Stephen Byers has resigned. Clearly he’s had enough, and he’s got too many enemies. For all his mistakes, he probably did the right thing with Railtrack, who’s shareholders seemed to be ignorant of Capitalism 101 (Sometimes the company you invest in will go ‘phut’, and the shares will go down the toilet’).
Unfortunately for New Labour (but fortunately for everyone else), the bad news hasn’t been buried, because India and Pakistan haven’t yet gone to war. On BBC2′s Newsnight last night, Malcolm Rifkind claimed this was the worst international crisis since the Cuban missile crisis in 1963, and sadly I’m inclined to agree with him. In 1963, the American and Soviet leaders proved to be rational, and the flakier Dr Strangelove characters on both sides lost the argument. I wish I had the same confidence about the religious nationalists in charge in India and Pakistan.
