Labour party

Richard Kay’s column in the Mail contains the news, as expected, that Fiona Millar (AKA Mrs Alistair Campbell) is a shoo-in to replace Glenda Jackson as Labour’s candidate for the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency. The seat is very marginal: Jackson scraped in by just 42 votes last time round. But, if Millar were to win the nomination and subsequent election, she’s being tipped for immediate promotion. Kay reports that a ‘senior party figure’ told him that Millar would become Education Secretary ‘within a year’, assuming Labour was in government. Millar founded the Local Schools Network as a bulwark to protect comprehensive education and she is an impassioned and determined critic of

No Labour bounce, no drop in approval for Cameron or his government. That’s the impact that two weeks of front pages dominated by the phone hacking scandal on the opinion polls:  Ed Miliband’s numbers have improved, which will come as some relief to the Labour leader who suffered a terrible month of polls in June. But despite a 13 point jump in the last fortnight, his net approval rating has only recovered to where it was six weeks ago, and that was hardly a rosy position. Certainly, Ed’s response to the scandal seems to have reflected well on him. 49 per cent of the public think he’s handled the affair

Garlands go to the conqueror. The Observer has interviewed Ed Miliband about his response to the News International crisis, and it’s as if Caesar has returned home after crushing the traitor Pompey. Miliband told the Spectator in an interview with James Forsyth in this week’s magazine that Murdoch’s spell on British politics has been broken. He reiterates that sentiment with the Observer and adds that Murdoch’s endorsement will be a “double-edged sword at the next election”. When speaking to James he was careful to insist that there was nothing personal in his burgeoning crusade against Murdoch; he is not so careful now.  “I think he has too much power over British public

The British Crime Survey is published today and the Home Office had prepared for the worst. For months now, figures close to Theresa May have been expressing their fear that the combination of Ken Clarke’s liberal prisons policy and economic hardship would cause a rise in crime for which the Home Office, graveyard for so many political careers, would be blamed. Today’s figures will have eased their disquiet somewhat, insulating them from Labour’s critique that police cuts are endangering society. The headline is that crime in England and Wales has remained stable over the last year, except for a 14 per cent spike in domestic burglaries according to the British

Gordon may have come carrying dynamite, but News International has some explosives of its own. In a pair of statements this afternoon, the Sun and the Sunday Times have set about undermining, or just plain denying, our former Prime Minister’s testimony. By the Sun’s account, not only did they get the story about his son’s medical condition from a “member of the public [who] came to The Sun with this information voluntarily because he wanted to highlight the cause of those afflicted by [cystic fibrosis],” but Brown’s colleagues also “provided quotes” to be used in the final article. By the Sunday Times’s, their investigation into Brown’s property transactions was pursued

Jeremy Hunt’s statement today confirmed that News Corps’ takeover bid for BSkyB was being referred to the Competition Commission. But the questions afterwards were dominated by Labour questions about Andy Coulson’s appointment. Hunt could not answer whether or not Coulson had been positively vetted. Nor, could he say when Cameron and Coulson last spoke. Indeed, Hunt initially claimed Cameron had not spoken to his former director of communications since Coulson stepped down, before quickly correcting himself. The Culture Secretary did do a decent job of sounding reasonable and bemoaning Labour’s tone. But without a proper line on Coulson, he was left floundering. There were two other things worth noting from