The Brown inner circle: from spearhead to shambles, by Dan Hodges

12/08/2010, 12:00:25 PM

On Sunday I had my first opportunity to watch ‘Five Days That Changed Britain’, Nick Robinson’s exposé of the deals, double deals and expressions of sincerity from Nick Clegg that culminated in the establishment of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition. Although the programme wasn’t revelatory, I found it candid, insightful and, to my surprise, moving. There was something genuinely poignant in the picture it drew of Gordon Brown’s growing isolation as the political options narrowed and his enemies closed in.

It reminded me of a little vignette from the morning after the election, when Gordon arrived at Labour HQ to address party workers. After a few brief words of thanks, he prepared to depart for Downing  Street, only to be unceremoniously bundled into a side room by Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell, who proceeded to lay out their strategy for a grand alliance to keep the party, (though not necessarily him), in power.

Peter, Alastair and Andrew Adonis featured at length in the transition drama, and were clearly – to the extent that we had a negotiating strategy – its architects. Which goes beyond poignancy, stampedes right past pathos and dives headlong into Shakespearian tragedy. At his darkest hour, with all hope fading, the King calls out for his trusted aides, only to find himself surrounded by the henchman of his bitterest foe. “That one might read the book of fate/And see the revolution of the times”. Or, in Gordon’s case, the Sun and the Mail.

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We must be the party of radical public service reform, says John Woodcock

09/08/2010, 11:26:13 AM

The immediate aftermath of a very bad election result is not the ideal time for Labour to produce radical, worked up plans to transform our public services. So we probably shouldn’t be too surprised that none of our leadership candidates has come up with anything to set the contest alight. One or two decent ideas have been floated. The proposal by my favoured candidate David Miliband to mutualise the BBC is pretty good, but it is not the humdinger to win us back the south of England.

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James Ruddick bids farewell to Nick Clegg

06/08/2010, 08:05:05 AM

Let me be the first to wish Nick Clegg well in his new life outside British politics. Is this premature? Not at all.  Clegg will begin this new life – probably back in the corridors of Brussels – much sooner than he or anyone else realises.

Clegg’s political demise has already started. He may have secured an AV referendum for his party during negotiations with the Tories, but he secured nothing for the electorate except pain. On the only issue of importance facing the country – how and when to retrench – Clegg sold out. And for that alone, he is doomed.  He finds himself deputy prime minister in a government which has smashed the recovery with a single 40 minute speech.

And the stalled recovery – confirmed by the latest Markit and YouGov data – is only one feature in the pincer movement that is sealing Clegg’s fate. As our economic problems set in aspic, the electorate will start to feel the first wave of the cuts – the cuts that Clegg was hired to ameliorate; the cuts which he has unblinkingly sponsored. There will soon be vast numbers of casualties staring shell-shocked and limbless into the lens of the Sky News camera, all of them looking for Clegg’s phone number. Some aspect of the hacking and sawing will be felt by every family in Britain, especially the seven million who voted Lib Dem. (more…)

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The American way? No We Can’t, says Dan Hodges

05/08/2010, 01:30:25 PM

Last week I bumped into an old comrade from the Greater Manchester congestion charge campaign. Like Vietnam veterans we speak sparingly of those days, pausing but rarely to wrestle our demons and remember the fallen.

Asked what he was up to now that he was back on civvy street, he replied that he was working as “deputy field manager” for one of the leadership teams.

“What the hell’s a field manager”, I asked?

“Well it’s like an organiser”.

“So why isn’t it called an organiser”?

“Well, it’s what the Americans call an organiser”.

“Have we got loads of Americans over here stitching up the electoral college, then”?

“No. It’s what Obama used”.

Ah. “What Obama used”. The political equivalent of ‘It’s What Diana Would Have Wanted’.

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Equal-sizing constituencies is gerrymandering through ignorance, as well as cynicism, says Kevin Meagher

04/08/2010, 09:10:50 AM

In last week’s Guardian, Martin Kettle, accused Labour of ‘playing fast and loose on AV reform’ following the Shadow Cabinet’s  decision to oppose the bill paving the way for next year’s referendum on electoral reform. It got me shouting at the cat.

Of course the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill also has bolted on to it measures to reduce the number of MPs and comprehensively redraw parliamentary constituencies, hence Labour’s objection.

