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Archive for September, 2010

Rachel Reeves on the government’s chaotic and contradictory economic policy

08/09/2010, 10:27:18 AM

The chaotic and schizophrenic temperament of the government’s economic policy was further in evidence yesterday when the select committee for business, innovation and skills (of which I am a member) took evidence on the abolition of the regional development agencies (RDAs). We’ve known for months now that the RDAs are going, but we still don’t know what will be formed in their place or the transition plans to get there. Anyone would think the government doesn’t really care…

What we have now is a mess, and that’s dangerous for business and jobs. On the one hand, the government trumpets its localism – devolving decision making from the regions to local authorities. On the other, they centralise – with trade, investment, business support and skills being re-nationalised back to Whitehall. Sir Roy McNulty, chairman of the west midlands RDA, described the policy as ‘a strange type of localism’. Strange indeed, when it includes centralising key functions. (more…)

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Wednesday News Review

08/09/2010, 07:01:11 AM

"Mmm, pass that guacamole stuff"

David Milibut

Miliband is only just recovering from the media derision that greeted his advice to Labour activists on how to organise a house meeting to support his campaign. He urged supporters to vacuum the house, buy some nibbles and turn on the oven. But it turns out that when it comes to his own culinary tastes, he’d rather save himself the bother. Questioned by the Evening Standard newspaper, he not only extolled the virtues of a “fantastic takeaway from Masala Zone in Camden”, but also listed “The Laughing Halibut fish and chip shop on Strutton Ground just off Victoria St” as one of his “favourite London discoveries”. – Channel 4.

Phone taps

Labour stepped up the pressure on the police when Harriet Harman, the party’s acting leader, wrote to the Met commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, asking him to inform any serving or former Labour MPs whose PIN numbers had been obtained. – The Guardian.

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The busy schedule of Marcus Jones, MP for Nuneaton

07/09/2010, 02:12:31 PM

It’s not easy being a new MP.

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Jonathan Todd on the challenge for the new shadow chancellor

07/09/2010, 11:30:53 AM

The Labour leadership election will, finally, end on 25 September. But the identity of the shadow chancellor will be unknown until 7 October, when the results of the shadow cabinet election are announced. 13 days after this the new leader and shadow chancellor will lead our response to the comprehensive spending review. “It is”, as a leadership contender has said, “an incredibly tight timetable for the new leader and their shadow chancellor to map out a policy that might yet determine how we are viewed for the rest of the parliament.”

The general election too quickly gave way to the leadership election. (Which should have started later and been shorter). With the end of the leadership election, the formal involvement in the shadow cabinet election of four of our would-be leaders begins. This is a grueling pace. But the new leader and shadow chancellor will need immediately to demonstrate economic literacy, which means robustly critiquing George Osborne and articulating a credible and appealing alternative economic approach. While this is challenging, there are some relatively simple points that are worth underlining. (more…)

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Tuesday News Review

07/09/2010, 07:00:32 AM

Welcome back: Theresa May faces tough questions over phone hacking

If Theresa May had been a luckier politician she might have faced an easier challenge on her first day back at Westminster: solving world hunger perhaps, persuading the Taliban to take up knitting or smuggling Tony Blair into Waterstone’s. Instead the home secretary got a big, black binliner full of stinking political rubbish dumped into her lap, the kind of raw material that News of the World reporters tiptoe away with from the dustbins of their victims. Except that in this case the investigators were outraged opposition MPs and the targets under surveillance were Scotland Yard, the News of the Screws itself and Andy Coulson, the boss’s pet rottweiler, all mixed up in the phone-hacking affair. A Lib Dem cabinet minister even called for Coulson to be sacked. – The Guardian

Backbencher Tom Watson said Mrs May must not join a ”conspiracy” to undermine the ”integrity of our democracy”. He called on her to confirm that Tony Blair had asked Scotland Yard whether his phone was hacked – a suggestion the former prime minister’s office has yet to shed light on. But the home secretary batted away demands for details, saying: ”There have recently been allegations connected to this investigation in the New York Times newspaper. ”Any police investigation is an operational matter in which ministers have no role.” – The Telegraph

Step forward, Tom Watson, the man they call “Tommy Two Dinners”. In fact, the man is becoming a star performer in the House of Commons. Before the recess, he savaged Michael Gove over the school rebuilding fiasco, dubbing him “a miserable pipsqueak of a man”. Now he launched into Theresa May with a machine gun-like summary of the latest allegations: succinct, easy-to-understand and extremely effective. Put that man in the Shadow Cabinet! He’s becoming one of Labour’s top attack dogs. Nick Clegg will be grateful that he didn’t have to face Tommy. – Sky

During the Commons debate, Labour MP Tom Watson asked May to clarify how many were on Mulcaire’s “target list” of people to bug. He also asked how the Metropolitan Police decided on the small sample of names which made up its 2006 investigation into the affair. He added: “Can she confirm that former Prime Minister Tony Blair has formally asked Scotland Yard whether his phone was hacked? “The integrity of our democracy is under scrutiny around the world. The home secretary must not join the conspiracy to make it a laughing stock.” – Press Gazette

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We lost the 2010 election during Blair’s watch, as well as Brown’s, says Michael Dugher

06/09/2010, 11:57:20 AM

ALL THE LABOUR leadership candidates have dared to disagree with Tony Blair that we lost the last election because we weren’t sufficiently New Labour. In yesterday’s Observer, Andrew Rawnsley lamented this lèse majesté.

Memoirs and diaries, especially from former prime ministers, are important. After ten years in office, with three general election victories under his belt, Tony Blair’s deserve to be read. But what is disappointing is that Blair is so palpably out of touch when it comes to understanding why we lost in 2010 and how Labour can win again in the future.

Much of what Rawnsley writes I agree with. He is quite right that Tony Blair “understood how to communicate with the public; he grasped that parties must constantly renew themselves to keep up with events, the world and the voters”. He is equally right that it is “foolish to fashion the party’s future policies or presentation as if the dateline were still 1994 rather than 2010”. And that Blair understood that “the centre-left wins and holds power only by creating a broad appeal which embraces not just their natural and traditional supporters, but voters without tribal allegiances to Labour”. (more…)

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Monday News Review

06/09/2010, 08:29:58 AM

Coulson & Cameron

Senior opposition politicians are calling on the government to respond to renewed accusations that Downing Street’s chief communications officer, Andy Coulson, encouraged reporters to illegally intercept messages from the cellphones of public figures when he was editor of The News of the World. At the same time, a number of people whose phone messages may have been intercepted by The News of the World during Mr. Coulson’s tenure are accusing the Metropolitan Police of failing to fully examine all the evidence in its criminal investigation in 2006 and 2007.- The New York Times

A senior Metropolitan Police officer said the force had asked the New York Times to provide any new material it had relating to the matter, including an interview it published with former reporter Sean Hoare. Mr Hoare has claimed David Cameron’s close aide was well aware News of the World staff were eavesdropping on private messages when he was editor of the paper. All five candidates in the Labour leadership contest also called for a fresh inquiry into unconfirmed claims reporters listened in to the voicemail messages of a long list of prominent figures, including politicians and celebrities. – Sky

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The week Uncut

05/09/2010, 05:00:12 PM

The ballot papers are out. Voting has begun and the end is in sight. In three weeks the party will have its leader and the job of opposition can begin.

The Red Menace, Bash’em, Rocky, the Mauler and the Changemaker were back on the campaign trail kissing babies and courting votes. The candidates played the numbers game with campaign polls coming out that all, unsurprisingly, said their man was the answer.

It was the week David and Ed B played nice, Andy auditioned to be Shadow Health Secretary, Diane got stood up in Camden, Ed M welcomed new members and Tony’s big week was overshadowed by the New York Times and Andy Coulson.

In case you missed them, here are Uncut’s best read pieces of the last seven days:

Tom Watson on what the New York Times says Andy Coulson knew

Tom Watson writes to the Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson

Crowdsourcing the mayor: Ken Livingstone on newts, suits and Johnson’s johnson

It’s time to offer real alternatives, says John Healey

Dan Hodges backs a Blairite for the leadership

A night down the pub with the leadership contenders

We must be in the game, not shouting outside the stadium argues John Woodcock

Gove made me ashamed to be a Conservative says senior Tory councillor as she joins Labour

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Vote for who you want to win, not who you think will win argues Simone Webb

05/09/2010, 12:50:33 PM

It is a common assumption that the next Labour leader will be drawn from limited ranks: the Milibands. It is an assumption which is in itself flawed; the number of ‘undecideds’ means that the leadership race is still an unpredictable affair. It’s hard to deny that the odds aren’t brilliant for the other candidates and I don’t intend to argue the case here for my own first preference candidate: Ed Balls, by the way, but I do want to explain why the Milibands will be coming last on my ballot paper.

Let’s take the current favourite, David. When phone-canvassing for Ed Balls, I’ve heard a lot of people say that David Miliband looks like a leader, and is handsome, young and charismatic. Leaving aside the “handsome”, which is debatable, and the “young”; a dubious description for a man of forty-five, one is left with “looks like a leader” and “charismatic”.

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Sunday News Review

05/09/2010, 10:27:57 AM

Cameron & Coulson

Labour leadership contenders Ed Balls and Ed Miliband said David Cameron’s judgment was being called into question after claims the former newspaper’s editor, Andy Coulson, now No 10’s head of communications, had personally asked at least one member of staff to tap into someone’s phone. Balls called on Home Secretary Theresa May to make a statement to the House of Commons, while Ed Miliband said Downing Street should issue a “specific response” to the allegations, and warned: “Until that happens, a cloud will hang over both Andy Coulson and indeed the government, because this is the man in charge of the Downing Street media machine.” – The Herald

Today, the New York Times magazine publishes new evidence from journalists on the paper during Coulson’s editorship insisting that mobile phone-tapping was extensive, as initial Scotland Yard inquiries suggested, but which NI has consistently denied. NI argues that it was confined to former royal reporter Clive Goodman, who spent some months in prison for the offence which triggered Coulson’s own resignation. Last week, another reporter on the paper was suspended, again, we believe, for suspected telephone-tapping. Coulson has consistently said he knew nothing of more tapping beyond Goodman’s and refuses to comment further. – The Guardian

Dappy: I hate David Cameron

He and I end up loitering in an antechamber together; I grab the opportunity to ask him if he’s backing either of the Miliband brothers in the Labour leadership election battle. Who’s that then, darling?” he asks. David and Ed Miliband? “Never heard of them, darling.” Oh, but I think you all went to the same school. Not at that same time, but still… “Who again?” I google them on my iPhone and show Dappy the image results. He shakes his head. “Sorry, darling. I don’t know them.” But you’re a Labour supporter? “Very much so, darling! I liked Gordon. I could have done with more Gordon.” Not a fan of Cameron’s, then? “I hate David Cameron,” Dappy says, and tells me why in terms so libellous that they can’t be printed. – The Guardian

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