Posts Tagged ‘Dan Hodges’

The big monkey and the emperor’s new rainbow

05/07/2011, 07:38:38 AM

by Dan Hodges

Enough now. We’ve had our fun.

Blue Labour. Purple Labour. Green Labour. A veritable kaleidoscope of renewal.

Each, in their own superficial way, has been easy on the eye. The force of nature that is Maurice Glasman, the Labour party’s very own Norman Mailer. The defiant defence of the Blairite bunker, and the refusal of the last tiny band of hard core New Labourites to march quietly into the night. The Compass-ite left’s touching unwillingness to relinquish their dream of a progressive realignment, even as Nick Clegg smashes it to pieces in front of them.

But now the colours which dazzled have become garish. Where once they complemented, now they clash. There is no structure, however abstract, emerging. We are simply producing a mess.

Too harsh? Go and dig out Sunday’s Murnaghan. Relive the spectacle of two Labour shadow ministers, Caroline Flint and Diane Abbott, knocking lumps out of each other as they scrap over Maurice Glasman’s latest pronouncements on immigration policy. It was like watching an episode of the Jeremey Kyle show; “Maurice has been flirting with both Caroline and Diane, and they’re not happy. So we’ve brought them all together to fight it out. Live”. (more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Commons sketch: PMQs

29/06/2011, 01:15:07 PM

by Dan Hodges

Strikes. Splits in the shadow cabinet over the response to strikes. Anger from the unions at Ed Miliband’s response to the strikes.

Welcome to leader of the opposition’s question time.

David Cameron, helpfully, offered to field some of the questions on Ed Miliband’s behalf. What message, Karen Lumley from Redditch asked, should be sent to the teachers in her constituency who weren’t going on strike. ‘Scabs!’ screamed the prime minister. Actually, he didn’t. ‘I would congratulate them on doing the right thing and keeping their school open’, he said.

Ed Miliband stood up confidently. He knew how to play this game. Week after week he fired questions pointlessly across the dispatch box. Week after week David Cameron refused to answer them.

He wasn’t going to be talking about strikes. He was going to be talking about the issues that really mattered to people. Like how many people under the height of 5 ft 6 were employed in the NHS. Or something like that.

David Cameron looked weary. Of course he didn’t know the answer to that. That was a question on detail. He didn’t do detail. Anyway it wasn’t his job to answer the questions today.

No problem said Ed Miliband. ‘Let me give him the answer to the question’. This was fun. Ed Miliband question time. He asked the questions. He answered the questions. Perhaps if he could catch John Bercow’s eye he’d let him have a go at being Speaker as well; ‘Order! Will the leader of the opposition stop interrupting the leader of the opposition. Let the leader of the opposition speak’.

By now David Cameron was becoming frustrated at Ed Miliband’s evasiveness. Mainly because he was actually proving quite good at it. ‘What the whole country will have noticed’, the prime minister taunted, ‘is that at a time when people are worried about strikes he can’t ask about strikes because he’s in the pockets of the unions’.

Ed Miliband rolled his eyes. Dear oh dear. Was this the best the prime minister could do?

Apparently it was. ‘He can’t talk about the economy, because of his ludicrous plan for tax cuts’, shouted Cameron. There was another first, a Tory prime minister attacking a Labour leader for cutting taxes because he was in hock to militant trade unionists.

Just when it looked as if things couldn’t possibly get any more surreal, up popped someone called Guto Beeb. ‘Would the prime minister agree’, asked the Conservative member for Aberconwy, ‘that Aneurin Bevan would be turning in his grave as he sees a Conservative secretary of state increasing spending on health in England whilst a Labour government in Cardiff cuts spending on NHS’.

He’d love to. But first he had to check with the chair. Was it in order, he asked, ‘to talk about Labour’s record in Wales?’.

On the other side Ed Miliband sat serenely. If the prime minister fancied answering questions about Labour policy he was welcome to.

Leader of the opposition’s question time was proving quite fun. A chap could get quite used to this.

Dan Hodges is contributing editor of Labour Uncut.

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

For his own good, Ed mustn’t pick a fight with the unions

28/06/2011, 11:30:42 AM

by Dan Hodges

If Ed Miliband picks a fight with the unions, he’ll lose. That’s not a threat or a warning, but a statement of fact.

Just take a look at the trouble he’s managed to get himself into over the past few days. On Friday the Guardian reported that he intended to use the  Refounding Labour review to begin the process of “weakening the grip of the unions”. On Sunday the Observer reported he was “on a collision course” over the block vote and Thursday’s strike action. All dramatic, and seemingly unequivocal, stuff.

