2010 « Labour Uncut

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PLP elections today: Parliamentary committee and select committees

26/10/2010, 11:15:29 AM

From: O’DONOVAN, Martin
Sent: 25 October 2010 17:17
Subject: PLP elections – CLOSE OF NOMINATIONS

FAO Labour MPs

At 5pm this evening nominations closed ahead of tomorrow’s PLP elections.

1. TOMORROW’S BALLOTS
We now move to ballot to fill the following vacancies:

(i) PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE – SIX VACANCIES (please note only backbench MPs can vote in this contest)
Please note you must vote for at least two women
CANDIDATES: John Cryer, Nic Dakin, Geraint Davies, Clive Efford, Bill Esterton, Sheila Gilmore, Kate Green, Steve McCabe, Siobhain McDonagh, Jim Sheridan, Valerie Vaz

(ii) FOREIGN AFFAIRS SELECT COMMITTEE – ONE VACANCY (all Labour MPs may vote in this contest)
CANDIDATES: Bob Ainsworth, Jeremy Corbyn, Fabian Hamilton, Mark Hendrick, Yasmin Qureshi

(iii) INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT SELECT COMMITTEE – TWO VACANCIES (all Labour MPs may vote in this contest)
CANDIDATES: Michael McCann, Alison McGovern, Pamela Nash

(iv) NATO PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY – FOUR REMAINING VACANCIES (all Labour MPs may vote in this contest)
Please note – Madeleine Moon has been elected as there is not a contest to fill the two vacancies for women members
CANDIDATES: Hugh Bayley, David Crausby, Mike Gapes, Jim Hood, Ian Murray, John Robertson

(v) OSCE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY – TWO REMAINING VACANCIES (all Labour MPs may vote in this contest)
Please note Linda Riordan has been elected as there is not a contest to fill the vacancy for women members
CANDIDATES: Tony Lloyd, Dai Havard, Nick Smith, Linda Riordan, Mark Hendrick

The ballot will run from 10am to 5pm tomorrow in the PLP Office, West Cloister.

2. ELECTED UNOPPOSED
Please note the following colleagues have been elected unopposed to fill the following vacancies:

BIS – Gregg McClymont, Paul Blomfield, Ian Murray, Katy Clark
CLG – Simon Danczuk, David Heyes
Defence – Thomas Docherty, Dai Havard, Sandra Osborne
Education – Bill Esterton
DECC – Barry Gardiner, Ian Lavery
Health – Yvonne Fovargue
Northern Ireland – Kate Hoey
Transport – Julie Hilling, Gavin Shuker
Work and Pensions – Teresa Pearce, Alex Cunningham, Glenda Jackson
Finance and Services – Clive Betts
Public Accounts – Stella Creasy
Public Administration – Lindsay Roy

Council of Europe – Paul Flynn, Geraint Davies, Alan Meale, Jim Hood, Virendra Sharma, Jim Sheridan, Joe Benton, Sandra Osborne, Ann Coffey, Yasmin Qureshi, Michael Connarty, Jim Dobbin

House of Commons Commission – Frank Doran

3. REMAINING VACANCIES
We still have the following vacancies. Frontbench colleagues will be asked to remain on these Committees until such time as we elect a successor.

DEFRA
Political and Constitutional (2)
Science and Technology
Welsh Affairs (2)
Environmental Audit
Human Rights
Public Administration (2)
Finance and Services
Administration

Martin O’Donovan
Director of Unit and PLP Secretary

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PMQs is no playground. Parliament matters.

26/10/2010, 09:50:47 AM

by Dan Hodges

Does the House of Commons matter? Not the institution per se. Temple of democracy or den of inequity? On that you pays your money, or Stephen Byers’ cab fare, and takes your choice.

The chamber itself. Amphitheatre. Cockpit. Arena of the absurd.

There is a fashionable perception that Parliament, in all its forms, is now an irrelevance. Purists bemoan the callow tenor of its discourse. Modernists its arcane, anachronistic traditions. The right sees a shell, gutted by the faceless bureaucrats of Brussels. The left an inflexible monument to establishment orthodoxy.

In a way, all are right. And all wrong. What happens in the Commons chamber changes nothing. But it influences everything.

