Labour Uncut

INSIDE: Rules and candidates for today’s select committee elections

23/06/2010, 09:23:26 AM

FAO Labour MPs
At 7pm this evening (Tue 22 June) the deadline passed for nominations to the Labour vacancies on the select committees.

Please find below four key pieces of information:

– the list of nominations where we are proceeding to ballot.
– the list of the remaining committees, including those colleagues who are now

ELECTED unopposed to fill vacancies.
– 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

We will now move to elect the vacancies on the following committees in a ballot in the PLP Office between 10am and 5pm on Wednesday. The names of all the candidates is also attached.

LIST OF NOMINATIONS

1. BIS (6 nominations for 4 vacancies)

(Luciana Berger, Jack Dromey, Julie Elliott, Gregg McClymont, Chi Onwurah, Rachel Reeves)

2. CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT (6 nominations for 5 vacancies)

(David Cairns, Jim Dowd, Paul Farrelly, Alan Keen, Jim Sheridan, Tom Watson)

3. DEFENCE (8 nominations for 5 vacancies)

(Thomas Docherty, Michael Dugher, David Hamilton, Dai Havard, Madeleine Moon, Alison Seabeck, Gisela Stuart, John Woodcock)

4. FOREIGN AFFAIRS (10 nominations for 5 vacancies)

(Ann Clwyd, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Gapes, Fabian Hamilton, Mark Hendrick, Sandra Osborne, Yasmin Qureshi, Emma Reynolds, Frank Roy, David Watts)

5. HOME AFFAIRS (5 nominations for 4 vacancies)

(Steve McCabe, Alun Michael, Bridget Phillipson, Karl Turner, David Winnick)

6. INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (9 nominations for 5 vacancies)

(Hugh Bayley, Russell Brown, Richard Burden, Michael McCann, Ann McKechin, Pamela Nash, Anas Sarwar, Virendra Sharma, Marsha Singh)

7. TRANSPORT (7 nominations for 4 vacancies)

(Lilian Greenwood, Tom Harris, Julie Hilling, Kelvin Hopkins, Jonathan Reynolds, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith)

8. TREASURY (9 nominations for 5 vacancies)

(Gordon Banks, John Cryer, Mark Lazarowicz, Andy Love, John Mann, Michael Meacher, George Mudie, Ian Murray, Chuka Umunna)

9. WORK AND PENSIONS (5 nominations for 4 vacancies)

(Karen Buck, Margaret Curran, Kate Green, Shabana Mahmood, Teresa Pearce)

MPs NOW ELECTED TO REMAINING VACANCIES

1. CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES – Nic Dakin, Pat Glass, Liz Kendall, Ian Mearns, Lisa Nandy. NO VACANCIES REMAIN.

2. COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT – Heidi Alexander, Clive Efford, Toby Perkins, Chris Williamson. NO VACANCIES REMAIN.

3. ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE – Tom Greatrex, Albert Owen, John Robertson, Alan Whitehead. ONE VACANCY REMAINS.

4. ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT – Martin Caton. THREE VACANCIES REMAIN.

5. HEALTH – Rosie Cooper, Fiona Mactaggart, Grahame Morris, Valerie Vaz. ONE VACANCY REMAINS.

6. JUSTICE – Chris Evans, Sian James, Linda Riordan. TWO VACANCIES REMAIN.

7. NORTHERN IRELAND – Gemma Doyle, Stephen Hepburn, Kate Hoey, Ian Lavery, Stephen Pound. NO VACANCIES REMAIN.

8. POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM – Sheila Gilmore, Tristram Hunt, Catherine McKinnell, Peter Soulsby. NO VACANCIES REMAIN.

9. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION – Paul Flynn. FOUR VACANCIES REMAIN.

10. PUBLIC ACCOUNTS – Eric Joyce, Austin Mitchell, Anne McGuire, Nick Smith. NO VACANCIES REMAIN.

11. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY – Graham Stringer. THREE VACANCIES REMAIN.

12. SCOTTISH AFFAIRS – Cathy Jamieson, Jim McGovern, Fiona O’Donnell, Lindsay Roy. NO VACANCIES REMAIN.

STATEMENTS BY CANDIDATES

if you are standing in a contested ballot on Wednesday the PLP Office will be collating short (200 word) statements to be circulated to all colleagues and avoid too much email traffic. So, if you are in a contested ballot as of 7pm, please send your 200 words to me on this email address by 3pm tomorrow. All statements will then be circulated at 4pm tomorrow.

PROXY VOTES

If you need to arrange a proxy vote for Wednesday’s election please contact me by Tuesday at 5pm on this email address.

A reminder that candidates who are unsuccessful in Wednesday’s ballot may apply for remaining vacancies, as may any eligible colleague who has yet to express an interest. I will circulate the full list of vacancies on Thursday morning.

Martin O’Donovan
Director of Unit and PLP Secretary

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UNBOUND: Wednesday News Review

23/06/2010, 07:53:04 AM

Labour’s fightback

“While Labour fights a leadership contest and Lib Dems wonder whether they can change the voting system as a reward for their loyalty, Osborne needs to win the argument that his measures are “unavoidable” – a word that recurred in his speech as often as “progressive”. The term is another convenient one, implying that there is no other course and therefore challenge is futile. Margaret Thatcher famously argued in the 1980s that there was no alternative to her policies. Osborne did not repeat the phrase, but “unavoidable” has precisely the same meaning and serves the same purpose.” – The Independent Read the rest of this entry »

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GRASSROOTS: Tom Copley says the Lib Dems are too soft for the hard budget

22/06/2010, 07:45:39 PM

Today’s budget was a typically Tory affair. Fresh from wielding the axe, George Osborne sat down to ecstatic cheers from Tory backbenchers delighted at his assault on the state. The Lib Dem response was somewhat more muted. According to the Guardian, only one of their 37 backbenchers waved his order paper in approval.