Then things started to unravel. On the political breakfast shows two of Ed’s most loyal Parliamentary aides, Peter Hain and Sadiq Khan, did what loyal aides do best: they pulled the rug out from under their man.

“I don’t think political leaders, in opposition or in government, should either applaud strikes or condemn strikes”, said Hain.

“It is a failure on both sides when there is strike action … it’s the last, last thing you do and what I’d like to see over the next three or four days is ministers, trade union leaders, speaking and trying to resolve this dispute”, said the slightly more on message Khan.

Yesterday saw Labour sources working manfully to repair the damage, with differing degrees of success. “The Hain and Khan comments were over-interpreted”, said an insider. Sorry, they weren’t. Ed Miliband’s statement that the upcoming industrial action  was “a mistake” is clearly incompatible with Hain’s statement that political leaders should not condemn strikes. And the signal this sent was not lost on  the unions or the wider party. “If even people like Hain are starting to put daylight between themselves and Ed, he really is in trouble”, said one shadow cabinet source.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Commons sketch: PMQs

22/06/2011, 01:54:28 PM

by Dan Hodges

David Cameron is for turning. We know this because he spent the whole of PMQs telling us he is.

Would the prime minister, Kerry McCarthy asked, consider changing his evening viewing plans to watch a BBC documentary on child poverty? Oh yes, he most certainly would.

He would? Blimey. Poor Samantha. “Sorry love, I know we’re supposed to be going for dinner and a show, but I promised some Labour back bencher from Bristol East I’d stay in and watch a programme on impoverished children. All part of my new pragmatic leadership style I’m afraid”.

Ed Miliband sensed an opportunity. The country was at war. The defence chiefs were raising concerns about the mission in Libya. Quite serious issues like not having any planes, ships or guns. Would the prime minister look again to see whether our brave boys and girls had the tools to finish the job?

Look again? Was Ed Miliband kidding? This was pragmatic Dave he was talking to. “We’ve had a review of the national security and defence review”, said the PM proudly.

Reviewed the review? Labour’s leader looked astounded.

Perhaps he was toying with the image of a former Tory Prime Minister standing at that same dispatch box; “We will review them on the beaches. We will review them in the fields and on the landing grounds. We will never stop reviewing”. It would come as news to the military and defence community that all these reviews were flying around, Ed Miliband said. Why hadn’t the results been shared with the experts?

Share the reviews? With experts? David Cameron looked perplexed. He had set up the national security council. It sat weekly, something that came as a relief to those of us worried the defence of the realm took a break for Wimbledon. Its’ role, he said, “was all the time to ask have we got the right resources, do we have the right strategy”. He could have added that the answer to those questions was invariably no, but there wasn’t time. There were more u-turns to me made.

Would the prime minister look at the closure of the post office in Wick asked John Thurso? Stupid question. Of course he would.

Then Ed Miliband sprung his trap. OK, if the PM was so open to persuasion, what about his decision to let rapist run amok on our streets? Actually, it was a little bit more nuanced than that, something about retaining a DNA database of totally innocent people, on the off-chance they turned into crazed rapists at a later date.

David Cameron looked nervous. How pragmatic could he afford to be? More importantly, how pragmatic would George Osborne, sitting menacingly beside him, allow him to be? Stopping rapists costs money. Stopping innocent people who might one day become rapists would cost even more.

He glanced to his left, as if looking for help from someone who understood the intricacies of your average DNA database. Then he realised the man in the know, justice secretary Ken Clarke, wasn’t in his usual place, but jammed right at the end of the government front bench, away from prying eyes. That made his mind up for him. “There’s always room to see if the system can be improved”, answered the prime minister.

The ground for a new u-turn had been laid. By this time next week anyone accused of so much as shoplifting will have their DNA retained for posterity.

It’s called the politics of pragmatism. And it’s working. For now. But every u-turn leaves another tiny, imperceptible chink in the prime minister’s authority.

David Cameron cannot run away from his own decisions  for ever.

Dan Hodges is contributing editor of Labour Uncut.

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

David’s story

21/06/2011, 08:19:15 AM

by Dan Hodges

History is written by the victors. Just ask David Miliband.

He’s been plotting. Briefing. Generally making an embittered nuisance of himself.

