Browsed by
Category: Labour

The Labour leadership result thread

The Labour leadership result thread

Comments 0 Comment

Has Ed snatched it or did David hold on? What looks like being the closest Labour leadership contest since voting was opened up to the membership finally draws to a close in Manchester this afternoon, with the result expected to be announced around 4.40pm. Until the very final days of the more than four months of campaigning, David Miliband’s position as favourite went more-or-less unchallenged, with his odds at times implying a better than 80% chance of winning. That all…

Read More Read More

Will the winner’s first act be to take on his MPs?

Will the winner’s first act be to take on his MPs?

Comments 0 Comment

Should HE choose the shadow cabinet – not the PLP? Whichever of the brothers wins Labour’s election (and online voting finishes at 5pm) he will inherit a structure which drastically reduces his ability to lead and shape the party in the manner that he thinks fit. For Labour, when in opposition, has an archaic rule that means that the shadow cabinet is elected by MPs and is not chosen by the leader. The winner will be castrated before he starts….

Read More Read More

Do Clegg’s problems derive from this – 30 years ago?

Do Clegg’s problems derive from this – 30 years ago?

Comments 0 Comment

BBC What does he do about the 1981 LAB>SDP defectors? Whenever there are problems within the Lib Dem side of the coalition then invariably the names that crop up are Bob Russell, the Colchester MP, and Mike Hancock of Portsmouth South. For these two alongside Business Secretary, Vince Cable, have several things in common notably that they are all in their mid-60s and they were all active Labour politicians who in 1981/82 defected to the new Social Democratic Party –…

Read More Read More

How big a victory is this for Labour?

How big a victory is this for Labour?

Comments 0 Comment

BBC News But will they be able to nail Coulson? The hacking debate ended with an agreement by MPs without a vote that the Standards and Privileges Committee should hold an inquiry into the matter. So at the very minimum the affair will drag on causing potential embarrassment to Downing Street. The real issue is whether this format will be provide means to “get” Coulson. When he appeared before MPs last year the former News of the World editor escaped…

Read More Read More

So what did we learn from the Blair interview?

So what did we learn from the Blair interview?

Comments 0 Comment

…and what impact has today had on the leadership race?   Hague statement William Hague has issued a statement after the resignation of his special assistant Christopher Myers, which is available here.   Mike Smithson is on holiday and has very limited internet connection Double Carpet

So should Dave call Boris’s 800m pound bluff?

So should Dave call Boris’s 800m pound bluff?

Comments 0 Comment

Guardian Who’ll win the old-Etonian stand-off over Cross-Rail? The big development over Boris that Morus only touched on briefly in the last post was the huge row that’s apparently developing between Johnson (Eton and Balliol College Oxford) and Cameron (Eton and Brasenose College Oxford) over plans by Osborne (St. Paul’s and Magdalen College Oxford) to force a 5% cut to the £16bn London CrossRail project. According to the Guardian, though denied by the Mayor’s office, Johnson has let it be…

Read More Read More

How does Miliband handle the memoirists?

How does Miliband handle the memoirists?

Comments 0 Comment

Amazon.co.uk Widgets How difficult will their revelations make it for him? History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as autobiography. Or something like that. It seems almost obligatory now for retired cabinet ministers to set down their version of the time in office, their influence on events and their view of – amongst other things – their colleagues. The number of these memoirs being written always starts to increase when any party’s been in power for a…

Read More Read More

Is Labour getting it wrong on the Lib Dems?

Is Labour getting it wrong on the Lib Dems?

Comments 0 Comment

Guardian Should the red team look at its own recent history? One of the most provocative political columns this morning is John Harris’s look at Labour’s view of the Lib Dems by in the Guardian. He concludes:”… Miserable poll ratings may serve to bind the Lib Dems in, for fear of another election and a real calamity. And one other thing: never forget their deep, burning and often understandable hatred of the Blair and Brown governments – which, given the…

Read More Read More