Amongst the Lib Dem membership I imagine the response was even frostier. Lib Dem federal executive member, Richard Grayson, writes on Comment is Free that his party’s leadership has “abandoned the party’s centre left roots”. He is wrong – they have no roots to abandon. Read the rest of this entry »

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HOME: Fastest anti-budget protest?

22/06/2010, 07:28:29 PM

By 6pm this evening, banner-waving protesters were already massed outside Camden town hall in north London.

Surely, they must be the first to have taken to the streets against the budget?

Even more so, they won’t be last.

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UNCUT: John McTernan on Militant, muppets and the coalition budget

22/06/2010, 05:51:09 PM

Some commentators compare Danny Alexander to a missing member of the Sesame Street cast. While such disrespect may annoy and upset him, he’s lucky to be described in such cuddly terms. For when I listen to him and his Lib Dem colleagues, I hear echoes of something far worse and far more sinister – the Militant Tendency.

Admittedly there aren’t the hand gestures, but there is the absolute conviction of the convert to a totalising ideology. By which I mean an ideology that can offer an explanation for every woe. For Trotskyists, it’s capitalist monopolies that wreck lives; the solution: nationalisation. For the coalition, it’s debt; the solution – deep cuts in spending. Read the rest of this entry »

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GRASSROOTS: Ed Balls on the budget from hell

22/06/2010, 05:24:17 PM

For millions of families, this is the budget from hell. The combination of a sharp and unfair rise in VAT, the callous freezing of child benefit and the deepest cuts our public services have ever seen will be a hammer-blow to lower and middle income families.

Not only is this an unemployment budget which will see the jobless total rise by 100,000 a year, but George Osborne has also raised the only tax – VAT – that all the unemployed pay – and pensioners too. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: Mark Fox explains why Conservatives are delighted with the budget

22/06/2010, 04:44:45 PM

George Osborne delivered the emergency budget with confidence and clarity. He tackled the deficit head on and was clear and open about his plans.

Business on the whole will be pleased that Britain now has a decisive plan to reduce the deficit, stabilise the economy and encourage small and medium sized businesses. Industry will broadly welcome the measures that were taken to reduce tax rates. The move on CGT was expected as was the increase in VAT.

This in turn should lead to a continuation of low interest rates. Low interest rates will give business the confidence to invest in their future and recruit more staff as the economy grows. We need a private sector driven recovery. The private sector is the only part of the economy that generates the wealth – and the tax stream – to pay for what we want delivered in the public sector. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: Siôn Simon’s budget sketch

22/06/2010, 02:16:43 PM

Gentlemen in suits no longer call at one’s door selling things. Sometimes shaggy young men in football shirts turn up with baskets of sponges and rags. But the days of polite young men selling insurance and encyclopaedias seem to have passed.

In their stead, we have this nice young fellow on the television. He is smart and well-spoken and has learned a lot of information. And he brings us things we need with solemn charm.

Not all the words he says make sense. And sometimes he seems to say things which sound as though they might not be true. But he looks very well washed. His hair is shiny. He is going to rebalance the economy. Read the rest of this entry »

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INSIDE: Breakfast at the Cinnamon: a recipe for cash

22/06/2010, 11:26:32 AM

The cinnamon club is an up market Indian restaurant next door to the department for education, just across the road from Westminster Abbey. At 300 yards or so, it is one of the closest restaurants to the House of Commons. Once, it had a Michelin star.

At any sitting, its large, airy dining room will be more than smattered with political big fish, their media parasites and the big business interests who put the oxygen in the tank.

At breakfast, while the ladies who lunch are still painting their nails, the political wildlife are the only ones there.

This morning was typical. Steve Richards of the Independent was with John Pienaar of the BBC. Anyone who knows Pienaar will not be surprised that he was wolfing a full English. Richards, still digesting a big lunch in the House of Commons with David Miliband yesterday, was more restrained. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: Harman’s Budget Challenge, by Jonathan Todd

22/06/2010, 08:30:43 AM

The budget response is the great set-piece political challenge. Your opponent has an age to prepare and all the resources of treasury. You stand up when they sit down. By the time you sit down, the political context is virtually set, not least because your opponent’s spinners have tried to fix this. Given the centrality of economics to present politics, it is a bigger challenge than ever. Harriet Harman must rise to this as our acting leader. Which transience of tenure, of itself, reduces her potential agility compared with a permanent leader. You have to feel for her. Here are a few, hopefully helpful, suggestions.

The first task is to distinguish pragmatic economics from small-state ideology. As the need for deficit management is widely acknowledged, pragmatism is required, but only Thatcherites see this crisis as an opportunity for ideological resurgence.

The second task is to oppose the manifestations of this ideology, while the third is to provide a coherent alternative economic prospectus. This prospectus must contain tax increases and spending cuts, but the mix should reflect a very different ideology from that supported by Tory MPs agitating for a budget akin to the Thatcherite “cold shower” of the 1981 budget. Overarching all of this is the need to gain an audience in a media climate favourable to the coalition.

Read the rest of this entry »

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