Tom Watson Quits

[douglas9401]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/06/tom-watson-to-quit-as-labour-deputy-leader-and-stand-down-as-mp

[douglas9401]

Come on, fill your boots. :-)

[Bobbisox1]

Does he want to spend more time with his family ? :0/

[andy-hughes]

Interesting.

This will be a serious blow to Jeremy Corbyn's reputation as leader.

I don't believe it will change the outcome - Labour will be vaporised, Corbyn will be jettisoned, and they will start to try and rebuild their shattered links with their core voters.

[albaqwerty]

from what little I've read on hear, it's not going to be good news for the moderate labour-ite.
I thought he was seen as trying to keep Corbyn and Mcwhatsisface from becoming completely rabid.

[ToraToraTora]

not unexpected, Watson is far too sensible for jezza and his storm troopers.

[Gromit]

Watson might be trying to disassociate himself from the inevitable General Election defeat for Labour. A second GE loss for Corbyn will mean he has to go, and Starmer can replace him. And Watson can return.

Fingers crossed.

[anneasquith]

I always thought TW would have made a decent Labour leader, but he has been so quiet an uncommitted for some time now, pity.

[Jackdaw33]

The problem is that the choice of leader lies not with MPs but the activists, of which Momentum form the largest part.

[Peter Pedant]

talking about dead losses
can anyone tell me how an MP can wreck a trial without you know er being there ?

[Cloverjo]

If only Ed Miliband hadn’t stood against his brother for the Labour leadership we might have a decent leader now.

[Spicerack]

Tom Watson is and always has been a disgusting creep.

[New Judge]

//...can anyone tell me how an MP can wreck a trial without you know er being there ?///

I don't think he's been accused of wrecking a trial. What he stands accused of (at least by Harvey Procter and one or two others) was passing allegations to the Metropolitan Police to suggest that he (Procter) and a number of other high profile people were involved in a paedophile ring. This led the police to, among other things, interview Leon Brittan whilst he was gravely ill on suspicion of rape. Lord Brittan died before he learned that he had been completely exonerated. The enquiry caused Mr Procter (also exonerated) huge personal distress and led to him losing his job and his home. Mr Watson used his position and parliamentary privilege to continue the allegations and pressed the Met to pursue their enquiries. The person making the original allegations, Carl Beech, was later found guilty of making up the Westminster VIP paedophile ring and was jailed for eighteen years.

After Mr Beech's conviction Harvey Proctor said: “The problem was that the police assigned to interview Beech lacked common sense and yielded to intense pressure from Tom Watson, an irresponsible politician out for his own publicity in order to galvanise his advancement to become deputy leader of the Labour party.” Lady Brittan said “The extent of Tom Watson’s involvement in the witch-hunt of innocent people has been laid bare. His subsequent attempts to distance himself show a complete lack of integrity. By misusing his public office to recklessly repeat false allegations, and to characterise himself as a victim, he has shown that he is unfit to hold the office of MP.”

He will be sadly missed.

[naomi24]

Creep. Good riddance.

[Zacs-Master]

When the going gets tough, the rats abandon ship. Bottled it.

[emmie]

good that he has gone, his part in Labour is now over.

[davebro]

More consolidation for the hard left in Labour. I'm surprised so many moderate MPs can still cling to the party, They must be very uncomfortable.

[THELOONYCORBYN]

And wheres tweedledum and tweedledee telling us about how the tories are in meltdown, disarray etc etc

[Spicerack]

PP might have been talking about the Welsh Secretary. Who knows?

[ToraToraTora]

At anyother time in history I'd have thought that TW is a hard lefty but next to Corbyn and his storm troopers he's the voice of reason! Besides any man who is a fan of TGL can't be all bad:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/06/26/tom-watson-glasto_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpg?imwidth=450

[andy-hughes]

Mr Watson has had his revenge, a dish served nice and cold, by biding his time for his resignation announcement for maximum impact.

He is aware that the party he joined is no longer the party with which he wishes to disassociate himself, and for that principle, he is to be admired.

His use of his power to influence the Carl Beech debacle is a stain on his character, but as he retires to private life, he will hope that it will not impact on him, in the way that his influence impacted on innocent people who have to live with the damage he helped to cause.