UNBOUND: Saturday News Review

18/09/2010, 07:56:32 AM

Another Lib Dem defector – How many is that now?

Solihull Lib Dem councillor Simon Slater has defected to the Labour Party. At a press conference in Solihull High Street on Friday Ian Austin, Labour MP for Dudley North, welcomed Coun Slater to the Labour fold and hinted there could be more defections to come across the West Midlands. – Solihull News

The Mirror’s final pitch

So we urge MPs, Labour Party members and those in affiliated trade unions and socialist societies to cast their votes, online or by post, for David Miliband before the ballot closes next Wednesday. Supporters of Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott should consider giving second preferences to David Miliband. The head must rule the heart.  It might appear cool to vote for Ed Miliband but the sensible choice is David Miliband. – The Mirror

“If we make the wrong choice we’ll leave Labour stuck in opposition for many years, that’s why this is too important a vote to ignore and it’s the reason the Daily Mirror has backed David. The people who really want him to lose are the Tories.” – Alan Johnson, The Mirror

Kinnock wades in again

Kinnock airs their differences publicly when he tells a Channel 4 docudrama of his surprise at David Miliband’s behaviour towards his younger brother, saying: “David’s response to Ed running has, to my astonishment, been deeply resentful. David’s people are spreading all kinds of bloody bile about Ed being in thrall to the left and he would be in the pocket of the unions and all kinds of crap like that.” – The Guardian

Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Unbound | No Comments »

INSIDE: Shadow cabinet: vote for Alan

18/09/2010, 04:01:33 AM

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Inside | No Comments »

INSIDE: Shadow cabinet: vote for Stephen

18/09/2010, 01:17:55 AM

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Inside | No Comments »

INSIDE: Shadow cabinet: vote for Barbara

17/09/2010, 04:42:32 PM

From: KEELEY, Barbara 
Sent: 17 September 2010 16:17
To: KEELEY, Barbara
Subject: Barbara Keeley for Shadow Cabinet

Barbara Keeley for Shadow Cabinet

Barbara Keeley MP 

Shadow Minister for Care Services

Shadow Deputy Leader of the House

 

Dear colleague

We will shortly have a new Leader and this election gives us the chance to elect a revitalised Shadow Cabinet to support the new Leader.

We need a team in the Shadow Cabinet who can take the fight to Tories and Liberal Democrats, campaign strongly across the country to win seats for Labour and develop new policy solutions. I want to be part of that team.

I have 21 years of experience of campaigning for Labour, including 9 years as a councillor and cabinet member in Trafford. I was twice Trafford’s Campaign Co-ordinator ensuring we hung on to marginal seats to retain control.

First elected as an MP in Worsley in 2005, I gained experience in the Cabinet Office, DWP and working with Harriet Harman on Equalities as both PPS and Government Whip.

I was Deputy Leader of the House and have deputised for Harriet at the Warwick Policy Forum and at conferences and seminars. Since May I have been Shadow Minister for Care Services in the Shadow Health Team combined with covering as Shadow Deputy Leader of the House.

In Parliament I have been a strong team member and a hard-working and effective Shadow Minister, Minister and backbench MP. I was also chair of the Women’s PLP.

In the Party I have been an effective and hard-working member of the Health Policy Commission, have chaired working groups on policy development and have fought many

by-elections locally and nationally.

In my career before Parliament, I worked as an adviser and consultant on health and social care and on regeneration projects. I was also a Systems Engineering Manager working for IBM, managing a team of 10 people.

I want to use all my experience and skills in the work of the new Shadow Cabinet team and I hope you will use one of your votes for me in this election.

Best wishes

Barbara Keeley MP

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Inside | No Comments »

INSIDE: Shadow Cabinet elections: the astonishing technical complexity of writing x

17/09/2010, 04:21:04 PM

PLP secretary, Martin O’Donovan, is worried that Labour MPs are going to be thrown into disarray by the stressful business of receiving, completing and returning their shadow cabinet ballot papers. All crazy-crammed, break-neck and irresponsible, into a mere, madcap seven days of voting.

In his email below, you can hear the fear in O’Donovan’s voice. He just knows – for sure – that he’s in for massive grief.

Because the best and the brightest are going to forget to vote. And they’re going to vote for people they didn’t want to vote for by mistake. And they’re going to change their minds three days after they’ve cast their votes and want another go. And several will want to cast their votes after the ballot has closed.

And it’s all going to be his fault. All of it. So he’d better be able to explain himself. That’s why he’s writing to them every 25 minutes explaining the rules. Poor Martin. Most sophisticated electorate in the world? Yeah, right.

Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Inside | No Comments »

INSIDE: Shadow Cabinet: vote for Angela

17/09/2010, 12:40:25 PM

From: EAGLE, Angela
Sent: 17 September 2010 11:01
To: EAGLE, Angela
Subject: Angela Eagle – for Shadow Cabinet

Angela Eagle for Labour’s new Shadow Cabinet

Today I announced my intention to stand for election to Labour’s new Shadow Cabinet. I hope that you consider giving me your support.This is an important time for our Party and it is right that the best team is elected to take on this Demolition Government. Since the election, I have worked as part of the shadow Treasury team to take the fight to the coalition on the economy and the profound risks they are taking with the fragile recovery. There was no mandate for the vicious decisions they took to impose the largest spending cuts in peacetime history – the result of which is an attack on the most vulnerable in our society and will see genuine hardship for many.I have used every opportunity to expose the dangers the Con Dems pose and now I want to be in the Shadow Cabinet, working with you, leading the fight against the Con Dems and returning Labour back to Government.

