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Posts Tagged ‘Ed Miliband’

Two Eds are better than one

21/04/2011, 01:30:53 PM

by David Talbot

As Gordon Brown succumbed to the inevitable late on that May evening – with an emotional and dignified statement to end his tumultuous premiership – the final chapter of New Labour was being written. A project that had started in earnest in the mid 1990s had met a sorry end. Achieving a meagre 29% of the vote would make Michael Foot blush, but as the former prime minster left number 10 for the last time, two young loyal lieutenants that had served the party since the early 1990s slipped into opposition determined to bring Labour back to the cusp of power.

The howl of indignation across vast swathes of the press and the Blairite bastions at the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader was an object lesson in frustrated establishment entitlement. His election was not ordained, the media had thrown its weight behind his brother, David, as the continuity candidate – and so had the New Labour hierarchy.

It didn’t take long for the repercussions to start, the Murdoch press predicted imminent disaster, the ever buffoonish Sun labeled him ‘Red Ed’ and disgruntled former ministers began spitting poison around the Manchester conference bars.

The very fact that Ed Miliband won was due in part because he caught a wave of opinion and optimism within the labour movement that was determined to see the party move on from New Labour and its discredited agenda of triangulation, authoritarianism and penchant for privatisation. Miliband offered a new vision and, even in these early stages, there can be no serious doubt that he represents a real and significant shift beyond New Labour politics. The danger is not this breach of the old order, but that the diehard Blairites, who apparently have no clue why Labour lost 5 million votes, continue to snipe and undermine the new leadership. (more…)

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Sunday News Review

17/04/2011, 06:49:31 AM

Are Vince’s Coalition days numbered?

The Liberal Democrat Cabinet Minister is joining forces with Mr Miliband in a bid to win the May 5 referendum on changing Britain’s voting system. They will line up together at a Press conference in London, where they will issue a joint plea to scrap the first-past-the-post voting system to ‘make politics fairer’. The double act comes days after Business Secretary Mr Cable accused Mr Cameron of ‘inflammatory’ remarks over immigration, prompting calls for disciplinary action by some Tory MPs. And it is bound to lead to further claims that Mr Cable, who once worked for former Labour leader John Smith, has more in common with Labour than his Conservative colleagues in the Coalition. – Daily Mail

Business Secretary, Vince Cable, was “very unwise” and risked “inflaming” extremism. To listen to his detractors, you would think that Cameron was the Mr Benn of Westminster: on Monday, he was dressed up as Malcolm X; by Thursday, he had changed into the robes and pillow case of the Ku Klux Klan (Bullingdon branch). One hears him compared with Clare Short, a diminished figure who is better inside the tent than outside it, a novice at government who should be denied the martyrdom that part of him so obviously craves. All this, I think, reflects a cavalier approach to Cabinet collective responsibility and a failure to recognise its absolute necessity – especially in a Coalition government. – the Telegraph

Paddy hits out at the no campaign?

There is not a politician in the country who won’t tell you they want to improve politics. But as the conduct of the current referendum on adopting the alternative vote shows, judge them by their actions, not their words. I will be voting yes because I believe that changing to AV will substantially improve our democracy. I disagree with those advocating sticking to the current first-past-the-post system, but respect their right to their point of view. What I am perplexed and deeply disturbed by is that those running the no campaign haven’t once put forward a positive case for the current system and instead have spent their time lying about AV. I have seen principle-free machine politics in action many times and it is never a pretty sight. But this time really is different. – the Observer

Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown has accused George Osborne of trying to “frighten” voters off changing the voting system. He said the chancellor and Conservative colleagues had resorted to “bizarre” and “tawdry” tactics. Voters will go to the polls in just under three weeks in a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) system. It comes as a survey suggests a significant hardening of public opinion against the switch. Mr Osborne sparked anger last week when he said it “stinks” that the main backer of the pro-AV camp was the Electoral Reform Society – whose commercial arm Electoral Reform Services Ltd (ERSL) runs election services. He claimed that it stood to benefit financially from a switch, something ERSL has denied. – BBC News

A very Royal conundrum

The Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday that the rules of royal succession could appear “a little old-fashioned” to most people and a change to the current arrangements was worth considering. But Nick Clegg stressed it would be a complex process that needed careful thought, with other Commonwealth countries on board, and that it could not be done overnight. He said the Prime Minister and himself were “sympathetic” to change and that it was worth looking again at the rules which dictate that the first-born son and not a daughter inherits the throne. The current arrangement means that if William and Kate were to have a daughter, followed by a son, the son would be in line to become king. – the Scotsman

Britain’s Government says it has begun the process of reviewing the ancient, discriminatory rules of royal succession, so that if Prince William and Kate Middleton’s first child was a baby girl she would eventually become queen. The current rule that puts boys ahead of their sisters “would strike most people as a little old-fashioned,” Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said overnight. It is just two weeks until the prince and Middleton get married at London’s Westminster Abbey, and Mr Clegg said many people may agree that the rules should be changed so that if the couple’s first child was a girl, she would eventually inherit the throne – even if she had a younger brother. “I think most people in this day and age would think it’s worth considering whether we change the rules so that baby girl could become the future monarch,” he said. “I think that would be in keeping with the changes that are happening with society as a whole.” – Fox News Australia

Lib Dems regrets

More than a third of people who voted Liberal Democrat in last year’s general election wish they had chosen differently, an Independent on Sunday poll shows. The finding underscores Nick Clegg’s unpopularity and alarm among his party’s grass roots at the political direction he has taken in the Tory-led coalition. While 54 per cent of Lib Dems are happy with their choice at the ballot box, 37 per cent, a significant proportion, have deserted Mr Clegg. In a local election campaign speech in Newcastle yesterday, Ed Miliband seized on the Deputy Prime Minister’s woes by appealing to Lib Dem voters to switch to Labour after a year of “broken promises” on the tuition fees, the NHS and VAT. – the Independent

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Friday News Review

15/04/2011, 06:53:20 AM

A modern triple entente

President Obama today signals the return of America to the forefront of the international effort in Libya, writing a joint article with David Cameronand Nicolas Sarkozy in which the three leaders commit their countries to pursue military action until Colonel Gaddafi has been removed. In the joint article, Obama reverses America’s earlier cautious approach to the conflict – which saw the US hand control to Nato and withdraw fighter planes just days after the intervention began – and signs up his country to the more muscular intervention of his European colleagues. Obama’s new interest could transform the efforts of the international community after three days of talks in the Gulf state of Qatar in effect came to nothing. – the Guardian

Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy have stated their determination to keep bombing Libya until Muammar Gaddafi steps down or is deposed. The leaders of the United States, Britain and France said, in a jointly written article, it would be an “unconscionable betrayal” of the populations of rebel towns to cease operations with Colonel Gaddafi still in place. It was “unthinkable” that a leader who has “tried to massacre his own people” could be allowed to continue in government, they said. “So long as Gaddafi is in power, Nato and its coalition partners must maintain their operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime builds.” – the Independent

Immigration policy chaos

The Lib Dem Business Secretary, was speaking in Manchester following the Prime Minister’s speech on mass immigration which Mr Cable had said was “very unwise” suggesting they could fuel extremism over immigration. “The reference to the tens of thousands of immigrants rather than hundreds of thousands is not part of the coalition agreement, it is Tory party policy only,” Mr Cable had told the BBC before Mr Cameron’s speech. Questioned about his comments to the BBC Mr Cable said: “I don’t want to develop that, and I think I have said what I wanted to say. – the Telegraph