We know this thanks to Ed,  the racily entitled stab ‘n tell biography by James Macintrye and Mehdi Hasan, trailed last week in the Mail on Sunday. Not that all of these allegations are actually contained within the book itself, but its serialisation unleashed the biggest frenzy of speculation, allegation and recrimination since…well… the last lot.

Supporters of David Miliband had been bracing themselves for fall-out from the book’s publication for several weeks. Although they cooperated with the authors, and received assurances that it would be a balanced look at the leadership election, they were under no illusions: “Ed won and David didn’t”, said one insider, “That sets its own narrative”.

The narrative has basically three elements. An enraged elder brother, his political ambitions thwarted by his younger sibling, has been actively plotting his revenge and preparing a bold Blairite counter-coup.

Exhibit A in the case for the prosecution has been the speech-that-never-was, the address, leaked to the Guardian on the eve of the book’s publication, that David would have delivered had he himself been crowned leader.

“The idea that speech was leaked by David is bollocks”, says an insider. “Do you think he’s stupid? If he really wanted to damage Ed would he do it in a way that tied himself so directly to the act”? Other sources point out that, contrary to popular belief, the speech had quite a wide circulation. The Labour party was furnished with a final draft. A copy was left on a teleprompter after a leadership announcement rehearsal, although some former Miliband  staffers say it was an early version. External advisors, such as Jonathan Rutherford and Maurice Glasman, worked simultaneously on both David and Ed Miliband’s victory speeches. And Ed Miliband’s team approached David Miliband after the result to ask if they could have a copy to assist in producing their own address. David Miliband is said to have considered this, though his team reacted angrily to the idea, with selected passages eventually being passed across instead.

The fact is that, whatever the intent, the leaking of the speech damaged David Miliband more than his brother. “It didn’t do David any good to have that floating around”, said a friend, “It just hyped the story and made it look like he was agitating”. The result was the release of a statement by David urging people to “move on” from the leadership election, and calls from senior DM supporters such as Jim Murphy to rally around Ed.

That said, there’s no doubt that David Miliband has himself found moving on a difficult thing to do. “He’s been in a dark place”, said one friend. To be fair, even members of his own campaign team reject some of the more fanciful charges laid at the door of his brother, such as the claim that David wasn’t aware of Ed’s final decision to stand until it appeared in the media. “That’s rubbish”, said one source, “There were extensive discussions, involving both of them and the wives. David knew Ed was running, and when he was going to announce”.

But what David Miliband did apparently find hard to take was the nature of that campaign once the contest was underway. “David thought they had an understanding”, said one former aide, “They weren’t going to brief against each other. They were going to steer clear of personalities. He stuck to that agreement. Ed’s team didn’t”.

This is confirmed by a journalist who attended an editorial dinner with David Miliband during the campaign. “We’d been getting some pretty heavy briefing from Ed’s people against David. When we asked him about it his face fell. He obviously didn’t know it was going on”. “That really hurt him”, said a shadow cabinet colleague, “He couldn’t believe Ed would allow that sort of thing to happen”.

Members of his team urged him to hit back. But he refused,  not just out of a sense of propriety, but also through a fear of what would happen to both campaigns if they become engaged in a destructive briefing war. “David thought it would be a catastrophe”, said a source, “If the whole contest had descended into a bitter and public family feud it would have been the end for both of them. They’d have taken each other off the cliff”.

Although the briefing hurt David Miliband  personally, those around him acknowledge the political impact was relatively minimal: “We’re talking Ed Miliband and Polly Billington”, said an insider, “Not Gordon and Damian McBride”. Perceived as much more significant was Ed Miliband’s astute repositioning as the anti-New Labour and change candidate, keen to move on from an election manifesto that actually he’d written himself.

“David was too slow to appreciate the danger”, a former advisor acknowledges, “You have to remember, he and Ed had been part of the New Labour project all their political lives. An attack like that, from the left, he just didn’t see it coming”.

Key supporters urged him to move away from his safety first messaging. Jon Cruddas never told David Miliband to punch his brother. But he did warn him that he had to stop running such a conservative, mechanistic campaign, and begin  to make some bold, eye-catching statements. “David, I don’t think you’re winning this”, he told him in one meeting, “You’ve got to open up. Stop nuancing and start painting in primary colours”.

David responded with a speech at the Keir Hardie lecture that was regarded as his best of the campaign. But by that point Ed had the definition and the momentum. David’s team, nervous that the contest was slipping away, urged him to reach out to Ed Balls and try to secure his second preferences.

