by Atul Hatwal
The Labour party currently resembles a building site.
Shadow ministerial teams are laying the foundations for policy, in the main, independently of each other. Various consultations are asking party members “what’s to be built on the foundations”, quite separately from the ministerial teams. And at the front of the site, operating out of the political equivalent of a Portakabin, Ed Miliband and the shadow cabinet are trying to hold the government to account.
Into this melee have come two recent arrivals. They bring hope of deliverance from the mud and confusion.
Sat in the Portakabin is the first: Baldberts. Not a character from the Shire or a sixth-former at Hogwarts, but a bionic communications director made from the parts of former journalists Tom Baldwin and Bob Roberts – Ed Miliband has the technology. (more…)