Vince Cable insisted the government was ‘completely united’ on immigration after earlier claiming David Cameron’s comments on the subject were ‘unwise’. The Lib Dem business secretary was greeted by angry protesters as he arrived for a visit in Greater Manchester at the centre of a political storm. The protesters – complaining about government cuts – disrupted a campaign visit to Levenshulme by Mr Cable. One was arrested. Mr Cable had appeared to criticise Mr Cameron’s keynote speech on immigration – in which the prime minister said the numbers coming into Britain were ‘too high’ and were dividing communities. The business secretary said the speech risked ‘inflaming extremism’ and was ‘unwise’. But Mr Cable, who was touring businesses in the north west, said later there was ‘no division’ between him and the prime minister on the issue. – Manchester Evening News

More people waiting longer for treatment

David Cameron’s pledge to protect the NHS was in tatters last night after official figures revealed a shock increase in hospital waiting times. The devastating blow, in a week where Health Secretary Andrew Lansley was ¬humiliated by nurses, ¬undermines the Premier’s -promises to patients. Less than 90% get their treatment within 18 weeks – the worst performance in almost three years, said the Department of Health. And some patients are even being made to wait for more than 39 weeks. Shadow Health Secretary John Healey said: “Cameron should say sorry to patients for breaking his promise. “He said he wanted waiting times to come down but these figures will further add to people’s concerns the NHS is starting to go backwards.” – the Mirror

Official figures show that some people have endured gaps of more than five months between being seen by their GP and being admitted to hospital, with the average wait lengthening by a full week over the past year alone. Waiting lists lengthened over the winter as NHS trusts cancelled planned operations to care for critically ill flu patients, but are likely to increase still further as health authorities begin in earnest to make savings of £20billion over the next four years. It represents the latest in a series of figures that have called into question ministers’ claims that the health budget and front-line services are being protected. Waiting times in A&E have increased by 63 per cent over the past year while more than half of 10,000 planned job cuts are said to be hitting doctors, nurses and midwives. Labour, which introduced the targets for treatment within 18 weeks, highlighted David Cameron’s claim at a recent Prime Minister’s Questions that the Government wanted “to see waiting times and waiting lists come down”. – the Telegraph

First class cover up

Labour leader Ed Miliband has been caught out trying to cover up his first-class train journey to the regions to reconnect with voters. Aides of Mr Miliband’s were spotted taking away the ‘First Class’ seat covers just as the leader arrived on the London to Coventry train with cameras in tow. The leader, who elbowed older brother David out of the way to seize the top Labour job, has repeatedly tried to launch a class war with the Tories, emphasising Prime Minister David Cameron’s privileged upbringing. But yesterday his class-war tactics backfired when Mr Miliband was filmed in the first class compartment of a Virgin train on his way to a local election campaign visit in Lancashire. Asked why he thought he should travel first class when he was trying to pitch himself as a man of the people, he said: ‘We travel standard class and we travel first class at different times… I don’t think any politician should claim that they are leading an ordinary life. – Daily Mail

So it was with mild surprise that I watched Ed Miliband step into a first class carriage on his way to Preston at the outset of a day of pre-local election events to which I and my Sky News crew had been invited. His team is evidently aware of the potential pitfalls of being seen to travel apart from the hoi polloi, as the first thing they did was to remove the “First Class” head covers from all the surrounding seats. When I questioned the Labour leader, he said: “We travel standard class and first class at different times.”I don’t think any politician should claim that they are leading a normal life because talking to you, being in the public eye is not a normal life.” The important thing, he said was to be able to “put yourself in other people’s shoes”. – Sky News

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Thursday News Review

14/04/2011, 06:40:54 AM

Cameron adds fuel to the fire

David Cameron will today make the provocative claim that communities across Britain are being damaged by the record levels of immigration of the last decade. He will accuse some new arrivals of not wanting to integrate with their neighbours, leaving some areas suffering “discomfort and disjointedness” following dramatic population shifts. He will also risk accusations that he is inflaming tensions over race in a local council elections campaign speech asserting that immigration has been too high for too long. But an unrepentant Mr Cameron will insist he is right to speak out on an issue that concerns millions of people – and accuse the last Labour government of fuelling support for the British National Party by refusing to address popular concerns on the subject. – the Independent

