Inside « Labour Uncut

Margaret Beckett’s letter to the PLP on the future of the shadow cabinet

28/07/2010, 05:05:18 PM

MESSAGE FOR ALL MEMBERS OF THE PLP FROM MARGARET BECKETT ON BEHALF OF THE PLP STANDING ORDERS WORKING GROUP

July 29 2010

Dear Colleagues

Further to my most recent letter I am writing to set out some proposals and choices on how our Shadow Cabinet is chosen from the autumn.

The working group established by the PLP has now met on a number of occasions, we have taken evidence from many members of the PLP, and we have received a number of written submissions, for which many thanks.

As I set out last week there are a number of issues we will continue to consider into the autumn but it is clear that we need to agree as a matter of urgency the basis on which the Shadow Cabinet will be chosen. This will be completed before parliament returns in October, as agreed at last Monday’s PLP meeting. As set out in my last letter, this is because the Spending Review will follow very quickly, i.e. 20 October. (more…)

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Is it because I is forgetful?

21/07/2010, 04:07:45 PM

So, the Electoral Commission have decided to investigate Zac Goldsmith’s election expenses. This follows a Channel 4 investigation into his campaign in Richmond. Goldsmith came onto Channel 4 News to discuss the allegations and had a go at refutation by rant – just like his Dad, the late Sir James Goldsmith.

Maybe he’d have been better off pleading forgetfulness. This morning at Scottish Questions Labour MPs were surprised by a newcomer on the Opposition benches. It was none other than Zac Goldsmith. The Labour MP he was sitting beside tactfully nudged him. Goldsmith looked up, looked around and fled with a horrified look on his face.

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London Young Labour Mayoral #hustings: laughometer

21/07/2010, 04:07:30 PM

This is the laughometer from the London Young Labour hustings held at Unison HQ on the Euston Rd on the evening of Tuesday 20 July.

As usual, tiny chuckles weren’t recorded.

We maintained our rule that to score you had to get a proper laugh from a significant portion of the room.

It was a particularly dry night as far as laughs were concerned, with only five in total during the one hour plus event:

Ken Livingstone – 3

Oona King – 2

The results were taken by an experienced laughometer operator, who knows the difference between a titter and a roar.

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The Ed Miliband Interview

21/07/2010, 10:29:55 AM

Ed Miliband in his campaign office

Yesterday we took your questions to Ed Miliband. Speaking from his campaign office, incidentally run from the same building Brown used for his 2007 leadership campaign, Ed Miliband is gearing up for the remaining weeks of the campaign with a team of volunteers he is particularly proud of.

He was particularly pleased with his campaign’s appeal to younger party members. But who’s the Babe Ruth of the Labour Party? Covering that, his comments on marriage equality, the nuclear industry, Clem Attlee and more, Ed was next up for the Labour Uncut crowdsourcing hotseat.

Q. (from Jae): Following Ed Balls and Diane Abbott announcing their support for marriage equality, will he retract his comments about there not being enough people calling for it and come out in support of LGBT equality?

A. My position on this is pretty simple, which is that we did a consultation in the run up to the manifesto, and it wasn’t raised with me as an issue. But obviously if it’s something that is felt to be an important issue, I understand absolutely the reasons for that, then it’s something we should definitely look at. And I’m very happy to say that and I completely understand and sympathise with the wish for equality in this area.

(more…)

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Focus

14/07/2010, 05:21:51 PM

As the contest drags on heats up, the candidates are spending more and more time together. The hustings roll on, with many more to come, before the coronation at party conference. The teams behind the candidates are busy at work. Some teams are bigger than others. Some teams are busier than others.

Uncut has learned that in team Big Miliband headquarters there is a motivational collage to keep the worker bees on task.

Mounted on one wall of the campaign office there are pictures of all Labour’s leaders in chronological order – from Hardie to Attlee to Blair and Gordon Brown. After big Gordy, the final picture in the sequence is – not Big Miliband.

No, the final picture is on weekly rotation: Abbott, Balls, Burnham and Ed Miliband take it in turns to be the anti-employee of the month. The awful consequence of the slavish devotees failing to tweet faster, knock harder and stuff longer than any of the other candidates’ teams.

Underneath the D Milibandistas apocolyptic vision of the future sits the word that will save them from it: “FOCUS”.

We have been told that the office is at its most productive on the weeks when the image of little Miliband finishes the sequence, but this has not been confirmed.

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The David Miliband interview

13/07/2010, 10:37:34 AM

David Miliband: no zombie

Step up David Miliband, the third leadership contender to join us in the Labour Uncut crowdsourcing hotseat. He was bouncy and inquisitive, he had a firm handshake and a busy office. He even let us take his picture, unlike Diane Abbott who only uses ‘approved photography’.

He’s for votes at 16, feels a personal loss at the ‘vandalism’ of BSF, but he’s definitely not a zombie. In fact, he’s very anti-zombie.

Q. (from Luke Spencer) How do you think we can get back the supporters we lost in the election so we can succeed in wining the election in 2015?

A. Well I think we lost because we didn’t relefct people’s aspirations and hopes and second because we didn’t have a clear plan for the future. The way to get it back is to be on people’s side and get a clear plan for the future. We won three elections because people thought we’d make them better off and make their communities safer, improve their schools and hospitals, or their health and education services. And that must be the recipe for the next election if it’s in 2015, or even sooner. I think that involves changing the way we do politics, because that’s an important part of reaching out, but also because it will help us develop the ideas that actually speak to people’s lives as they are today or tomorrow as opposed to what they were ten or fifteen years ago.

Q. (from Joseph Casey) Ken Clarke said last week that in the past politicians have talked tough on crime without taking the tough decisions. Although dominating the headlines and stimulating much debate, I heard no comment on the issue from any of the Labour leadership contenders. What approach do you think is the most effective route to offender rehabilitation, which ultimately creates fewer victims and less crime?

A. We’ve been asked about this quite a lot at the hustings that we’re having. Remember, crime was reduced by 35-40% under Labour. We’re the first government since 1945 to leave office with crime lower than when we arrived. And on reoffending we cut reoffending rates by 20% overall, 24% for young people…but we’ve got to do more, and better, next time. I think that Ken Clarke is having to come into this with his hands tied because he’s got no investment to make rehabilitation work. I would support as he called it the ‘rehabilitation revolution’. The more you can rehabilitate people, the better. And we’ve got to make prison work better. It’s not a case of does prison work or doesn’t prison work. It’s a question of what’s the best way of keeping crime down, because the best test of a penal system is the amount of crime not the number of people in prison. And I think that we can do that in a number of ways. I think that restorative justice is important, where people pay back to their victims. I think we’ve got to make community punishment mean something, because too many people think it’s a soft option. And we started to do that, but we’d have to go further.

(more…)

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McFall leads charge to provide trusted bank

12/07/2010, 04:11:51 PM

The Labour peer, John McFall, prior to the election a redoubtable chair of the treasury select committee, is to be a director in a new banking venture that will compete to buy government-backed assets such as Northern Rock and a portfolio of branches of Lloyds Banking Group.

Sir David Walker, who last year published a report on corporate governance, and Charlie McCreevy, the former European Union internal markets commissioner, will join McFall as directors. Lord Levene, a crossbencher and outgoing chairman of the Lloyd’s of London insurance market, will serve as chairman to the new venture.

(more…)

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Lansley’s man’s big food business links

12/07/2010, 12:08:40 PM

The Guardian, among others, is reporting this morning that the Food Standards Agency is to be abolished as part of the overhaul of the Department of Health, to be set out by Andrew Lansley in the white paper which is to be published at 15.30 today. The Guardian reports:

The Food Standards Agency is to be abolished by Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, it emerged last night, after the watchdog fought a running battle with industry over the introduction of colour-coded “traffic light” warnings for groceries, TV dinners and snacks. The move has sparked accusations that the government has “caved in to big business”.

Going on to say:

Andy Burnham, Labour’s health spokesman, said: “Getting rid of the FSA is the latest in a number of worrying steps that show Andrew Lansley caving in to the food industry. It does raise the question whether the health secretary wants to protect the public health or promote food companies.” Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum, said it was “crazy” to dismember the FSA. “It had a hugely important role in improving the quality of foodstuffs in Britain and it was vital to have at the centre of government a body that championed healthy food. This appears just the old Conservative party being the political wing of business,” Fry said.

But something that the Guardian, along with the rest of the news media, has missed is the background of Lansley’s Special Adviser, Bill Morgan.

Morgan who is leading on policy development at the Department of Health, and has been at the heart of the work on the white paper, used to work for Mandate Communications. This is something of which they are very proud indeed.

Not particulary suprising, given that most special advisers work in public affairs at some point in their careers. However, it is interesting to note that Mandate work or have worked for rather a lot of “big businesses” with an interest in the regulation of the food industry.

Indeed, it would be fair to say that they specialise. And, actually, not just ordinary “big businesses”, but firms like Kraft Foods, Coca Cola, Cadbury and Tesco. More like massive behemoths of global agribusiness, then.

Who are presumably celebrating this morning.

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And Balls just keeps pummelling Gove

11/07/2010, 06:46:15 PM

Uncut is completely neutral in the leadership election. We have occasionally been accused of being closet Balls backers. This is wrong. We are not.

But we have consistently argued for a leadership campaign in which the candidates actually demonstrate some leadership, rather than just pontificate about it.

This means taking the fight to the Tories. Getting on with the war of attrition that is opposition.

Perhaps the reason some have badged us Ballsites is that he has been overwhelmingly the best of the candidates at this.

The letter below is not just a blistering, forensic attack on Michael Gove’s handling of the building schools for the future farrago, it is yet another such attack. (more…)

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Pete Willsman in the Plumstead Badlands IV

10/07/2010, 01:12:21 PM

Latest update on comrade Pete Willsman’s last ditch attempts to get himself validly nominated for this year’s election to Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC).

At the Erith & Thamesmead executive committee (EC) last night, Willsman’s Plumstead branch (he still appears on the Erith and Thamesmead membership list, though he has now transferred to Oxford East) moved a resolution for the next general committee (GC) that Erith and Thamesmead’s NEC nominations be reopened. It was defeated.

It was said that Willsman had been branch secretary for 15 years. His recent move to Oxford was not cited. (more…)

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