Archive for 2010
Frank Dobson’s defence of an elected shadow cabinet
10/09/2010, 11:02:51 AMFrom: xxx xxx
Sent: 07 September 2010 18:17
To: xxx xxx
Subject: message from Frank Dobson
Dear Colleague,
Elected Shadow Cabinet
In view of the efforts of the advocates of an appointed Shadow Cabinet to portray past elections as corrupt, leading to the election of popular dossers. I though I might remind colleagues that the last Shadow Cabinet election before the 1997 General Election chose, amongst others:
Gordon brown
Robin Cook
Donald Dewar
Margaret Beckett
Mo Mowlam
Harriet Harman
David Blunkett
Jack Straw
George Robertson
Ann Taylor
Chris Smith
Yours,
Frank
On behalf of Frank Dobson MP
Member of Parliament for Holborn and St Pancras
House of Commons
LONDON SW1A 0AA
So right it must be wrong
10/09/2010, 10:38:05 AMFriday News Review
10/09/2010, 08:31:58 AMMore questions, few answers
The parliamentary sleaze watchdog is to investigate claims of phone hacking surrounding David Cameron’s chief spin doctor. MPs agreed yesterday that the powerful Commons Standards and Privileges Committee should hold an inquiry into the allegations. It comes amid growing pressure on Andy Coulson, No 10’s head of communications, over accusations he knew of illegal phone-tapping while he was editor of the News of the World editor. Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who claims his phone was targeted, told MPs he was concerned that recent allegations were just the “tip of the iceberg”. – The Herald
Labour former minister Tom Watson told the Commons: “Something very dark lurks in the evidence files of the Mulcaire case, and dark and mysterious forces are keeping it that way.” He claimed too many powerful politicians were “afraid” of the power of newspapers. He said: “Here we sit in Parliament, the central institution of our sacred democracy, between us some of the most powerful people of the land, and we are scared. We are afraid, and if we oppose this resolution it is our shame. That is the tawdry secret that dare not speak its name. – The Express
David Cameron’s spin doctor suffered another blow yesterday when MPs ordered the Westminster sleaze watchdog to probe phone-hacking claims. Ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson has insisted he didn’t know the eavesdropping technique was used at the paper. But former employees claim Mr Coulson – now No10 director of communications – must have been aware of the practice. – The Mirror
THE POSITION of British prime minister David Cameron’s top media adviser is under increasing pressure following a decision yesterday by the government not to block an investigation into allegations of widespread telephone tapping by British newspapers. The adviser, Andy Coulson, who resigned in 2007 as editor of theNews of the World after one of his reporters was jailed for telephone tapping, has faced fresh allegations in the last week that he approved of the widespread use of such tactics during his time in charge of the powerful tabloid. The Standards and Privileges Committee at the House of Commons is to meet early next week to decide whether it will launch a full public inquiry into the affair, but there is little doubt that it will do so given the strength of feeling expressed by MPs from all parties present at a debate on the matter yesterday, who voted unanimously for an investigation to take place. – The Irish Times
The quiet campaign for the Chief Whip
09/09/2010, 12:08:19 PMLast night the results of the PLP ballot on the method for selecting the Shadow Cabinet were announced.
The top line is that the Shadow Cabinet will remain fully elected. The variations on the method for selecting the shadow cabinet were rejected. Harriet Harman’s suggested 50:50 gender balance was also rejected, with the PLP settling for 31.5%.
However the most important decision taken by the PLP was the resounding vote in favour of electing the chief whip at the start of each Parliament.
The vote wasn’t even close, with 150/100 voting in favour.
The Whip’s are cock-a-hoop. Telling anyone who will listen that this is an overwhelming endorsement for Nick Brown. The leadership candidates are likely to be less enthused.
Let’s not get carried away with the Coulson affair, says Dan Hodges
09/09/2010, 09:00:21 AMChris Grayling was right. There are parts of Britain that are beginning to resemble Baltimore. Illegal phone taps. Dodgy cops. Dirty pay-offs. Snitches. Political cover ups. Sheeeet! The Wire has come to Westminster.
We’ve had Tommy ‘McNulty’ Watson (a good Parliamentarian if ever there was one), fearless in his pursuit of the chief perp, ignorant of risk or reputation. Andy ‘Stringer’ Coulson, hunkering down in the safe house as five-oh circles and formerly loyal lieutenants sing. David ‘Royce’ Cameron, seeing no evil, hearing no evil, prepping his ‘game face’ as the political challenges mount.
It’s been a week to lift the spirits. The Tories on the back foot. The Lib Dems embarrassed. For the first time since the election, the Tory-Lib Dem government has lost control of the news agenda. Even the met. police may be forced to take a break from their regular Friday briefing in The Feathers and start to feel some collars. (more…)
Thursday News Review
09/09/2010, 07:30:13 AMWhat did he know?