Take last week’s CSR. One of the more widely covered political showpieces of recent years. Wall to wall live coverage on the TV news channels. Six, seven, eight pages cleared in the national broadsheets. Not a Chilean miner in sight. (more…)

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Tuesday News Review

26/10/2010, 08:04:57 AM

Labour take poll lead

David Cameron has been braced for a reaction to his and George Osborne’s austerity measures. The Chancellor’s Comprehensive Spending Review has, it seems, provided the impetus for Ed Miliband’s party to inch ahead of the Tories. According to a new Populus poll, Labour was one point ahead of the Conservatives on 38 per cent, a rise of one point since September. The Tories have seen their ratings fall two points to 37 per cent in a month. The survey, for The Times, provided an early boost for Labour’s new leader. – The Telegraph

The latest Populus poll is only the third national voting intention survey from the firm to be published since the general election and gives a slightly different picture although well within the margin or error on all three party shares. This is the first time that Labour has been in the lead with the firm since November 2007 and that will surely cheer the Ed Miliband camp. Broadly all three parties are in the same sort of areas with both pollsters who operate in very similar manners. In May the two firms finished with the same ranking of second equal in the polling accuracy table. – Political Betting

(more…)

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Assistant met police commissioner John Yates tells Tom Watson MP to get lost

25/10/2010, 03:57:28 PM

Letter to Tom Watson_22 10 10

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Liverpool FC and Man Utd: the fans’ next step

25/10/2010, 12:00:49 PM

by Jonathan Todd and Alison McGovern

Blood, sweat and tears have spilt recently in Liverpool. Too much by supporters anguished at the financial plight of a great institution and the grim reality of listless defeat at Goodison Park; more by millionaires who gained control of this institution than by the millionaires responsible for this loss.

The illusion that Liverpool FC would emerge fighting fit from the Tom Hicks and George Gillett era was shattered by Everton. While the reds battled to victory against Blackburn yesterday, much needs to improve. But it isn’t only on the pitch that the lessons of recent years need to be learnt.

The promise of New England sports ventures (NESV), the new owners, to listen to supporters is welcome. Talk, however, is cheap. Fans have been left jaded after previous commitments have been reneged upon.

Now this promise should be backed up by institutional reform. This should mean, at least, a fan on the board. More ambitiously, this might mean taking up Rogan Taylor’s proposal that NESV look towards fans holding a significant minority of shares in the club; perhaps, as much as 25 percent. While the dream of full mutualisation and Liverpool FC being owned and run such that it embeds Scouse pride in a similar way to the fan-owned FC Barcelona in Catalonia may be distant, this proposal would have radical consequences. (more…)

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John Woodcock finds glimmers of hope amid the grey

25/10/2010, 09:00:00 AM

And so we charge on into the new landscape. It is cold and bleak. And it is dominated by the comprehensive spending review.

While I am not as pessimistic as some Uncut contributors (you, Dan Hodges) about how the announcement played out last week, we shouldn’t for a moment think it was a good week for the Labour party, or, more importantly, for the country.

Even accounting for a little slanting of questions and selective reporting of the answers, the YouGov poll in last week’s Sun was sobering. Taken after the CSR announcement, it suggested that 47 per cent of respondents blamed the last Labour government for the programme of cuts compared to 17 per cent who blamed the Tory-Lib Dem coalition that is making them, and 20 per cent who cast a plague on both our houses. Sure, respondents didn’t get the option to blame the bankers – but even accounting for that bias, the figures suggest that the Tory message machine is having some considerable success. (more…)

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Monday News Review

25/10/2010, 08:19:33 AM

Leaders pitch to business

Ed Miliband and David Cameron will trade blows at the Confederation for British Industry (CBI) today, as both men make their pitch to the country’s business leaders. Mr Miliband will argue that the Tories have failed to understand the lessons of the financial crisis and are devoid of plans to stimulate growth in the economy. The crisis has led to realisation among Labour figures that government must support enterprise more robustly, Mr Miliband will admit. “Without profound change in the way we manage our economy, we are at risk of, at best, sleepwalking back to an economy riddled with the same risks as we saw before the recession hit,” he will say. “The way to support business and ensure a return to prosperity is to tackle these risks, not ignore them.” Mr Cameron will use his speech to promise a tougher competition regime to help small companies break into existing markets and the creation of ‘technology innovation centres’ so British companies can be at the forefront of innovation. – Politics.co.uk

THE GOVERNMENT should take a more active role in the private sector, Ed Miliband will say today, as he warns against returning to “business as usual” in the wake of the slump. Speaking at the CBI’s annual conference, Miliband will argue that government should not shy away from pursuing a policy of industrial interventionism. “What it means to be pro-business in the 2010s is different to what it meant in the 1990s. It means more than just getting out of the way,” he is expected to say. “Government should not be afraid to provide support to business that the market will not offer. That is the way to rebalance our economy.” Miliband will also claim the government has become obsessed with spending cuts at the expense of an economic strategy, a charge the Prime Minister will try to deflect with a series of pro-growth announcements to day. – City AM

