall of the party.

I think you did the honourable thing by resigning - Ministers and MP's should stick by what they believe, but on this occasion I think that your cause was misjudged.

I hope you have the guts to post this comment. I, as a long standing Labour party member, think you and your colleagues' behaviour was not only disloyal in the extreme, but was incredibly stupid politically.

Any sensible person knows that a Labour party divided is much more catastrophic for the Labour government in the long term than Blair staying on for a few more months. To think otherwise is to totally ignore the lessons of history. It also totally misses the point that for Brown to takeover just before mid term elections would severely risk complete meltdown for his leadership, if those elections were to go badly as most people suspect they would do. How can you not have known this?

I don't know what you thought you were doing by deciding you had the political intelligence to decide what was best for the future of the Labour party as a whole, but I can assure you, you certainly do not speak for me. You have let Blair down, the party down, and me down. If you had any honour you recognise your mistake and urge your fellow backstabbers to call it off and admit your folly.

Don't underestimate the seriousness of your error; the Tories were crippled for many years after civil war broke out in their party; you have now launched a campaign that could well have the same devastating consequences.

apologies, sure you did what you thought best.......

As an activist and former CLP vice-chair, I am appalled by the behaviour of Tom Watson and his fellow conspirators. What on earth do you hope to achieve by this childish and short-sighted behaviour? The only beneficiary is the Tory party. "Ample time" was promised and a "smooth transition" sought by all wings of the Party. What you and your group have done has smashed that consensus to smithereens and made us look foolish and inept in the eyes of the electorate. And to what profit? You might concievably get Tony out a few weeks earlier than otherwise might have been the case but that's all. I've no doubt that when Gordon gets into number 10 he will be an excellent PM and I shall support him all the way. But I only hope that he will have the good sense never to give positions in government to either you or your co-consipators who have behaved with huge naivety and ingratitude, not to say treachery. This whole sorry episoide has inflicted huge damage on the image of the party and a previously difficult campaign for a fourth term now looks all but impossible. I hope you are proud of yourself you stupid, stupid, stupid man.

You're destroying your own party and in doing so making it less likely Labour will be re-elected at the next election.

Well done for the gumption, honesty and openness, Tom. Hope you're not too rocked by the storm right now.

Good work, Tom. I'm sure your place in heaven is secured at Gordon's right hand.

Dan

Sorry. But what you have done is very underhanded. If you didn't support Tony Blair, why take a cabinet position? Why try and belittle your party for the one horse race to the leadership that no one wants to see. Many have been accused of brown nosing Blair, but now it seems you Brown nosing Brown, in order to get a cabinet position. I can only hope that Brown doesn't get into the cabinet, and this coup de etat falls flat on its face, and you do whats right by your constituents and resign your position as their Member of Parliament.

Congratulations. You have just lost the Labour Party the next General Election. You and your party have forgotten that it takes discipline, focus and unity to win an election. The new intake of MP's have never experienced Opposition, and I suspect that you and the rest of the rebels will be rewarded by losing your seats in the next General Election.

Well done.

I agree with the sentiments of your action, I wish it could all have been done privately but I suspect that we are well past that point.

Well said, Tom.

This can't have been an easy letter to write, nor an easy decision to take. I don't take any pleasure from what's happening to our party at the moment and I'm well aware of the risks that this course of action - voters don't like divided parties.

The risks of inaction are far greater. For all the great achievements over the past nine years, Tony has become a liability and his continued leadership endangers our broader electoral chances and obstructs good government. I would have preferred an 'orderly transition', but it seems that Tony wouldn't take the hint.

Thank you for your courage and best wishes.

Good luck.

"I share the view of the overwhelming majority of the party and the country that the only way the Party and the Government can renew itself in office is urgently to renew its leadership."

I don't who in the country you are talking to and I find it hard to believe that people in the Midlands have vastly different views to those in Yorkshire. In the ex-mining town where I live a change of Labour Party leadership is barely mentioned.

Yet we've already had Labour voters and members phoning us to express their distress and disagreement with your actions. This is a council seat Labour lost to the Lib Dems and we are on the verge of winning back. The actions of you and your colleagues appear to have set us back considerably.

Long time no see, but I wanted to add my support to your actions over the last few days!

I followed yesterday's events with real optimism that the momentum now building for an early change of leader will mean we can sort ourselves out and get the direction, purpose and - most importantly - the values needed to see off Cameron’s vacuity and make Labour worthy of a fourth term.

