Labour party

Wednesday

Andrew Haldenby

How the unions oppose the achievement of more for less

The TUC’s attack on a leading public sector reformer, reported today, was designed to embarrass him and discredit the idea of reforming the public sector.  In fact, it has shown that they will oppose any change to the public sector workforce, even if it results in a better service for the public.   According to reports (here and here), TUC staff yesterday handed out copies of the transcript to Reform’s conference on public sector productivity.  They highlighted a quote from the presentation by Tony McGuirk, the chief fire officer of the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service (FRS), that, “we’ve got some bone idle people in the public sector”.  Tony McGuirk

Peter Hoskin

The “progressive coalition” cuts its teeth

Trust Bob Crow to turn down the charm. Explaining why he was boycotting Mervyn King’s address to the TUC today, the RMT union boss managed to liken the Governor of the Bank of England to both the “devil” and the “Sheriff of Nottingham”. Unsurprising, perhaps – but it’s yet another reminder of why, for the Labour leadership contenders, marching in lockstep with the unions may not be such a good idea. To Harriet Harman, a Labour Party bound to Crow & Co. might be a “progressive coalition”. But to the rest of the country, it will probably look slightly left of sane. Only David Miliband, to his credit, seems to

Alex Massie

Ed Miliband is No Abraham Lincoln but David Miliband is a Little Like Hillary Clinton

Are Labour really going to make Ed Miliband their next leader? Tea leaves and whatever passes for momentum in this race suggest that this is quite possible. If the younger Miliband – the one who, allegedly, can speak “normal” – does prevail then what hesitant conclusions may be drawn? 1. David Miliband’s support at Westminster may have hurt his chances in the other constituencies. Miliband Major ran – in as much as this strolling leadership contest ever amounted to a race – on experience, authority and the sense that he was the inevitable victor. But as Hillary Clinton can tell you, experience, authority and inevitability don’t count for as much

Peter Hoskin

PMQs live blog | 15 September 2010

Stay tuned for live coverage of today’s Cameron vs Harman clash from 1200. 1200: A prompt start. Cameron begins with condolences for the fallen in Afghanistan. Clegg grabs the PM by the elbow as he sits down – making sure there wasn’t an embarrassing lap-sitting moment, I think. 1201: Julian Smith asks whether it is “irresponsible” of Labour to back union strikes. Cameron says it is, natch, 1203: A dignified start by Harman. She passes on her congratulations for the Cameron’s new baby, and her condolences for the death of his father. Her question is about what progress the government is making on tackling human trafficking. 1204: Cameron quips that

James Forsyth

Harman’s last hurrah

Today is Harriet Harman’s last PMQs as acting Labour leader. I suspect that Harman, who has performed far better than people expected she would, might well go on the story in The Times this morning about how the coalition is cutting a review into how rape cases are handled to save money. Immediately after the coalition was formed, Harman had considerable success at PMQs pressing David Cameron on the coalition agreement’s commitment to granting anonymity to rape suspects, something that had made it into the coalition agreement by mistake. If Harman went with the shelving of the rape review today, she would again put Cameron on the back foot. This

Peter Hoskin

YouGov has Labour and the Tories at their closest since October 2007

Factor in the usual caveats about polling so soon after a change of government, but the latest Sun/YouGov poll is still pretty eyecatching. It has the Tories on 40 percent, Labour on 39 and the Lib Dems on 12 – the smallest gap between the two main parties since the election-that-never-was in October 2007. Here’s a graph of the the two parties’ positions since the beginnning of the general election campaign: The Pollmaster General, Anthony Wells, suggests that Labour will overtake the Tories any day now.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The Pope might be coming but the Milibands are still Topic A at Westminster

Parliament is busy preparing to receive the Pope, the red carpet has been put down in Westminster Hall and the Commons authorities have announced that they are closing all the bars down from 2pm on Friday. But it is earthly matters that are still preoccupying people here. As you walk through the gothic arches, you see little clumps of people gathering together trying to work out which Miliband will be the next leader of the Labour party. At the moment, the race really does seem too close to call. But it is just worth reflecting for a second how crucial the new leader’s first few weeks will be. 3 days

Alex Massie

There Will Be A Tory-Lib Dem Pact (Of Some Kind)

Sunder Katwala is not convinced by Nick Boles’ suggestion that the coalition should fight the next election on a joint-ticket. He sniffs a Tory ploy: What [Boles] is offering the Liberal Democrats is simply the chance to lash themselves to the mast of the Coalition’s austerity agenda – and to collude in an attempt to keep it going even if the voters don’t want it – with little in return beyond losing their political identity to become a semi-permanent National Liberal wing of a new Tory-dominated alliance. Over at Platform 10, however, David Skelton is open to the notion: The coalition has worked so far because it has caught into

Ed Howker

Barber, Blanchflower and the fake debate on double dip

Watch or read much of the economics coverage in Britain and you sometimes get the sense that we’re entering the final round of a peculiar game. Let’s call it ‘Russian Roulette for Economists’. The rules are simple: teams of academics and economically-literate politicos line up on either side of an issue and hurl abuse at one another. The winner will be declared when something significant changes in the macro-economic position of the UK. The game was played when Britain entered the ERM (those who said it would be a disaster won). The current double dip debate is another example. This time, the principal players on one side are the former

David Blackburn

At last…

…a minister has repudiated the Brownite axiom that spending is the sole indicator for healthy public services. Nick Herbert has said, unequivocally, that ‘cuts and good services are not mutually exclusive.’ Herbert, minister of state at the Home of Office, continued: ‘I don’t think we can go on playing this numbers game and say that we can automatically assume that every additional police officer recruited is bound to help deal with crime because I think what matters is what’s being done with those forces.’ Then he elaborated, mentioning the Independent Inspectorate of Constabulary’s opinion that the police can find £1bn in efficiency savings by cutting administrative duties. This would increase

Peter Hoskin

A worrying – but not disastrous – poll for the government

This morning’s Times/Populus poll (£) will have supporters of the coalition grimacing into their cornflakes. The headline finding is bad enough, if rather familiar, with Labour closing the gap between themselves and the Tories to only two points. But what follows is worse. According to the poll, around three-quarters of voters reject the government’s deficit reduction strategy – preferring, instead, what are loosely the approaches advocated by Labour and the unions. And, what’s more, economic pessmism is arrowing upwards. The number of respondents who think “the country as a whole will fare badly,” has risen by 13 percentage points since June. The number who think “me and my family will

Monday

James Forsyth

Are the Labour leadership polls telling the whole story?

