Labour party

Is the new government marching across scorched earth?  They certainly claim so, and now they seem to have the civil service backing them up.  Speaking to the Beeb this afternoon, Jonathan Baume, the leader of a civil service union, said that senior civil servants had written “letters of direction” to Labour ministers in concern at the spending decisions they took in the final months of their government.  As Baume put it: “It’s not a decision that is taken very often to ask for such a letter of direction, which is why it is regarded something of a nuclear option. So when it happens it tends to be a big spending

Ed Miliband has given a surprisingly good speech this morning: free from all the junk language that his older brother has a weakness for. But he raises an interesting question: Why did Gisela Stuart win in Birmingham Edgbaston? Why did Karen Buck win Westminster North? Why did Andy Slaughter win in Hammersmith? Might it have been because all three of these politicians were, at one point, thorns in the flesh of their government? That they all at times campaigned, on principle, against the Labour government? As I said in The Times yesterday, the German-born Ms Stuart was a committed foe of the EU Constitution – who denounced it, and the

As Guido and Jim Pickard have pointed out, Liam Byrne’s article in the Guardian today reads like the launch of a leadership bid.  But if it is, then it’s not a well-judged one.  Amid some sensible points about Labour’s demise, there’s too much “if we’d have done what I said” bravado which, I imagine, won’t go down well with the party faithful right now.  A bit like pouring vinegar on an open wound. But it’s worth considering another angle to a Byrne leadership bid.  A couple of weeks ago, I wondered whether Brown’s departure would also take Labour away from the “investment vs cuts” dividing line of the past decade,

Will Straw was on the news this afternoon, arguing that Labour had lost only a small “doughnut” of seats around London and in the south. As John Rentoul notes, some doughnut: Labour was annihilated in England. David Cameron’s swift reform of the Conservative party was built on recognising the scale of defeat. Few on the Labour side have yet done so, including David Miliband, who clings to the spurious consolation that it could have been worse. In a piece for the Guardian, John Denham is candid about a share of the vote that was markedly lower than John Major’s in 1997: ‘Most obvious is just how catastrophic our defeat was.

Surprise, surprise – David Miliband has just announced his candidacy for the Labour leadership, and there wasn’t a banana in sight.  His address only lasted a few minutes, but it contained a number of hints about how, I suspect, he will look to run his campaign.  The emphasis was on newness, natch – “a new era, new dangers, new possibilities, new opportunities” – but also on unity.  He praised the leadership of Gordon Brown; claimed he was looking forward to a “warm, generous and comradely” contest; and said that he would go on a tour of non-Labour constituencies to “listen” to the public.  All of which was meant to reinforce