And in words that will alarm many of his Lib Dem partners he will claim many immigrants don’t want to fit in – accusing them of fuelling social pressures and dividing communities. He will say: “It has placed real pressures on communities up and down the country. “Not just pressures on school, housing and healthcare – though those have been serious – but social pressures too. When there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods, perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there, on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate, that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods.” He will warn that the Government will never be able to properly control immigration without first tackling welfare dependency. He describes them as “two sides of the same coin”. – the Mirror

The Downing Street press team will no doubt know what they were doing, and the type of coverage that they were aiming to achieve, so there may be a view that there are short-term political benefits to this – the Telegraph reports says the timing of the speech is influenced by wanting a popular theme for the local elections, and the well informed Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome also emphasises tensions with the Tory grassroots and right-wing presss seeing this as an “attempt to steady a panicking ship with a tough speech on immigration” as the local campaigning begins, also tweeting: Increasingly nervous about core Tory vote, Cameron makes immigration speech. – Next Left

How long till Lansley’s P45 arrives?

Health secretary Andrew Lansley apologised to nurses yesterday after they backed a vote of no-confidence in his controversial NHS reforms. Almost 99 per cent of delegates at the Royal College of Nursing said they did not support the Health Secretary – the first time such a motion has ever been passed against a minister. Mr Lansley later said sorry to the nurses several times and admitted the no confidence vote was a ‘rebuke’. It is the latest blow for the beleaguered Health Secretary, whose plans to scrap Primary Care Trusts and give GPs greater control of NHS cash have come under sustained attack from leading doctors, MPs and even members of the Coalition. – Daily Mail

Andrew Lansley coupled an apology to Britain’s nurses for failing to explain his health reforms with an impassioned statement of his commitment to the NHS. Hours after the Royal College of Nursing voted 99% in favour of a motion of no confidence in him at the RCN congress in Liverpool, the health secretary told nurses that he would have voted with them if he thought his plans would undermine the health service. The health secretary sought to underline his commitment by making clear that his only ambition in politics is to serve as health secretary. He said he had told the prime minister of this “publicly and privately”. Downing Street fears that Lansley’s failure to sell the reforms, which are designed to transfer commissioning powers from Primary Care Trusts to new GP-led consortiums by 2013, is jeopardising years of work in neutralising the NHS as an issue. Clegg must secure major changes to the bill to win over his party, which voted against the reforms at its spring conference last week. – the Guardian

Ed plots to kill off NHS reforms in the Lords

Labour has held secret talks with independent peers in a bid to ‘kill’ the Coalition’s controversial health reforms in the House of Lords, Ed Miliband revealed yesterday. The Labour leader said shadow health secretary John Healey had held a series of joint briefings with crossbench peers in recent weeks in a bid to sabotage the Health Bill when it arrives in the Lords in the summer. The Government does not have a majority in the House of Lords and the crossbenchers could play a key role in watering down the planned reforms. Some Coalition peers, including senior Lib Dem Shirley Williams and former Tory Party chairman Norman Tebbit, have also voiced serious concerns about the health plans. Mr Miliband said the legislation was already in ‘intensive care’ and now needed to be ‘killed off’. He added: ‘The answer to a bad Bill is not to slow it down but to junk it.’ – Daily Mail

Osborne wades in to the AV battle

The chancellor has launched an extraordinary attack on the Yes to AV campaign, highlighting alleged conflicts of interests in its funding. George Osborne’s accusations are just the latest dispute in an increasingly bitter and bad-tempered campaign which has seen both camps fling insults and accusations of assisting the far-right. “What really stinks is actually one of the ways the Yes campaign is funded,” Mr Osborne told the Daily Mail. The Electoral Reform Society, which is actually running some of the referendum ballots, and is being paid to do that by the taxpayer, stands to benefit if AV comes in. That organisation, the Electoral Reform Society, part of it is a company that makes money – is funding the Yes campaign. That stinks frankly and is exactly the sort of dodgy, behind the scenes shenanigans that people don’t like about politics.” – politics.co.uk