This weekend’s YouGov poll showing Ed Miliband ahead in the Labour leadership contest is the talk of Westminster today. One David Miliband backer told me that he thought it was flawed as it assumed that MPs’ second preferences would split evenly between the two brothers when David had the advantage. I was told that nearly all Andy Burnham’s parliamentary backers would put David second, that most of Balls’ would do the same and that Ed Miliband could only rely on Diane Abbott’s parliamentary backers’ second preferences. But Ed Miliband’s supporters dispute this. They believe that they are making progress everywhere.   There are now just two hustings to go—one at

Peter Hoskin

Harman tries to bind Labour and the unions even closer

Progressive coalition. Those two words haven’t been tied together too frequently since Gordon Brown scrambled for survival in the aftermath of the election. But Harriet Harman invoked them in her speech to the TUC today, and she wasn’t talking about a union between Labour and the Lib Dems: “We are witnessing an emerging political movement amongst progressives in Britain – beginning to see that the Tory/Lib Dem government has no mandate. They are seeing the difference between what they thought they voted for and what they ended up with. The Labour movement is their vehicle for progressive change. We will work together – Labour and the Trade Unions – to

James Forsyth

Who is behind Nick Boles’ proposed electoral pact?

Nick Boles proposed electoral pact (£) between the coalition partners would have a clear benefit for the Conservatives, it would make a deal between Labour and the Liberal Democrats after the next election impossible. That is quite a prize for the Conservatives. It would mean that David Cameron would continue as PM as long as the two parties between them held a majority of seats in the Commons. It is less clear what the Liberal Democrats would gain from it. Yes, it would help more of their MPs survive, but it would tie their hands ahead of another hung parliament and massively reduce their ability to claim that they are a distinct political

Sunday

David Blackburn

Benefit reform – one theatre in Cameron’s war

The Observer has received letters revealing that George Osborne plans to deliver net savings of ‘at least £2.5bn’ from the Employment Support Allowance by limiting the amount of time people can spend claiming it. Here is Osborne’s letter to IDS, Cameron and Clegg: ‘Given the pressure on overall public spending in the coming period, we will need to continue developing further options to reform the benefits as part of the spending review process in order to deliver further savings, greater simplicity and stronger work incentives. Reform to the employment support allowance is a particular priority and I am pleased that you, the prime minister and I have agreed to press ahead

David Blackburn

The government should return the unions’ fire

The TUC is mustering in Manchester and its leaders are in bellicose mood. Brendan Barber has called for a general strike; Bob Crow, brimming with the satisfaction of having wrecked London’s transport earlier in the week, has called for his members to ‘stand and fight’ the government’s cuts. These statements have a ‘Me and my executive’ air to them, so ludicrous as to be beyond parody. But the message is rousing and clear. Not so the government’s – as Fraser argues today in his News of the World column. The government is caught in an intellectual cul-de-sac. Its sole refrain is that these cuts are Labour’s cuts and they are

Friday

Patrick Nolan

What you need to know ahead of the spending review – making the case for cuts

This is the next of our posts with Reform looking ahead to the Spending Review. Earlier posts were on health, education, the first hundred days, welfare, the Civil Service, international experiences (New Zealand, Canada, Ireland) and Hon Ruth Richardson’s recent speech. Last night the BBC showed 12 major regional television debates examining impending cuts to public sector spending. I spoke at the debates in London and the East of England (held in Ipswich). There were interesting similarities and differences in the two debates and these illustrated some important lessons for the spending review. Both debates showed that there is still work to do to explain to the public, and some

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Labour get the inquiry they wanted

To these eyes, this afternoon’s phone hacking debate was a surprisingly sedate affair. Chris Bryant – proposing a motion to have an inquiry conducted by the Standards and Privileges committee into the News of the World’s actions – seemed to go out his way to depoliticise the argument, and other Labour MPs followed his lead. And so there was relatively little mention of Andy Coulson, with the emphasis instead on the wrongs that might have been done to the House by the police and the media more generally. It was, then, little surprise that Bryant’s motion was passed unanimously. There were some flashes of controversy and acid, though. Bryant himself

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

The Brown handover ceremony

A delicious prospect in store for political comedy fans, if not for the next Labour leader, according to a post by Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon: “[Gordon Brown] feels, I hear, that it is right that he be seen to say some words before the new leader is unveiled and be seen to hand over the torch. He doesn’t want people to think he is cowed or hiding. Final arrangements, a Labour source said, have not been agreed yet and they are ‘in touch’ with the various leadership candidates.”

James Forsyth

Straw fails to improve

Jack Straw did not improve on his previous PMQs performance today. He used up all six questions on Coulson and they were all too long-winded. Clegg got through it without too many problems, regularly using the operational independence of the police as a shield, as the Home Secretary did on Monday. The deputy PM also had the moment of the session when he informed the house that the first person to call Mr Coulson after he had resigned was Gordon Brown who had wished him well for the future. But at the very end of session, Labour got what they needed to keep this Coulson story going for yet another