Labour party

You wait days to see the word "meekly" in print, and then it crops up twice at once.  Today's Sun reports on a Jon Cruddas speech tomorrow, in which he claims that: "[Labour] seem to be meekly accepting defeat, unable to show what we believe in... ...We have only months to get this right, otherwise we will go down to catastrophic defeat." While Jackie Ashley develops the same theme in a piece for the Guardian, highlighting the same Cruddas quote along the way. The Cruddas intervention is significant mainly because of its timing.  The MP for Dagenham has clarified his views on Labour's plight before now (including in the latest New Statesman), but with only a few weeks to go until the Labour party conference, this is bound to ruffle a few feathers.

If you want some insights into where Labour are going next, then do read this story in today's Guardian.  The main points are that Brown and Darling have agreed not to spare the health and international development budgets from cuts; that Labour's public spending cuts will be set out over the next couple of months, beginning with a couple of speeches this week; and that Labour wants to frame its cuts as a return to the public service reform agenda.  As one "cabinet source" tells the paper: "The new economic context is a challenge for us, but New Labour in its original form never saw spending more money as the only solution. We need to revisit the original New Labour approach of public service reform.

Andrew Grice has an interesting column in the Independent today laying out Number 10's plans for an autumn fightback. The six-step strategy is as follows: "1. Labour will focus on the policy choice between the two main parties because the Tories are more vulnerable on policy than their current opinion poll lead suggests. The Tories are perceived by the public not to have any policies. 2. The focus on Labour's record and future plans will allow it to close the poll gap. 3. As an economic recovery begins, the Government's approach will be seen to have stopped recession turning into depression. 4.

Who really freed the Lockerbie bomber? The question cannot be answered by deliberately looking in the wrong place. And for the fortnight since Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary, announced Mr Megrahi’s release that is what journalists have been doing, obsessively. Reporting with the pack mentality that often misdirects them, British newspapers have tried to prove that Gordon Brown authorised the release. Instead they have demonstrated only that the Prime Minister wanted Megrahi to be transferred to Libya under the prisoner transfer scheme, and that he had no power to make it happen. Granted, Mr Brown and the British Cabinet desired a result that would have appalled Americans nearly as much as the actual outcome has. But their view did not prevail.

This morning's political firecracker comes courtesy of Martin Kettle in the Guardian, who claims that a group of Labour figures are moving to oust Brown in October: "An active network of MPs and peers now exists, involving some names you might expect, but also others – including big ones – whose participation would surprise you. This group, like probably the majority of Labour MPs, accepts that Brown is a liability to his party's election prospects. Unlike the majority, though, they claim to think something can be done about it. They believe the window of opportunity, if it comes, will be in the two or three weeks after October 12. If Brown can be pushed, then this is the time. They say they are ready to try.

Looking at the OECD’s latest economic forecast it seems that the UK—unlike the US and the Euro-Zone--will not return to growth by the end of this year. (Although, one can’t help but wonder if Brown will start heralding zero percent growth in the fourth growth). Indeed, the OECD projects that the UK economy will shrink by 4.7 percent over this year as a whole—although the worst appears to be behind us with the rate of shrinkage slowing since the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year.   As Kevin Maguire suggests today, Labour’s election strategy is likely to be that Britain is not out of the woods yet and so it is still no time for a novice.