However that feeling was matched by a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach about the catastrophe that will ensue if we have many more days like yesterday. I'm absolutely convinced you and the others behind the 2001-intake letter have done the right thing, though talk of a 'small minority' depressingly serves to underline just how out of touch and arrogant those around Tony are.

Tony’s departure will undoubtedly draw a line, though a serious debate about the Party’s direction is still needed. This doesn’t have to involve 80s-style self-indulgence, though a clearer assertion of our values is needed together with policies and a narrative that sit more comfortably with those values.

Look forward to you spending more time (though hopefully only temporarily) with your blog!

Dear Tom,
Just to say that as a 20-year loyal party member I am fully in support of your position -- this is the only way to make the PM realize that he is damaging the party and the country by staying in office. Cameron is likely to provide a very dangerous challenge, and the job of combating it has to start as soon as possible.
I hope that you'll return to the government under a future leader, should you wish to!
best wishes,
Mo

I'm one of the many in the country that you claim to know so much about who feel that you have completely overstepped the mark - you fail to give any reasons as to why you have resigned, other than the PM refused to follow your advice and go before he was ready. There is still more than half of the parliament to go, and you have succeeded in fracturing the party for no good reason. You are a prime example of a very small tail wagging the dog. The country, as you call us, as opposed to the party, would like to see a party going forward in unity before we will vote for it. At the moment that is the Conservative Party. Any party flunkie who feels he is more important than the party leader should be thrown out of office, without being given the chance to resign.

There was never going to be an orderly and stable transition. This is about power and it aint going to be pretty. At least Tom has got balls.

Well said Mr Watson. I know of no labour voter who has any faith in Blair (although this comments section seems full of them, though strangely only from people who define themselves in terms of what they've done within the party).

I'd voted for Labour in every election since I could vote, but voted Lib Dem in the last general and local elections and would have done so again had Blair remained in charge.

I will vote Labour again once he's gone if the party returns to its proper place as a British party looking out for the interests of the poorer-off and less advantaged and stops demonstrating only incompetence and lies and a willingness to be at best the craven pet of the US Right.

You agree with the policies and the legacy of Blairism, but you want Blair to resign. At least the Socialist Campaign Group has sound reasons for Blair's resignation. Tom appears to have no reason at all - at least, nothing in his letter to Blair suggests any adequate reason. If it is to hurry up a Brown leadership, well, we've all known that Blair will go within a year, so what is the hurry?

As for Brown, he is unpopular. He is dour, uncharismatic and doesn't appear to have any ideological differences with Blair. He resembles a saucepan. His only claim for leadership is based on his management of the economy, which I think will unravel by the time of the next general election as the economic cycle dips and the budget deficit escalates

Frankly, John McDonnell has more appeal than Brown and if it comes down to a contest between the two of them, then I will vote for him. I've no interest in 10 more years of an arrogant, presidential-style of leadership. Renewal needs something fresh and Brown is as fresh as a lump of granite.

A very, very sad day for the Labour Party. I have never met you Tom, but prior to your antics yesterday, had heard very good things about you and your work.

Sadly, you will now be remembered as the man who set in motion the collapse of one of the most successful centre-left governments in history - perhaps not the best way to be remembered (or make your name?) in the history books.

I sincerely hope, for your sake, that our Party does not now descend into full-blown civil war - I fear it will.

I am angry and very disappointed.

Ian

Tom

Not a Labour voter, but a campaigner for left of centre free Scotland.

At last a few individuals with enough gumption to stand up to this egomaniac. For far too long, elected representatives have sat back and allowed him to lead the UK into its current role as plaything of a right wing US government.

The consequences of your inaction or nodding agreement may live with our future generations for years.

Blairs' removal is astep in the right direction.

I think some of you are missing the point. The point is that Tony Blair is killing the party, if allowed to continue labour stands absoultly no chance of winning the next election regardless of how much people distrust the tories and how much we laugh at the lib dems.

Frankly I'm insulted that fellow Labour party members dare to suggest that Tom and his fellow MP's quit yesterday to further their own career or mark their place in history, the point is that someone needs the balls to stand up and say 'we stand no chance unless tony goes' - I'm all for party harmony but not at the cost of the party itself. My only hope is that more members wake up and realise that at Tony at the helm, the party stands no chance.

Tom,

I think you and the others have made a brave stand. I know you've done it for nothing but the right reasons.

You should be proud of yourselves.

Well done Tom.

I'm a loyalist too - 20 years membership, slogged my guts out in every election - but the party is bigger than any individual. It's time for Tony to go. Not because he's done a bad job - like most people I agree with a lot of what he's done and disagree with some other things. I'm a local councillor and have been since before 1997 and know what it was like under the tories. The best government for this country is a Labour government, and to renew ourselves we need new leadership.