I have the energy and the experience

I was elected in 1992 in the most marginal seat in the North West famously defeating Tory International Development Minister Lynda Chalker. Between 1992 -1997 I served in the Whips office and served on numerous Select Committees including: Members Interests, Employment, Public Accounts (three times) and Treasury.

In government I spent eight years as a Minister in DETR, DSS, Home Office, Treasury and DWP and on the Government backbenches I was elected Vice Chair of the PLP and served on the Parliamentary Committee.

I can connect with the party and the public  

I have been a bridge between the PLP and the Party on the National Executive Committee first elected as PLP representative and later as one of the leaders Government Nominees. I am also an Ex officio member of the National Policy Forum.

I am also an active campaigner for Labour up and down the country and will continue to do so as a member of the Shadow Cabinet.

I will take the fight to this Con Dem Government

We must be strategic and flexible in our response to the coalition. It might be highly enjoyable to focus on the Lib Dems discomfort but it is the Tory small state ideology which we must defeat if we are to stand a chance of making a swift return to Government.

To return to Government we must win the country’s trust again and this will be no easy task – but with the right arguments, the right ideas and the right team – we can and we will.

I’d be honoured to have your support. Please feel free to call me on XXXX XXX XXX.

Best wishes
Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Inside | No Comments »

INSIDE: Shadow cabinet: vote for the Eagle

17/09/2010, 12:26:33 PM

From: EAGLE, Maria
Sent: 16 September 2010 17:55
To: EAGLE, Maria

I believe I have the talons talent to help make Labour soar upwards again. See my two most recent debates:

 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100708/debtext/100708-0003.htm#10070875001355  

 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100913/debtext/100913-0003.htm#10091330000151  

I both opened and wound up for the opposition on ConDem proposals to extend anonymity to defendants in rape cases. We all demolished their case and the policy was abandoned following the debate – the first defeat of a proposal in the coalition programme for government.

I wound up in the second reading debate on the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill and got stuck into the Deputy Prime Minister –  one coalition weak link upon whom we should focus our fire.

Lets get stuck into them in Parliament – and everywhere else!

Maria Eagle

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Inside | 1 Comment »

UNCUT: Shadow cabinet elections are stupid enough without voting stupidly too, says Lesley Smith

17/09/2010, 11:37:01 AM

Has anyone thought to ask why we are having shadow cabinet elections? Is it to achieve the best possible team to lead our parliamentary party? Is it because elections unite the mass base around their demonstrably popular and talented leaders? Is it a sure fire way of finding a brilliant team that will row in harmony behind whomever a different process elects leader? Is it guaranteed, or even likely, to select people who will work well as a team and share the objectives of that leader?

Well. Nope. ?Or is it, as some say (idiotically) “to act as a counter balance to the leader”? So we go through three months of agony (when we could have been building a strategic and effective opposition to the Tories) to elect someone whose authority we wish the PLP, many of whom have only been there for three minutes, to be able to undermine? If you wanted to sabotage a new leader’s chance of running a half way decent strategy, this is how to do it. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Uncut | 5 Comments »

INSIDE: Clegg has betrayed every Lib Dem voter – says Lib Dem Cllr as he joins Labour

17/09/2010, 11:00:36 AM

As the Liberal Democrats head to Liverpool for what is sure to be a difficult conference, Solihull Councillor Simon Slater becomes the latest in a stream of Lib Dems  to leave the party to join Labour.

A Lib Dem Cllr for Shirley West since 2006, and Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate for Meriden in the general election, Slater accused the party leadership of selling-out their principles to secure “top jobs with their new Tory friends in government.”

On joining the Labour Party Cllr Simon Slater said:

Before the election Nick Clegg talked about not cutting too fast or too deep, he talked about protecting the most vulnerable in society, fairness for students and meaningful constitutional reform, and he fought against a Tory VAT bombshell. But now in government he has betrayed everything he said he believed in and everyone who voted for him.

The national Liberal Democrat leadership seem more interested in securing the top jobs with their new Tory friends in government than any principle.

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Inside | 12 Comments »

GRASSROOTS: Rob Carr on the Lib Dems’ exit strategy

17/09/2010, 10:09:54 AM

If you are a viewer of Dragons’ Den on the BBC, you will have heard the phrase “exit strategy”. The idea being that if you want someone to invest in your business, there has to be a way for them to make a profit and get their money back out of the business. The obvious way to recoup capital is to sell equity, and the Dragons do that all the time. Four years or so into an investment, they’ll begin looking to sell their share of the business for a profit.

We also hear it more and more as a military term. How does a nation get its troops out of a given conflict? George W Bush didn’t have an exit strategy for Iraq. The Iraq war began on March 20 2003 and there was no real exit strategy until 2007, four years later.

Andy just you need an exit strategy in business and in war, you need one in politics too. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Posted in Grassroots | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »