Gordon brown

Andrew Neil interviews Peter Hain for this week’s BBC Straight Talk. Mastering the obvious, Hain argues that Duffygate cost Labour dear: ‘PH:  The damaging incident of course was the Duffygate incident. AN:  In Rochdale, the old aged pensioner? PH:  In Rochdale, and that had a palpable effect.  I think we were just beginning to get a bit of traction – not necessarily to win but possibly to be the biggest party in the election – and that was a real hammer blow, and everybody knew it. AN:  You really think that affected the public’s perception of the then Prime Minister? PH:  I do, because I think people had started, not

A few years ago, when I was serving with the Grenadier Guards in Iraq, I was part of a team tasked with looking after the visiting Secretary of State. There were five Defence Secretaries during my short spell in the army – a sign, perhaps, of the lack of attention the last government paid to the armed forces. Some were impressive, some less so. One was famous for falling asleep during briefings, but the one I was accompanying in Basra was wide awake. He wished to carry out of the most important missions facing Cabinet members in a warzone: conduct an interview with the Today programme on BBC Radio Four.

As Ben Brogan notes, there was a clean symmetry to David Cameron’s speech this morning: the crisis was Labour’s fault; therefore, Labour is to blame for the painful measures needed to restore stability. As Cameron put it: ‘I think people understand by now that the debt crisis is the legacy of the last government. But exactly the same applies to the action we will take to deal with it.’ Cameron made constant reference to the actions of the ‘previous government’. As a foretaste of what the Independent Office for Budget Responsibility will expose, Cameron alleged that Alistair Darling withheld estimates that Britain will be repaying £70bn per annum in debt

Sunshine might have won the day but today was also the start of the age of austerity, as George Osborne and David Laws laid out £6.243bn of cuts. Despite the fact that they were cutting ‘wasteful’ and ‘low priority spending’, both men were keen to insulate themselves against the Labour attack that the coalition is cutting for ideological reason. Osborne said that ‘controlling spending is not an end it itself.’ While Laws stressed that the Coalition would ‘cut with care.’ Within its first fortnight in office, the government has found savings with commendable celerity. But the fact that the whole package was agreed on at 11.45 pm on Friday for

With the Sun reporting that Ed Miliband is going to stand for the Labour leadership, it’s probably a good time to dig out Anne McElvoy’s profile of the Miliband brothers for the Sunday Times last month. To my mind, its opening neatly encapsulates the choice between the wonkish one and the slighty-less-wonkish one that Labour may have to make: “When David and Ed Miliband were teenagers, their north London household rang to the chatter of some of the most prominent left-wing names of the era: Tony Benn, Tariq Ali, the ANC leader Joe Slovo and the late Michael Foot. David, one regular guest recalls, would sit ‘absorbing it all’ and

Here are some details of the LibCon deal, and my brief comments: 1. Clegg as Deputy PM. It’s a non-job, but a senior one – it means Clegg will take PMQs in Cameron’s absence, and will defend all those nasty cuts (sharing the blame for these cuts is the main rationale for coalition). This follows the 1999 Lib-Lab deal in Scotland, where Jim Wallace was made Deputy First Minister to everyone’s surprise. 2. Laws replaces Gove in education. This has not been confirmed yet, and I will not believe it until I see it. Of all of tonight’s moves this is potentially the most concerning – especially for all those