George Osborne was at the centre of a legal row last night after his attack on voting reform backfired. The Chancellor was accused of demeaning his position, and lawyers were called in to separate the opposing sides in the impending referendum on changing how MPs are elected. Mr Osborne claimed that the Yes campaign to scrap the first-past-the-post voting system was involved in “dodgy shenanigans” in funding – raising the temperature in an increasingly acrimonious contest. Electoral reformers called in solicitors to try to stop the dispute escalating any further, ahead of the 5 May ballot on whether to switch to the alternative vote for Westminster elections. The Yes campaign has pointed to the many wealthy Conservatives handing large sums to the opponents of electoral reform. Backed by Mr Osborne, No to AV countered by alleging that the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), which has given £1.1m to the pro-AV campaign, faced a financial conflict of interest in pressing for a Yes vote. No to AV claimed that the society and its subsidiaries had received more than £15m in contracts from the public purse over the past three years. – the Independent

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The media were right about the march

01/04/2011, 12:22:22 PM

by Rob Marchant

There is surely no need to add to the articles on last Saturday’s demo which focus on the actions of UK Uncut and the black bloc. Although it seems uncertain whether these groups were not, in the end, a sideshow to the principal lessons from it all. Perhaps trickier to explain was the laying of any remaining blame, as many did, squarely at the feet of “the media”.

Politicians who complain about the media are, as Enoch Powell once sharply observed, like sailors who complain about the sea. But, although we are not all politicians but mostly activists, this is precisely the conclusion we have largely reached regarding the demonstration last weekend. It’s understandable. It seemed grossly unfair, to those who had in good faith given up their Saturdays for a decent cause, for a peaceful demo to be linked to the violence and disruption of a few idiots. But, the trouble is, it wasn’t unfair.

With some notable and honourable exceptions, there are many adverse criticisms you could reasonably level at sections of the British media: overall right-wing bias, dumbing down, laziness in fact-checking, toothlessness of the regulator and so on. Fair enough. And, as a party, we should really have no great interest in defending the media – after all they usually have no great interest in defending us. But just this once let’s try, if we can, to step back and be objective about them. (more…)

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Wednesday News Review

30/03/2011, 06:42:10 AM

Creep and compromise

After a day-long conference in London on how to move forward the political process in Libya, other developments included: An admission the Coalition did not yet fully know who made up the opposition, which came after Nato said American intelligence had shown “flickers” of al Qaeda among the rebels; A suggestion the Coalition would be prepared to see Colonel Gaddafi go into exile if a country was willing to take him; A claim by the Italians that several nations were working on a deal involving a ceasefire, exile for Gaddafi and a talks framework between Libya’s tribal leaders and opposition figures; Nick Clegg warning about the “danger of overreaching” during a speech in Mexico, but stressing liberal interventionism must be upheld. – Daily Herald

David Cameron today promised a “new beginning for Libya” was within sight as Britain held open the door for Colonel Gaddafi to flee into exile. He vowed that the UK and other allies would not abandon the people rising up against the dictator. Foreign Secretary William Hague had earlier made it clear that Britain may be willing to allow Gaddafi to flee into exile. Piling the pressure on the dictator, America and Britain also refused to rule out arming the rebels. Mr Hague signalled that Britain may be willing to allow the tyrant to escape to a safe haven as part of a deal to end the bloodshed. “We are not in control of where he might go. I am not going to choose Colonel Gaddafi’s retirement home,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Italy has already proposed an exit route into exile for Gaddafi – and Turkey has offered to act as a mediator to end the conflict. – Evening Standard (more…)

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“Same old Tories” doesn’t tell me much

28/03/2011, 11:25:49 AM

by Ray Filar

“Same old taxes, same old Tories”. Ed Miliband’s response to the chancellor’s “budget for growth” last week was characterised by an aggressive, knowing ennui. It was as if Miliband had cast himself as an aging prima donna reclining on a (red) velvet chaise-longue, warning her child away from an only seemingly reformed no-good suitor. “I know what they’re like, you know what they’re like”, he seemed to be saying. Don’t be fooled by “friendly” George’s marriage proposal, also known as his budget for “growth”. He’s still the same man who stole your money to buy a dead puppy as a present for your sister.