Nobel Prize-winner questions Osborne

There are particular concerns about where the private sector jobs will come from for the 490,000 public-sector workers who are expected to lose their jobs. The chancellor, George Osborne, was yesterday accused by Britain’s new Nobel Prize-winning economist, Christopher Pissarides, of exaggerating the risk of a Greek-style economic crisis affecting the UK economy. In an article for the Sunday Mirror, the professor warned that Osborne’s swingeing cuts package was taking “unnecessary risks” with the economy. “It is important to avoid this ‘sovereign risk’. But in my view Britain is a long way from such a threat, and the chancellor has exaggerated the sovereign risks threatening the country. Unemployment is high and job vacancies few. By taking the action that the chancellor outlined in his statement, this situation might well become worse.” – The Guardian

(more…)

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The week Uncut: supping with Banquo’s ghost

24/10/2010, 02:00:38 PM

This was the week David Cameron and Ed Miliband supped with Banquo’s ghost. Savage Tory cuts cheered by gleeful knights of the shire. Labour’s metropolitan factionalism dragging it to electoral defeat. One nation Conservatives professing shame at the callousness of their party. Ineffectual shadow ministers unable to capitalise. Margaret Thatcher and Ken Livingstone united in one final danse macabre.

Cameron was first to feel the icy touch. As the blade fell, the baying of the mob echoed around Westminster. And beyond. The coalition was blooded. Jobs, homes and benefits lost beneath Osborne’s cold steel. Innocence and optimism too. Cameron and Clegg had once yearned for a new politics. It was savage awakening.

Then, amid the waving arms and fluttering order papers, the prime minister noticed her. A woman. Elegant. With stately bearing. She smiled. A hard smile. And was gone.

Labour’s young leader was next to notice a stillness in the air. But not before being forced to watch the flower of a new generation cut down before him. Wave after wave of Labour MP’s hurled themselves ineffectually across the commons chamber. And as each new charge was repulsed, the Bullingdon butchers taunted: “We are the masters now”.

It was not over. A tortured sleep interrupted. More cruel tidings. The citadel of Tower Hamlets breached. Treachery suspected.

Again, the vision was fleeting. An elderly figure, slightly stooped. But with eyes that still burned. One hand resting on an old walking stick. The other clenched in defiance. Then he too had vanished.

David Cameron and Ed Miliband are similar in many ways. Anointed ahead of their time, they have a mandate, and an imperative, to break with the past. Yet this week history out-ran them both.

Cameron can afford the cuts. Indeed, they form a key part of his narrative. A nation united in hardship. A coalition united in leadership.

But his chancellor’s blade cut that narrative in two. Doing hard, dirty work is one thing. Whistling while you do so is something else. This was not the politics of the big society. This was the politics of those who once told us society had ceased to exist.

Ed Miliband was also slammed back into the future. Fiscally, the CSR took us back to the mid-70s. But the Tower Hamlets debacle was pure 80s. A local party riven by divisions. A flagship Labour council seized by political extremists. The leadership of the party seemingly paralysed and impotent.

There though, the equity in the parallel ends. Because history is written by the victors. And we are the vanquished. As it was in the eighties, so it is now.

Images of Tories cheering cuts are toxic for Cameron. But images of extremism, division and indiscipline are potentially terminal for Labour. The issues in Tower Hamlets may seem a quarrel in a far-away borough between people of whom we know little. But couple them with the broader challenges we face, and they represent a real danger to Labour’s future electoral success.

This week both David Cameron and Ed Miliband were haunted by visions from the past. It’s Ed who should feel most afraid.

Here are half a dozen of Uncut’s best-read pieces of the week.

Siôn Simon says the Labour right needs a new leader

David Prescott says Ken must go

Tom Watson says goodbye to Walworth Road

Nick Keehan on an alternative to the Tories’ seedy foreign policy

Kevin Meagher says it’s wrong to hate Margaret Thatcher

Dan Hodges says the CSR was a disaster for Labour

Jessica Asato on the Tower Hamlets debacle

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Sunday News Review

24/10/2010, 08:30:08 AM

Plan, what plan?

We could have had a different spending review. We could have ensured that we raised more money from the banks that caused the crisis than from cuts in child benefit. With a more measured pace of deficit reduction, there would still have been difficult decisions and cuts. But we would have done more to support the economy, defend frontline services and protect those in need.

Will they get away with the gamble? I don’t believe people are up for a dangerous and reckless gamble with our economic future. It is up to people of all political persuasions who fear for Britain’s society and our economy to stand up and commit to protect not just our values and ideals but the basics of our social and economic fabric. – Ed Miliband, The Guardian

As Cameron patronisingly told him in the warm-up for the spending review: “If you have not got a plan, you cannot attack a plan.” Labour politicians are being knocked about in the Commons, and in every broadcast studio into which they go, because their answer to the obvious question, “What would you do?”, starts off with “Not this”, before moving quickly on to: “We are in opposition.” Miliband does not have long to settle the doubts. Is he indecisive? Does he have a plan? – John Rentoul, The Independent

Did I really promise that?

Government spending cuts may become a matter of life and death, it was claimed last night, as it emerged that almost two million people could wait longer for cancer tests and up to 10,000 firefighters face the axe.
The highly charged claims appear to contradict pre-election promises made by David Cameron to protect frontline services.
John Healey, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “Ministers have ignored official warnings and axed planned improvements in cancer care. Waiting times will rise for people desperate to find out if they’ve got cancer and get the treatment they need.” – The Independent

He has a conscience?

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has described how he wrestled with his conscience over the coalition’s spending cuts. The Liberal Democrat leader said that he found administering the biggest financial retrenchment in living memory “morally difficult”. But appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, he insisted there were no “pain-free alternatives” to the measures set out in Chancellor George Osborne’s spending review.

“I have certainly searched long and hard into my own conscience about whether what we are doing is for the right reasons. I am not going to hide the fact that a lot of this is difficult. I find it morally difficult. It is difficult for the country.” – Press Association

First throw of the Union dice

Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union general secretary Bob Crow told a London rally collective action was needed to fight the cuts. It comes after the TUC said a national demonstration will be held on 26 March next year in London’s Hyde Park. Demonstrators gathered outside the RMT head office to hear speeches from Mr Crow and Matt Wrack, leader of the Fire Brigades Union, which is also holding a strike in London. – BBC News

Organisers of today’s There is a Better Way demonstration claimed 20,000 people took to the streets of Edinburgh in a march against government spending cuts. Buses from all across Scotland brought people to the city centre for a rally between East Market Street and Princes Street Gardens.

The march, organised by the STUC, gathered members of workers’ unions together in a protest against the spending cuts announced by chancellor George Osborne this week. Local politicians at the march included the justice minister Kenny MacAskill, SNP MSP for Edinburgh east, Green MSP Patrick Harvie, Labour’s Ian Murray MP, Sheila Gilmore MP, Mark Lazarowicz MP, Iain Gray MSP, Malcolm Chisholm MSP and Sarah Boyack MSP. – The Guardian

Lordy, Lord

David Cameron and Nick Clegg plan to flood the Lords with another 44 new Coalition peers to stop Labour sabotaging their policies in the Upper House, it was claimed last night. Mr Cameron reportedly intends to award 29 peerages to Tory donors and other political allies, with 15 for Mr Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. By contrast, Ed Miliband will get just ten new Labour peers. – The Daily Mail

Labour edge ahead

Labour back ahead of the Coalition in today’s Mail on Sunday/BPIX poll. The poll shows support for Labour at 37 per cent, with the Tories at 35 and Lib Dems at a lowly ten. It puts Mr Miliband ahead of Mr Cameron for the first time since the lead he enjoyed in the afterglow of his Labour ¬leadership victory last month. – The Daily Mail

Mixed messages from Scotland

Forty-one per cent of Scots believe Alex Salmond would make a better First Minister than his main rival Iain Gray, the Scottish Labour leader. The SNP leader remains ahead of Gray in the popularity stakes, according to Scotland on Sunday’s exclusive YouGov poll. When the sample of 1,405 Scottish adults was asked who of the two men would make the “better” First Minister, 41 per cent replied Salmond, 24 per cent said Gray and 35 per cent said they did not know.

The poll also shows that Labour’s lead over the SNP remains solid. Voting intention figures put Labour at 40 per cent on the Holyrood constituency vote and 36 per cent on the regional list. The SNP lags behind on 34 per cent in the constituency vote and 31 per cent on the list. – The Scotsman

It’s alright for some

David Cameron will escape the cold by taking his family to Thailand over Parliament’s three-week Christmas break. The PM’s allies denied speculation that his host would be Thai leader Abhisit Vejjajiva. The trip is likely to be controversial because Mr Cameron will be flying off to a paradise hotspot just as the impact of his spending cuts starts to bite. Downing Street last night would not confirm the PM’s plans but sources close to the Camerons confirmed Thailand was pencilled in for “a well-deserved few days away” – The Mirror

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