I'm sad it's come to this. I wish Tony had realised for himself that it's time to move on.

Very best wishes Tom. You'll be back!

Sue

Tom,

I am not sure what you expected to achieve by your action or your motivation in taking it.

There can be no dispute that signing that letter was incompatible with your remaining in government in any capacity and you must have known that.

I know you care passionately about the Labour Party, but I fear you have done serious, though hopefully temporary, damage to the prospects for a comradely leadership election which renews Labour in office, avoids tearing the government apart and delivers a clear mandate from the Party for the new PM (whomever she or he may be) to pave the way to seeking a further mandate from the electorate.

As Adrian said above, you have the rest of your life to regret it ...

Congratulations Tom, you did the right thing. There are critics here who chastise you for bringing down a 'centre-left' government. Centre-left? Aggressive war, torture, detention without trial, ID cards, and the very merging of state and corporate power that Mussolini defined as the essence of fascism. Doesn't sound very 'centre-left to me'. Given that Blair has been toying with the idea of eugenics, your timing is right.

This Trot may have had disagreements with you on a number of issues in the past but what you've done in the last 48 hours finds my total support Tom.

Well done. It took some bottle.

Well Mark, I feel insulted that senior party activists who's history with the Labour Party should have tought them how to behave better, are conducting a witch hunt, and jumping on the bandwaggon against the most successful Labour Leader this party has ever had, and one of the most switched-on Prime Ministers this country has ever had.

16 months ago Tony Blair led Labour to a general election victory on a very clear mandate based on 8 successful years in office, producing a majority of 67 in Commons. ALL Labour MP's publicly declared their support for that Manifesto and their chosen leader.

Tony Blair has a cast iron mandate to stay as long as he so chooses within the next 3.5 years, and has said today he is going to quit "within a year". I cannot see what people's problem is with that.

David,

Tony Blair is about as switched on as a Welsh Coal mine - sure he was but switched off when he decided his personal legacy and place in history was more important than the party and the country.

I keep hearing this about historic victory, but you're wrong if any of us voted labour because we trusted and respected the leader - people voted cause there was no other choice, people voted for their Local MP based on achievements - Whilst canvassing I lost count of the times I heard "I think [local mp] is great but I really don't like Tony Blair'.

I cant stand this talk of bandwagon jumping - if you honestly think that the majority of members want Tony Blair to stay as long as possible then you really need to take your head out of the sand.

Sure Tony has been successful, the most successful Labour leader but that does not give him a free pass to put the party and country second to his 'legacy' - It also doesn't mean that we members have to give him free reign to do as he pleases.

Tony Out.

Matt

Sure this is a bandwagon movement for Blair to name the day. Almost everyone's at it now, although admittedly the media generally hype it up because they are bored of interviewing the same faces and want a new PM to get at, and the Tories are at it because they want rid of Tony Blair as they believe it will make their lives easier, and also they greatly fear Blair being able to outlast their beloved Thatcher!

I think people seriously need to think about why Cameron is in dread of facing Blair as opposed to Brown next time. Are we absolutely so sure Brown is going to be exactly the kind of PM the party want in the job, or indeed that the country would vote for?

For every one of the voters who Labour activists met in the election last year, and local elections this year, who opposed Blair, I am happy to take you to voters' doors in Wolverhampton who claim they will vote tory again the moment Brown or anyone else takes over from Blair!

So what is everyone going to do the moment Brown announces something on Iraq, Iran, USA nuclear weapons, or other policy area they don't like? Are they going to turn against him too and demand his resignation?

That said, Blair has confirmed today he will be gone "within a year". I really don't see the advantage in him naming a specific date and time. This will surely only lead to complete paralysis in government (and we are perilously close to that already thanks to the ill-discipline in the party).

This narrows it down quite a lot for me and I am satisified that after 10 years in office, it will prove to have been a job well done, and I as a party activist shall look forward to working amicably with Blair's successor and whoever else in our movement that wants to work with me.

Regards

David

Out in the real world people really, really, really want rid of Blair. Perhaps a blogging MP has his ear closer to the ground and picks this up.

It is no mean feat to give up ministerial office and invite a ton of cr*p to be dropped onto your head from opponents, the media etc.

Well done young Thomas, and hope you can grow some healthy roses in this pile of manure.

Tom

I'm really dissappointed that you felt the need to sign a round robin letter that was leaked to the press.

As a minister, you should have expressed your concerns direct to the PM.

You're a good bloke, but you got it very wrong this time, sorry.

David

Im with Tone all the way.