But in a passage that sent dear old Puss heading for the cat-flap, Kettle cited the Chartists’ call for equal-sized parliamentary constituencies and asked whether Labour ‘is any longer a party of reform at all’ given that it is ‘no longer willing to go into the Parliamentary lobbies in September to advance the equality of representation for which the Chartists campaigned.’ (more…)

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It’s time the leadership also-rans came clean about their second preferences, says Siôn Simon

02/08/2010, 02:57:17 PM

It is polite to pretend that there are five candidates for the Labour leadership. But it is not true. The next leader of the Labour party will be David or Ed Miliband. Everybody knows that.

There is an important battle for third between Diane Abbott and Ed Balls. Which latter has a lot to lose by coming fourth. He entered the contest as a leading figure of his generation. His extraordinary promotion to cabinet rank within two years of entering Parliament (like Ed Miliband’s) had been exceeded in its rapidity only by that of Peter Mandelson just under a decade earlier.

Like Mandelson, Balls and Ed Miliband were beneficiaries of the extravagant patronage of a grateful new leader drunk on glory. Unlike Mandelson, neither was initially ready for such high office. In Balls’ case, he was up to it administratively, but struggled in Parliament and on the broadcast media. Ed Miliband was better presentationally, but worse in the department. Both are better now. Though neither is as good in either respect as was Peter Mandelson. (more…)

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Come on candidates, let’s hear what you’ve got

31/07/2010, 03:16:45 PM

For those readers old enough to have attended a concert given by a proper ‘rock band’, you will be familiar with the role of a ‘roadie’. As well as lumping around heavy musical equipment, obtaining narcotics for the band and procuring groupies for the purposes of sexual gratification, their more mundane task is to make sure the band’s guitars are in tune.
 
With not long of the Labour Leadership World Tour to go, some of our prospective lead singers could do with a good roadie. Not to fulfill the more unseemly aspects of their job description you understand; but to fine-tune candidates’ rhetorical stratocasters. Because I don’t know about you, but my ears are starting to hurt a bit.  
 
Can I make a suggestion? Can we just take it as read that all candidates in this leadership contest are motivated by their “values.” That they all want to “reconnect”. That they are all committed to “renewal” and “fairness”. And that they all want to “listen?”

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Hillary Benn on leadership, and his decision to back Ed Miliband

29/07/2010, 04:13:54 PM

For me, this election is about character, and that’s why I am backing Ed Miliband.

I can remember the moment when I decided that he was the person to lead us into the future. It was a speech he gave, without notes. He was fluent and thoughtful. He argued his case. But above all, he looked and sounded like a leader, and I was mightily impressed. Last Sunday, along with 300 other people at the leadership hustings in Leeds, I saw those same qualities on display again. And I was reminded that who wins this election really does matter.

Why?

Well, first, because we have to understand the past in order to get the future right. On Labour’s achievements in government, you only have to look at what’s now under threat to be reminded just how important they were. But we do have to face up to the fact that we lost. And the most important question is – why did we lose? Because we stopped listening. And until we start listening, we will not win again.

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David Cameron is going berserk, says Kevin Meagher

29/07/2010, 12:27:07 PM

Oh dear, and it was all going so well.

Was it a lack of fresh air on the plane? Something he ate? Perhaps it was the heat which has shorted the political circuitry in his brain? Whatever it was, David Cameron seems to be going berserk.

After picking fights with just about every key public sector union and professional group in sight, he is now taking his peculiar brand of call-a-spade-a-shovel diplomacy on to the world stage. With predictably eye-wincing results. (more…)

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Don’t go to war over the deficit, says Dan Hodges

29/07/2010, 09:35:19 AM

Compare and contrast. First, Ed Balls, on why he’s battling to win the leadership race:

“I will carry on fighting to stop unfair tax rises and the withdrawal of essential benefits, I will carry on fighting to defeat a coalition hell-bent on cutting public services, putting up VAT, cancelling new schools and turning recovery into a double-dip recession.”

Next, Pat McFadden’s speech to the Fabian Society:

“Had we won the general election there would still have been difficult decisions to come. Unless we absorb that, I believe there is a danger of being tuned out by the electorate. By contrast, acknowledging it increases the chance of our fight against what the government is doing being heard. ‘Fight the cuts’ is a tempting slogan in opposition, and there are indeed some that must be fought. But if that is all we are saying the conclusion will be drawn that we are wishing the problem away.”

Two statements, two weeks apart, highlighting one very big problem facing the party. Just what is our policy (or, come to think of it, our line), on the deficit? (more…)

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