Labour Uncut

INSIDE: Uncut’s open letter to PLP chair, Tony Lloyd

29/06/2010, 12:47:26 PM

Dear Tony,

At last night’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party you told MPs off for leaking information to websites. Passing information to websites, even Labour-friendly websites, is not in the comradely spirit, you said.

A particular example you gave was the reporting of Labour MPs who didn’t vote in the select committee elections. You said that this was definitely not in the comradely spirit.

You framed the point in general terms. We thank you for your delicacy. But Labour Uncut is the website in question. The select committee non-voters was our story. And it is only Uncut which has been publishing reports from PLP meetings and leaked round robin emails sent to Labour MPs. Read the rest of this entry »

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INSIDE: Second tranch of PLP select committee elections

29/06/2010, 12:20:37 PM

FAO Labour MPs

At 7pm this evening the deadline passed for nominations to the Labour vacancies on the select committees.

Please find below three key pieces of information:

– the list of nominations where we are proceeding to ballot.

– details of how you submit a short statement (200 words) to the PLP Office so that we can send all statements out together

– information about proxy voting Read the rest of this entry »

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GRASSROOTS: Ben Furber says the web campaigns are as bad as the candidates

29/06/2010, 09:05:45 AM

The web ‘strategies’ of the candidates are failing to impress for exactly the same reason the candidates themselves are: none of them has anything much to say.

I don’t expect more than the simple, flat and un-aesthetic websites and non-existent web strategies of the candidates because I don’t expect much of anything from them.

A leadership campaign can only be as exciting as the candidates themselves, and an online communications strategy can only be as exciting as the campaign. More bluntly put, the candidates aren’t exciting, so the campaigns aren’t interesting, so the web products are boring. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNBOUND: Tuesday News Review

29/06/2010, 07:56:50 AM

Budget fall out

“Is Labour losing out on a star? Yvette Cooper has just impressed the Labour benches with a tour de force of a speech in the Commons in which she picked apart the budget for imposing “savage” cuts that are “nastier” than anything introduced by Margaret Thatcher.” – The Guardian

“Andrew George, the Lib Dem MP for St Ives, who tabled the Budget amendment, has told colleagues he does not want to trigger “nuclear war” in the party. But the Lib Dem leadership will be concerned that a rebellion may grow. Labour has begun targeting Lib Dem MPs with high numbers of poor voters. Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, said it was “shameful” that the Lib Dems had supported “the most right-wing budget I can remember”. – The Telegraph

“Ed Balls, the Labour leadership contender, said last night: “Nick Clegg and Vince Cable warned of a Tory VAT bombshell in the general election but are now helping to deliver it. So it’s encouraging that two Lib Dem MPs have stood by their principles and voted against the most unfair and regressive tax rise of all.”” – The Guardian

Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: 10 lessons for Labour from England’s hopeless World Cup.

28/06/2010, 03:01:46 PM

1. Don’t blame external factors.

OK, so the Lampard goal that never was is damn irritating. But the truth is that England were ordinary at their very best throughout the tournament and no more. They were downright awful yesterday.

Equally, for Labour, its performance in the general election was very poor. It could have been worse; it could have ended up in third place. England could have failed to qualify for the second round. But to blame money, the media, the credit crunch for Labour’s defeat and then fail to face reality will be fatal for 2015. Read the rest of this entry »

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HOME: On yer bike, Duncan Smith

28/06/2010, 11:10:18 AM

Work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, is a weak link in the Tory cabinet (for that is what it is). He is neither as clever as he thinks he is, nor as clever as he needs to be. Both of which he is too stupid to realise. He is a series of accidents which are starting to happen. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: Kate Williams gets suckered into facing Nick and Dave

28/06/2010, 09:00:15 AM

So I get a call to go on the Politics Show, for this post budget debate thing with Clegg and Cameron.

This producer guy – we’ll call him “Ian”, because that’s his name – wants a “mum”, and I bite because I have some things to say about the budget, and this and that; plus I score high for both vanity and gullibility in personality tests.

I don’t make a fuss about the mum-in-inverted-commas thing. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNBOUND: Monday News Review

28/06/2010, 08:06:43 AM

On your bike mark II

“Labour leadership candidate Ed Balls said yesterday Mr Duncan Smith was going further than Norman Tebbit. Mr Balls said: “The remarks suggest that he’s thinking of taking away the housing tenure, the right to a social house and saying you’ve got to move. “So actually he’s going further than saying on your bike. It’s on your bike and lose your home.” – The Mirror

“Labour leadership candidate Ed Miliband – who is backed by former Welsh Secretary Peter Hain – said the proposals were a retreat “back to the 1980s”. He said: “[What] he is saying to whole parts of the country is: ‘we have no hope as a government of getting work into your area so you are going to have to move out of your communities’. And that is frankly disgraceful.” – Western Mail

Cable cracks

“I hear from one of the other panel members that Vince Cable was deeply uncomfortable defending the VAT rise and the Budget and coalition in general on BBC1’s Question Time last week. I’m told that Cable, who has just been distancing himself from his party’s “VAT Bombshell” poster during the election, “simply got through it by a form of meditation.” – James Macintyre, New Statesman

“Up to half a dozen Lib Dem MPs are understood to have unofficially met Labour counterparts late last week to discuss co-ordinating their opposition. Two early day motions protesting about the rise have attracted the support of almost 70 Labour MPs and Lib Dem MP Bob Russell has already threatened to vote against the Budget.” – The Daily Mail

Read the rest of this entry »

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UNBOUND: Sunday News Review

27/06/2010, 07:33:10 AM

All you need to know about the candidates in one place

“On 25 September the result of Labour’s leadership election will be announced at the party’s annual conference in Manchester, but what will this change of management herald for a new New Labour? We invited David Miliband, Ed Balls, Diane Abbott, Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband to talk politics, purse strings and the perfect night’s television.” – The Observer

Daily roundup highlights Liberal meltdown

“Nick Clegg is suffering a fierce public backlash over the coalition’s VAT rise, with almost half of Liberal Democrat supporters saying the tax U-turn makes them more likely to desert the party. A YouGov/Brand Democracy survey, which will alarm already restive Lib Dem MPs, shows 48% of those who voted Lib Dem at the election are now less inclined to back them again as a direct result of the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20%.” – The Observer

“A senior Lib Dem MP confirmed that a number of disgruntled colleagues had “talked tactics” with Labour opponents over the possibility of at least obstructing key measures, including the increase in the rate of VAT from 17.5 to 20 per cent.” – The Independent

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HOME: The week Uncut

26/06/2010, 01:37:54 PM

A fullish week for June: a big Commons debate on the strategic defence review, an ‘emergency’ budget, the first ever select committee elections and David Miliband’s desert island discs.

The most important thing in all of which was George Osborne’s demeanour. It was a political coming of age. An uncertain boy made man by the advantages of office. For the first time in his Parliamentary career, he knew what he was talking about. He had the facts at his fingertips; the fat ballast of her majesty’s treasury behind him. Read the rest of this entry »

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