Again, he hesitated, “The problem was Balls’ Bloomberg speech”, said an insider, “David thought it was much too weak on deficit reduction. It made it very hard for him to offer Balls the position of shadow chancellor”. By the time David Miliband began to tentatively  court Balls it was too late. Key members of Balls’ team had already begun to mobilise behind his brother, along with Gordon Brown, who personally telephoned selective wavering MPs. Their intervention proved decisive.

It did not help that David had allowed himself to be characterised as the last living Blairite. As the contest developed Miliband’s team became desperate to put distance between themselves and the other living Blairites. They sought, and received, assurances from Blair himself that he wouldn’t intervene directly in the contest. But they failed to elicit a similar guarantee from Peter Mandelson, whose claim that Ed Miliband would lead the Labour party “into a cul-de-sac”, proved to be a crucial turning point. “It was a disaster”, said one David supporter, “Those MPs who were sitting on the fence all started shifting towards Ed. David was furious with Peter. In fact, he still is”.

So is all this history as ancient as some would claim? Since “bloody Sunday”, which saw the revelations in the book, the leaking of David’s victory speech and broader concerns about Ed Miliband’s leadership collide, both brothers have been making efforts to stress that the tensions of the past will remain there.

Some insiders are, to put it mildly, sceptical. “Perhaps we’re all just going to get along now”, said one David Miliband supporter, tongue pressed firmly to his cheek. Others claim that both brothers peered into the abyss, and recoiled at the sight. “David and Ed witnessed what happened to Tony and Gordon at close quarters”, said a shadow cabinet colleague. “They saw how, in the end, it destroyed them both. They know the party can’t afford a repeat of that”.

David Miliband has not relinquished his leadership ambitions. But those closest to him are adamant, in a  pointed way, that he doesn’t intend to trample over his brother to fulfil them. “Look”, said a friend, “what’s David supposed to do? If he stays on the outside he’s plotting and scheming. If he comes back in he’s a distraction and a back seat driver. He can’t win”.

He’s certainly not at a loss for advice. “It’s time for him to return to the shadow cabinet”, says one former aide. “I’ve been arguing that for a while. It’s the only way to begin to draw a line”. “He’d be crazy”, says another shadow cabinet insider. “Every statement would be set against what Ed had said. He needs to stay precisely where he is”.

So will he? “Look, the defeat hurt him personally”, says a friend, “And Ed hurt him personally. But he’s not under any illusions. A lot of the problems and criticisms Ed’s facing are problems and criticisms that would have been directed at David even if he’d won. Yes, he’s still angry. But there’s also a little bit of him that thinks, ‘there but for the grace of God’”.

History is indeed written by the victors. And for the moment David Miliband can do little except hope their verdict isn’t undly harsh. But that doesn’t mean he has given up all thoughts of eventually penning a chapter or two of his own.

Dan Hodges is contributing editor of Labour Uncut.

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Better Ed than Zed

17/06/2011, 12:00:56 PM

by Dan Hodges

Dateline: 13.9.2015

Report No.: 675/43/E

Subject: UN Subcommittee 4A, “Causes, Effects, Lessons of Zombie Outbreak, Westminster, London, United Kingdom, 1 April, 2012”

Status: Secretary General Clinton’s Eyes Only

This report follows conversations with British Labour party survivors of the Zombie infestation that struck the Westminster area of London on the above date. In all instances the names have been redacted to provide anonymity:

Witness A: “…in retrospect, they’d been in amongst us for months. People like Iain Duncan Smith, Frank Field and Mike Harris were the first to be infected. But by the time anyone noticed it was too late. Obviously, Norman Baker had been warning everybody since January. But no one took him seriously…”

Witness B: “…who knows if we’ll ever find the specific cause. All we do know is that after the cuts we were totally unprepared. No army. No police. No health infrastructure. When David Cameron appeared on telly and said Andrew Lansley guaranteed a cure within in 24 hours, that’s when the panic really set it in. I’ll never forget the sight of Osborne being dragged off the treasury steps by that Zombie mob shouting “there is no plan B”. Just terrible…”

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Commons sketch: PMQs

15/06/2011, 02:00:47 PM

by Dan Hodges

Ed Miliband arrived at PMQs with his leadership in crisis, his party in despair and his political fortunes at such a low ebb even his brother had been forced to leap to his defence. Poor David Cameron. He didn’t have a prayer.