Ex-News Of The World editor Andy Coulson’s ‘position is becoming very difficult indeed’, Mr Burnham said after the issue was raised at PMQs. ‘The question I had in my mind during prime minister’s questions, when I saw Nick Clegg answering on the issue, was that Andy Coulson could have had a hand in preparing the lines that government ministers are using,’ he said ‘If he isn’t voluntarily suspended I think the prime minister should ask him to step back from his role.’ Shadow health secretary Mr Burnham also said the NHS was facing ‘its biggest threat in its 62 years’ from a government White Paper proposing to axe health trusts. – Metro
The police are to reopen their investigation into the News of the World phone-hacking next week and plan to interview former journalists from the newspaper for the first time to discover who else was involved in hacking the voicemails of public figures. The pressure on David Cameron’s spin doctor Andy Coulson will be intensified by the fact that Scotland Yard detectives are preparing to speak with Greg Miskiw – the former head of news and so far the only senior executive at the newspaper to be conclusively linked to Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for tapping phones on behalf of the Sunday tabloid. – The Independent
A senior former News of the World journalist goes public to corroborate claims that phone hacking and other illegal reporting techniques were rife at the tabloid while the prime minister’s media adviser, Andy Coulson, was deputy editor and then editor of the paper. Paul McMullan, a former features executive and then member of the newspaper’s investigations team, says that he personally commissioned private investigators to commit several hundred acts which could be regarded as unlawful, that the use of illegal techniques was no secret at the paper and that senior editors, including Coulson, were aware that this was going on. “How can Coulson possibly say he didn’t know what was going on with the private investigators?” he said. – The Guardian
Here come the cuts
Mr Cameron can ill afford to have the man in charge of organising the Government’s message appearing on the ten o’clock news night after night, with cameramen on his doorstep. At some point, resisting such attention is no longer worthwhile. Yet all this turbulence is nothing compared with what will hit the Coalition next month when George Osborne unveils his Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) – at that point, all hell will break loose. “We are in a canoe paddling down the Zambezi, and Victoria Falls lie dead ahead. Once we’ve gone over the edge, none of this will matter,” one leading Cameroon told me. The edge, for those at Westminster who worry about it, is the moment we discover just how bad the cuts are going to be. To judge by what Cabinet ministers and officials are saying, many worry that the Coalition has not done nearly enough to warn the public of the abyss into which the country is about to plunge. “If we have had a collective failure,” one Cabinet minister says, “it is that we have underplayed the scale of the problem.” – The Telegraph
Nicola Blackwood MP – the heir to Peter Lilley
08/09/2010, 03:30:14 PMReported straight by the BBC at the time, the vocal outburst with which new Tory MP Nicola Blackwood celebrated her election has been strangely little remarked since.
We think this is a shame. Unlike most MPs, Ms Blackwood apparently trained as an opera singer. Which probably explains her unusual lack of reticence.
Peter Lilley’s sung party conference turns provided some of the most cringe-making moments of the old Tory era. Though he still sits (somewhat surprisingly given his sharp intelligence and massive experience) in Parliament, he is now an elder statesman. He rarely sings any more.
Perhaps Ms Blackwood, in which case, may take up the baton?
Big business, bad bankers and hard times for Northern Ireland, by Peter Johnson
08/09/2010, 02:06:37 PMWhen it comes to its relationship with private industry, Labour can’t seem to win. In the period before the New Labour adventure, the party was perceived as being anti-business, the big battalions of which wasted little love on us in return. To prove that we had changed our ways, Blair and Brown “wooed big business and acted as if they were in awe of it”, to slightly re-cast Andy Burnham’s phrase. In this critical respect the Blair-Brown journey, with the party dutifully in tow, went too far. We should have stuck with our instincts about the barons of business.
In contrast to our tentative trust in it, big business – or specifically banks – repaid Labour’s new found faith and support by stabbing it in the guts. The blade was twisted to maximum effect and placed in the hands of Labour – who were caught red-handed by the electorate still holding on to the evidence.
Subsequently, everything Labour achieved and implemented in 13 years is being unravelled before our eyes by the policies of the corrosive Tory-Lib Dem government that replaced it. From the scrapping of the child trust fund; the freezing of child benefit, cuts to the disability living allowance and the scrapping of the free primary school meals project, the list reads dramatic and seemingly endless. Even the winter fuel allowance is in the assassin’s sights. Worryingly, the accuracy of the chancellor’s aim to date has been true and his trigger-finger pulled with the cold, ruthless efficiency of a professional hit-man.
Rachel Reeves on the government’s chaotic and contradictory economic policy
08/09/2010, 10:27:18 AMThe 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…)
