INSIDE: Phil Woolas sets the record straight to his CLP
22/09/2010, 03:53:09 PMINSIDE: Shadow cabinet: vote for Liam
22/09/2010, 01:38:20 PMINSIDE: Ed Balls’ desert island discs
22/09/2010, 12:30:03 PMIt’s a metaphor for the whole campaign. Ed Balls’ desert island discs are the coolest. No question.
But they’ve come too late. Even the shouting is over. The avalanche of taste-esteem that will engulf the shadow education secretary this afternoon cannot save him from electoral oblivion. Not even the hardcore Labourista’s luxury of choice can save him now.
Nobody is surprised that he has turned out to have an immense appetite and aptitude for the brutal business of opposition. Less predictable was the warmth and “normalness” which was reported in the second half of his campaign.
Had it been a six month campaign, Ed Balls would have done better. But three was too long already.
On St Helena, he would have had Dolly Parton’s astonishing voice, Elvis Presley’s unabating coolness, Billy Bragg’s best song and Bach’s most difficult violin piece to console him. Which might have been quite nice.
In real life, whoever wins will expect Ed to do most of the work.
Elvis Presley – ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ – (live, Madison Square Gardens 1972)
Joshua Redman – ‘Blues for Pat’ (Wish)
Herbert Howells – ‘Like as the hart’ (St Paul’s cathedral choir, Hyperion)
Spandau Ballet – ‘True’ (12″ version)
Bach – Partita No. 2 in D Minor for violin – Itzhak Perlman, EMI
Dolly Parton – ‘I will always love you’
Handel – Ariodante Act 3, ‘Dopo Notte atra e funesta’ (Janet Baker, Philips)
Billy Bragg – ‘Saturday Boy’
Luxury: Karaoke machine
Book: Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
Film: Some Like it Hot
UNCUT: Eric Joyce on his journey to the shadow cabinet elections
22/09/2010, 09:00:27 AMIt’s often said that there are too few MPs with backgrounds other than purely politics. At first glance, the CVs of most former Labour cabinet ministers seem to confirm that. In fact, the Parliamentary Labour party is packed with people with other life experiences, from ex-miners like David Hamilton to teachers, social workers and – OK then – lawyers.
I think this largely unfounded perception of MP unwordliness stems from the way technocratic skills fuse with political patronage in contemporary government. That is not necessarily to be adversely critical; perhaps there is no other way. Tony and Gordon needed people in their cabinet with practical experience of how 21st century government works and naturally turned to people they’d trained up themselves. And while it’s been often remarked that it seems a bit strange for the Labour leadership to be contested by four people with essentially identical trajectories, two of them actually brothers, it’s fair to say that these people and others like them turned out to be very good at the job. Read the rest of this entry »
UNBOUND: Wednesday News Review
22/09/2010, 07:31:25 AMLast day of voting
Supporters of each of the five candidates for the Labour leadership are making a last-ditch effort to secure votes before polling closes. MPs, MEPs and party members have until 5pm to cast their ballots, and votes are expected to be cast electronically via the Labour website right up until the last minute. Voting for members of trade unions and affiliated organisations closed on Tuesday. Polls suggest that shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband had closed the gap on brother David as the race came to the wire. But bookmakers Ladbrokes still made shadow foreign secretary David 1-2 favourite on Tuesday night, ahead of his younger brother on 6-4. – The Press Association
Today voting ends in Labour’s leadership contest. Mirror readers who are Labour members have until 5pm to vote. It takes just a minute online. I will be a leader who will make sure that Labour will again be a party which stands up for the hard-working majority in Britain. We all know what happened under 18 years of Tory rule. And just look at what they’ve done in their first few weeks – hiked VAT to 20%, slashed Tax Credits, frozen Child Benefit, threatened Winter Fuel Payments, axed new school buildings. Cameron promised compassionate Conservatism, but is showing that for the majority there is no such thing. – Ed Miliband, The Mirror
Left Ed, Right Ed
According to his critics, he’s a dangerous left-wing radical who, if he ever became prime minister, would take Britain back to the Socialist 1970s. According to his supporters, he’s the man who will lead Labour away from Blairism and reconnect the party with its core supporters and traditional values. Both his detractors and supporters are in agreement that Ed Miliband – who could well be Labour leader when the results of the party ballot are revealed this weekend – is the candidate for ‘change’. Miliband himself has as his campaign slogan: ‘Call for Change’. But if we look beyond the rhetoric and the sound-bites, a very different picture emerges. The reality is that Ed Miliband is not so much the ‘change’ candidate, but a politician who will deliver more of the same neo-liberal policies that both Conservative and Labour governments have followed over the past 30 years. – The First Post
INSIDE: Shadow cabinet: vote for Mike
21/09/2010, 07:03:37 PMINSIDE: Shadow cabinet: vote for Pat
21/09/2010, 04:58:32 PMINSIDE: Shadow Cabinet: a reminder to vote for Tom
21/09/2010, 04:50:50 PMHOME: Bold predictions in the internet age, by Siôn Simon
21/09/2010, 01:49:35 PMDan Hodges announced this morning that David Miliband has won the Labour leadership. Which is not literally true; it is a bold prediction, presented in the form of what Frank Johnson used to call a conceit.
My father – perhaps anticipating a theme – used to warn me that “there is a thin line between brave and stupid”. Dan Hodges is not stupid. Far from it. This is a brave piece.
Frank Johnson, when teaching me how to write newspaper columns, used to enjoin: “Make bold predictions. If you are wrong, nobody will remember. But if you are right you can always remind them.”
I passed this reassurance on to Dan Hodges yesterday.
James Macintyre employs the technique in the New Statesman today. I take the opportunity to do it myself here: on 2 August, before the bookies’ odds had narrowed, I said in Uncut that Ed Miliband was an evens bet:
“Ed Miliband, like his brother, has succeeded in converting his patronage-momentum into real political capital which should have made him an evens bet to be the next leader. It hasn’t – the bookies put David well in front – but Ed is the better value brother, because evens is the political reality.”
I still think this is accurate. It’s close. Lots of people have written how close it is. Not many, especially of those who are paid to call these kind of things, have been brave enough to make the call.
Frank Johnson was the great newspaper prose stylist of his generation and an underestimated editor of the Spectator. He was a deep mine of wise and idiosyncratic advice about writing. “Be counter-intuitive” was at the centre. The word “albeit” and the phrase “the fact that” were banned at the periphery. As they are on Uncut.
And he was right, in his time, about making predictions. But he is wrong in the age, which he largely pre-dated, of the internet.
Rather than test the benevolence of the blogosphere, in which case, I also offer this prediction of mine, written at the 2007 Labour conference.
It turned out to be wrong. As I have often been reminded.
