Ask any leader, anyone who’s ever led anything. Sometimes you have to fire someone. Sometimes you have to fire them even if it doesn’t really make any sense to do so. This is elementary Machiavelli but also common sense. Blair should fire Clarke tomorrow (he should have fired him yesterday). He should do it publicly and with extreme prejudice.
Anyway, Clarke’s already entered the tertiary phase of ministerial paranoia. He just made the speech: the one about the media that you make after you’ve had a hard time from the media. He’s deep in his personal bunker and the only way out now is a good firm Prime Ministerial sacking. Go on Tony. Show us what you’re made of. It’ll cheer us all up.
I only ever fired one person. And I did it by fax from London to NY. Shame.