It started well enough. He’d read Ed Miliband’s grafter’s speech. Graft? He’d show Ed Miliband and those feckless malingers how to graft. “Welfare costs are out of control”, he told Margot James. And he was going to put things right. There was a bill going through Parliament that very night that was going to take those work shy idlers and get them back down the chimneys were they belonged. Oh yes.

Ed Miliband rose. There was a huge cheer, from both Labour and Tory benches. The Labour benches prevailed. “He’s our leader”, they were saying. “How dare you attack him. That’s our job”.

For one heart-stopping moment, Ed paused. Had he finally cracked? Was this the end? “Screw it. David, you’re on”.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Too many coups spoil the plot

14/06/2011, 08:13:16 AM

by Dan Hodges

As no one in the Labour party appears willing to admit their part in the plot to bring down Tony Blair, I’ll cough. I was up to my neck in it.

I briefed and  span. Placed stories. Sowed seeds of confusion and dissent.

Ed Balls says he wasn’t involved. Fair enough. He was the only person outside Downing Street who wasn’t.

Westminster in the months after the 2005 election was like a murder mystery party at the Borgias. Febrile doesn’t come close. No one spoke above a whisper. A discreet alcove couldn’t be had for love nor money. I attended a friend’s marriage and an MP I’d been conspiring  with was so terrified of being photographed next to me that he sprinted to the other end of the wedding  line.

The Telegraph got excited about some scrawled notes and polling. They’d have had an embolism over the spread sheet that was floating around laying out a provisional “transition timetable” with a series of colour coded “waypoints” that need to be passed in order for Gordon Brown to become prime minister before the 2010 election. Or the breakdown of every Labour MP, identifying their perceived level of support or opposition, graded on a sliding scale. 1 was ultra loyal to Gordon. Tony Blair was a 5.

The catalyst for the final move against Blair was an interview Blair gave to the Times around the end of August, effectively claiming that Blair intended to “go on and on”. I remember because I was in the Rivington Grill in Greenwich (highly recommended), when my mobile went off, and a co-conspirator asked me to start tipping off hacks.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Ed Miliband is safe as houses, for now

10/06/2011, 02:00:35 PM

by Dan Hodges

True story. Last party conference before Iain Duncan-Smith is sent to sleep with the fishes. His senior aide is approached by a delegation of Tory grandees. “It’s over”, he’s told. “This is Iain’s last act as leader. You need to help us to help him. We are going to do this properly”.

The advisor is told to station thirty loyal supporters at strategic points around the conference hall. They are handed a copy of key passages from his speech. As soon as the passages are delivered they are to rise and start applauding. The conference will rise with them. The crown will be set down. But with dignity.

Except there’s a problem. Since the speech was distributed there have been amends. Sections have been adapted. Transposed. Duncan Smith begins his valedictory address. Within the first 15 seconds the first clap line appears. The acolytes rise. In moments the hall is on its feet.

The lost leader moves on to a new passage. This was supposed to be seven pages in. Now it is the second paragraph. Again, the cheerleaders rise. Again, so does the entire conference. The quiet man is turning up the volume.

He begins the third passage. It again includes one of the clap lines. The thirty are on their feet. Conference is on their feet. By now the Tory faithful are caught between a quandary and a frenzy. They are applauding every passage of note. How can they stop?

Iain Duncan-Smith received more than 20 standing ovations. Two weeks later he was history. The  moral? When the Tories move against a leader, they move. They do it properly, even to the point of ensuring that their victim is allowed an open casket.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Time for Labour’s flat earthers to get real

07/06/2011, 07:00:37 AM

by Dan Hodges

The world is round. It’s a shame, I know. Personally, I’d love a flat world. Think of the excitement of being able to go on “Edge of the World” tours. Sneak up to the boundary; take a peak into infinity.

But alas, it’s not to be. We’re just so mundane. Too damn spherical.

Once upon a time, people thought the world was flat. It had to be. What else could it be? Then, all of a sudden, everyone knew the earth was round. Of course it was. How could anyone have ever though otherwise.

But in between there must have been a transition period. A time when views gradually shifted:

“I was chatting to my mate Ampelius the other day. About this round world stuff”.

“Yeah”?

“Yep. You know what? I think there may be something in it”.

“Get away…”.

And then there would have been the hold outs. The diehards who clung to the earth in all its glorious flatness right till the very end: “I don’t care what they say. It’s flat, and that’s all there is to it”.

What happened to those people? The “circumference deniers”. Were they mocked? Oppressed? Or did they just fade away?

I’ll tell you what they did. They upped sticks and joined the Labour party.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon