Labour Uncut

INSIDE: Tom Watson’s letter to Nick Clegg

16/06/2010, 04:17:05 PM

Dear Mr Clegg,

Public Sector Pension Schemes

I was concerned to read your comments regarding public sector workers in the press. Britain’s civil servants, local government and health workers, teachers and school support staff do an excellent job, often for low pay.

Your comments continue to reinforce a negative stereotype of public sector workers and promote a sense that they are getting something they don’t deserve. It’s unfair on them and unbecoming of you.

Can you confirm that your comments on “gold-plated and unfair” pension schemes do not apply to the schemes of our Armed Forces?

Can you also confirm that all of the staff that you have recently appointed will be opting out of the civil service pension scheme in line with your opinion that it is unaffordable?

I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Tom Watson MP.

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INSIDE: Efficiency Briefing: Number 1

16/06/2010, 04:16:51 PM

David Cameron and Nick Clegg: The cost of their recently appointed special advisers’ pensions

“So can we really ask them to keep paying their taxes into unreformed gold-plated public-sector pension pots? It’s not just unfair, it’s not affordable.” Nick Clegg, 14 June 2010

Tom Watson MP

Efficiency Briefing: Number 1

Introduction

Last Thursday, after a dismal performance in the chamber by Danny Alexander earlier in the week, the government caved into pressure and published the salary list of their newly appointed special advisers.

As well as showing a startling increase in the number of spin doctors working out of number 10, the publication showed that chief spin doctor Andy Coulson had been awarded a salary greater than that of the deputy prime minister.

What the publication didn’t show you was that on top of a £140K pay packet, Coulson is automatically entitled to a civil service pension – the same pension arrangements that Nick Clegg described yesterday as “gold plated…unfair…[and]…not affordable”. So on top of his £140K, the taxpayer could fund another £27,160 per year towards Mr Coulson’s retirement.

Read the rest of this entry »

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GRASSROOTS: The case against Ed Balls, by Tom Bage

16/06/2010, 12:30:34 PM

Kerry McCarthy reaffirmed her support for Ed Balls on the Staggers site last week, echoing the ‘he gets it’ thesis of that combative tweeting phenomenon, Ellie Gellard.

Their arguments for Ed will appeal to many in the party: he understands why we lost and can win back our disillusioned supporters; he will defend Labour’s record and he can lead us back to power. Unfortunately, they founder on the last premise – outside of his supporters, does anybody seriously believe that the British people will install Ed Balls in Number 10?

To his great credit, Balls is a dogged defender of Labour’s record and will revel in making life as unpleasant as possible for Michael Gove. He fought and won a tough campaign against a well funded Tory candidate in Morley and Outwood, where anger about immigration and housing seems to have made a lasting impression on his thinking.

Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: Jonathan Todd sorts the economics from the ideology

16/06/2010, 09:13:43 AM

The Daily Telegraph isn’t normally essential reading for Labourites. But yesterday it should have been, especially for Harriet Harman. Fraser Nelson set the backdrop to the politics of the deficit and the “emergency” Budget, to which she, as acting leader, will respond. This week’s report from the new Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) dramatically changes this political context. Nelson has been quick to realise this and, while our instincts differ markedly from his, we need to be equally fleet-footed.

The limited discussion on the deficit in the leadership election has denied our candidates the opportunity to demonstrate this quality. Though, of course, they could engineer such an opportunity for themselves. I’d be impressed if any of them do flesh out a more substantial economic platform, not least as The Economist is right to note that, “nothing will make or break the next leader of the opposition like his response to the government’s austerity programme”. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNBOUND: Wednesday News Review

16/06/2010, 08:12:59 AM

#Hustings

“Ed Miliband came under attack last night when his rivals for the Labour leadership hit out at any attempts to “rewrite history” on the Iraq war. Ed Miliband, David Miliband, Diane Abbott, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham appeared in the first televised hustings which are due to run into August. Some of the candidates turned on the younger of the two Miliband brothers who in the first few weeks of his candidacy has made much of his opposition to the war.” – The Guardian

“Abbott’s weapon is communication. Unlike her four opponents, she doesn’t sound like an under-manager at Furniture Village. She is accessible, particularly on television – and the hopefuls will be up before Paxman tonight. As David Miliband grasps and gurns for another intransitive verb, I wonder if his stupidity will dawn on him.” – The Spectator

“This was clearly judged not quite the moment for Miliband the Elder to identify social democracy as the main live ideological strand of the socialist traditions, and to stake his claim that its political future now depends on a plural progressive fusion with the liberal tradition. Perhaps there will be other occasions and platforms for that argument, but a leadership hustings wasn’t the place.” – The New Statesman

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INSIDE: Never mind the quality, feel the width

15/06/2010, 10:36:00 PM

Over at the unionstogether blog they are doing a ‘question to the candidates’ every week of the summer. This week’s is on the living wage, which has become rather a surprise campaign theme. It is worth a read.

In a campaign in which no candidate is strong on content, Ed Miliband has chosen to put the living wage “as the centre of my campaign for Labour leadership”. Not “to put it at the centre”, you will note, but “put it as the centre”. Massive difference in that one letter. For Ed M, the living wage is the defining issue of his leadership bid “because it sums up both the Labour party’s values and its activism”.

Although a nice piece of policy, it would ordinarily seem like a pretty flimsy thing to be the defining essence of an entire campaign to lead the major force in left-liberal politics in the United Kingdom. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: Nick Palmer says the sacred cow of income tax may be unwell

15/06/2010, 02:33:56 PM

One of the curious features of being a Labour MP in the last three elections was that we would often wake up and find out from the newspapers that we were irrevocably committed to something that we had not discussed, but which Tony or Gordon had decided was vital to our chances.

A hardy perennial was the recurrent commitment not to increase the standard rate of income tax. This was part of the New Labour deal: we were not unilateralists; we weren’t going to nationalise the commanding heights; and we wouldn’t put up your income tax.

This probably did help initially in refurbishing our image, but it has become a sacred cow. In these troubled times, we should re-examine the cow to find out how it’s getting on and if, in electoral terms, it is actually still alive. Read the rest of this entry »

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INSIDE: This morning’s email setting out rules for elections to Labour select committee vacancies

15/06/2010, 12:15:42 PM

From: O’DONOVAN, Martin

Sent: 15 June 2010 11:56

Subject: Elections to Labour vacancies on Select Committees

Importance: High

FAO Labour MPs

Please find below the agreed procedure for electing Labour members to the Select Committees, as agreed at last night’s PLP meeting. This is a pretty complex procedure, I’m very happy to answer any questions you may have. Read the rest of this entry »

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INSIDE: Uproar at the PLP: select committee member elections

15/06/2010, 10:06:21 AM

There was uproar at last night’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Many senior MPs are unhappy with the arrangements for electing select committee members.

Select committee chairs were elected last week by a ballot of all MPs. Now the members of the committees are to be elected, within their party groups, according to the proportion of MPs that that party has in Parliament.

Senior former ministers such as Hazel Blears and Keith Vaz (re-elected as chair of the home affairs select committee) spoke up against the way the election is being organised. Read the rest of this entry »

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GRASSROOTS: Rachel Stalker’s personal testimony of the Cumbrian shootings

15/06/2010, 08:59:29 AM

It was a date that seemed so inconsequential in my diary.

At 6pm on June 2nd 2010 the Copeland CLP was due to hold their post-election debrief at the GMB offices on Scotch Street, Whitehaven. It was supposed to be a positive, upbeat and constructive meeting to build on a superb result for Jamie Reed MP who magnificently held onto his “key seat” with a majority of 3,833.

Due to events that were completely beyond our comprehension – and which had barely sunk in – the meeting was relocated to the constituency offices in Cleator Moor. We knew a gunman had been on the loose across West Cumbria and that at least 5 people had been killed. None of us knew that shots had been fired within yards of the GMB offices, which had been our General Election campaign HQ. Most of us were unaware of the extent to which the international media had descended en masse on our remote community. Read the rest of this entry »

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