The presumption Miliband and his speechwriters are making is that we do know what the Conservatives are like; that we will easily remember what they’re like if we cast our collective minds back to 1997 when they were last in government (or when they last proposed to us, depending on how long this analogy can be dragged out). This message was clearest during one of the speech’s defining moments, in which, against a supportive background of taunts and cheers from buoyed-up Labour ministers, Miliband described Osborne as embodying the “hubris and arrogance of the early 1990s, the same broken promises…he’s Norman Lamont with an iPod”. (more…)

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Sunday News Review

27/03/2011, 06:59:24 AM

The day after the march before

Did Mr Miliband mess up? In a way, he had wretched luck. The main trade union march was strikingly peaceful. There were small children and babies in prams, and lots of marchers sitting down having picnics. The marchers were overwhelmingly public sector workers, and in real terms that meant the park was crammed with health visitors, nurses, teachers, college lecturers, tax inspectors and council town hall staff. Compared to the angry entitlement brigade I had met the previous day at Labour’s People’s Policy Forum in Nottingham, the TUC marchers were reasonable people. I made a point of asking scores of marchers whether they thought the cuts should be scrapped full stop, or whether they thought some cuts were inevitable. A big majority took the latter view: these were Keynesians not flat-earthers in the main. All were friendly and happy to talk. Mr Miliband was also unlucky because the number of violent protestors was, by all accounts, small. A few hundred people vandalised branches of high street stores and banks they accuse of avoiding taxes, staged an occupation of Fortnum & Mason, the venerable Piccadilly grocers, and attacked police officers with flares and fireworks. He also repeated his honesty of Friday, telling the rally that: “I believe there is a need for difficult choices and some cuts”, though this earned him boos. But, that said, his ill-luck was also entirely predictable. Two days before the march, I found websites rallying protestors to launch physical attacks on shops in Oxford Street on Saturday, after about 10 seconds of Googling. – the Economist

It was the timing that Labour’s high command had been dreading. At the very moment their party leader began his speech at the anti-cuts rally in Hyde Park, anarchists wearing masks and waving red flags began attacking shops and banks in Oxford Street. For several minutes, live television pictures of the violence were accompanied by words from Ed Miliband. The speech could not have been further away in tone from the actions of the mindless minority. Nevertheless, the warning privately expressed by some in Labour’s high command that Mr Miliband should not be anywhere near Saturday’s events appeared to have been vindicated. The juxtaposition overshadowed the central point of Mr Miliband’s speech – an attempt to turn David Cameron’s Big Society against the Prime Minister. – the Telegraph

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls was briefly heckled by an anti-paedophile demonstrator as he joined the march at Embankment. The man had to be pushed away by stewards after squaring up to Mr Balls as he stopped to speak to reporters. Mr Balls said: “It’s really important that people from all political parties, trade unions, managers, private sector, public sector and parents from up and down the country say these cuts are too deep and too fast. Employment is going up, people are saying there are less police offices, less teaching assistants. There needs to be a better way, a fairer alternative. We don’t want to go back to the 1980s, which Cameron talks about as being a good era. It was an era of strikes and confrontation. Labour is saying there has to be a fairer alternative.” Mr Balls said Labour leader Ed Miliband, due to speak in Hyde Park, had wanted to join the march but had been told not to on police advice. – the Mirror

Clegg’s calamities continue

The Deputy Prime Minister has commissioned a complete rethink of Lib Dem strategy amid rumblings about his stewardship at the highest level. Insiders say senior party figures including Chris Huhne, a former leadership contender, have been jockeying for position behind the scenes. Rumours about Mr Clegg’s leadership have emerged after mounting discontent among party members in the country who are furious at the direction the party has been taking in government. Rank and file activists, who are more left wing than Mr Clegg, reject many of the more right wing policies adopted by their leader since he entered into coalition with the Tories. Mr Huhne, who ran Mr Clegg close in the last Lib Dem leadership election, has told colleagues privately that he would be interested in leading his party in the future. The rebranding exercise due to get under way next month will involve a total rethink of the party’s direction and could even include changing the name and logo, It is also feared the Lib Dems could lose up to 500 council seats in the local elections, further destabilising Mr Clegg. The Lib Dem leadership rules state that a leader can be removed by a vote of no confidence passed by a majority of MPs or by a statement calling on him to go submitted by 75 local constituency parties. – the Telegraph (more…)

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Saturday News Review

26/03/2011, 06:30:06 AM

All roads lead to London

More than a quarter of a million protesters against public sector cuts are expected to flood central London today in the biggest political demonstration for nearly a decade. Police sources, normally cautious about estimating numbers, said last night they were braced for up to 300,000 people to join the march – far higher than previous forecasts from TUC organisers. More than 800 coaches and at least 10 trains have been chartered to bring people to the capital from as far afield as Cornwall and Inverness. The Metropolitan police, under fire for their use of kettling in previous protests, said “a small but significant minority” plan to hijack the march to stage violent attacks. Organisers, however, insist it will be a peaceful family event. Union members are expected be joined by a broad coalition, from pensioners to doctors, families and first-time protesters to football supporters and anarchists. Ed Miliband said the government was dragging the country back to the “rotten” 1980s. Labour is calling today’s event the “march of the mainstream”. The opposition leader will address the rally – his biggest audience ever – in Hyde Park to set out Labour’s alternative to the cuts, accusing the government of fomenting the “politics of division” not seen since Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s. His remarks are reinforced by a Guardian/ICM poll that shows the public divided over the cuts. Of 1,014 people questioned this week, 35% believe the cuts go too far, 28% say they strike the right balance and 29% say they don’t go far enough; 8% don’t know. Two other polls put the balance more strongly against cuts. A YouGov survey for Unison found that 56% believe the cuts are too harsh and a ComRes poll for ITV showed that two-thirds think the government should reconsider its planned spending cuts programme. Just one in five disagree with that view. The TUC organisers of the event said they had organised a family-friendly demonstration with brass, jazz and Bollywood bands. But with unofficial feeder marches, sit-down protests and a takeover of Trafalgar Square planned, there was increasing nervousness that acts of peaceful civil disobedience could lead to stand-offs with police and outbursts of violence. – the Guardian (more…)

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Friday News Review

25/03/2011, 06:40:38 AM

Calamity Clegg

It was supposed to be all about promoting the Budget plans for economic growth. Twenty-one Enterprise Zones are being set up in unemployment hotspots and David Cameron and Nick Clegg were at the Boots HQ in Nottingham to celebrate one of the first of them being set up right next door. Then at the end of a question and answer session with Boots employees, the PM and the DPM were asked about where we’d all be in 2015. David Cameron said in a jokey closing remark that they’d probably be having election TV leaders’ debates and that this time it might be ”a bit better natured between the two of us.” The two men then take the applause and walk off the stage … BUT Nick Clegg forgets he has his microphone on and says to David Cameron as they leave the room: ”If we keep doing this we won’t find anything to bloody disagree on in the bloody TV debates.” David Cameron laughs then Nick Clegg looks down at lapel realising, a la Gordon Brown and “bigot-gate,” that he’s forgotten to take the mike off. His press chief, Lena Pietsch, gives an anxious sideways look to Ed Lewellyn, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff. – Gary Gibbon, Channel4 News

A gaffe by Nick Clegg looks likely to fuel fears among backbench Coalition MPs about his enduring friendship with David Cameron. After a question and answer session with members of the public, the Lib Dem leader was recorded yesterday telling the Prime Minister: ‘If we keep doing this, we won’t find anything to bloody disagree on in the bloody TV debates.’ Mr Cameron laughed, before Mr Clegg realised he had left his lapel microphone on. Gordon Brown suffered a similar fate during the General Election campaign when he was recorded describing angry Labour voter Gillian Duffy as a ‘bigot’. It will intensify fears among both Lib Dem and Tory MPs that the pair’s close relationship shows they are happier with each other than with their own MPs. Some fear their partnership could even lead a so-called ‘purple plot’, with the Coalition continuing beyond this Parliament. – Daily Mail

The Labour Party last night threatened to pull the plug on three-way televised debates at the next General Election after Nick Clegg was inadvertently recorded telling David Cameron that the pair “won’t find anything to bloody disagree on”. His remarks were immediately seized on by Labour who suggested that it would be inappropriate to have a three-way televised debate as Mr Clegg was effectively now just Mr Cameron’s deputy. “What we think should happen is that David Cameron debates with Ed Miliband while Nick Clegg debates with our deputy leader Harriet Harman. Clegg’s comments have reinforced our view that the next election will offer the choice between two directions for the country: a Tory led coalition and a progressive majority represented by Labour.” He added Labour’s concerns would be raised in negotiations with the broadcasters over the next set of TV debates. – the Independent

Cameron’s broken promises

David Cameron stood accused yesterday of breaking two key election promises in the Budget. The Government is set to axe NHS funding by nearly £1billion – despite a vow to increase health spending. And millions of pensioners will lose up to £100 in winter fuel payments in a cut sneaked out in the Budget small print. An analysis by the highly-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies showed yesterday rising inflation means NHS funding will fall 0.9% over the next four years, equivalent to a cut of £900million. Chancellor George Osborne has helped to cook the books by reducing the baseline from which the Government measures health spending. But the IFS said that even with the new baseline Mr Osborne will struggle to maintain NHS spending above “zero” and was “sailing very close to the wind”. The organisation also warned public services face an extra £4billion cut due to inflation, and household incomes will fall by £1,500 over the course of the Parliament. Gemma Tetlow of the IFS said: “There is a 30% chance that further tax increases or deeper spending cuts will be needed.” Shadow Health Secretary John Healey said yesterday: “The small print of the Budget confirms David Cameron is letting the NHS down, and has broken his promise to protect the NHS. With the Office for Budget Responsibility’s new inflation forecasts, NHS England is in fact facing a real-terms cut of £1billion.” – Daily Mirror

The coalition is embroiled in a row over its health pledges after it emerged that the budget contained a cut in the NHS‘s spending power of almost £1bn.Labour accused ministers of reneging on their repeated promise to increase the NHS’s budget in real terms every year throughout this parliament. Revised upward predictions of inflation in the budget by the Office for Budget Responsibility show that the NHS in England will undergo a cut of £1bn in its spending power by 2015. It also reveals that its budget will be cut in each of the next two financial years, alleged shadow health secretary John Healey. He was supported by Professor John Appleby, chief economist at the King’s Fund, who calculated that the NHS would have £910m less to spend over that period. “It looks like the government won’t meet its pledge to give a year-on-year real rise to the NHS each year during this parliament,” he said. – the Guardian

How are you getting to the march tomorrow?

But tomorrow tens of thousands of people will come to a march and rally in London to show there is an alternative. It should be a march of the mainstream. Nurses, cleaners, care workers and council staff should be there to urge the Conservative-led administration to have a change of course. There are expected to be 600 coachloads, nine special trains and thousands will attend by public transport. One man is walking from Cardiff. And I will be joining them in Hyde Park to add my voice to the many. For me there is one thing that links all our concerns. It is the threat that these cuts pose to the next generation. This is what I have called the betrayal of the British Promise. If anybody wants a reason to join this Saturday’s demonstration, there are many – the need to show there is an alternative, to save our services, to show the cuts are going too deep and too fast. But I would also urge people to join us to protect the promise we in the past have made to our children. This is what Saturday should be about. Let us make Saturday a one-nation demonstration against the politics of division. – Ed Miliband, Daily Mirror

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