Peter Hoskin

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Brutality exposed

From our UK edition

On the twentieth anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster, the footage of a policeman beating a woman attending a vigil in memory of Ian Tomlinson (see above) is especially resonant.  If the police service recaptured any of the public's faith in the years since 1989 - and that's a huge if - then you feel that has now been completely undone.  The disgraceful actions of a few Met officers will linger long in the national memory, and skew perceptions of police forces across the country. Don't get me wrong: I'm a big supporter of the police - they have an extremely difficult job, and there are plenty of professional, dedicated policemen and women out there.  But it's clear that the service requires deep reform, and that certain unsavoury aspects need rooting out.

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

McBride: unemployable outside Whitehall?

From our UK edition

A striking observation from PR Week's David Singleton: "[Damian] McBride's next move is unknown. Previously, lobbyists have been keen to sign up anyone linked to the Brown's inner circle, but this week it appeared highly unlikely that many agencies will attempt to snare the former special adviser. Hanover Communications MD Charles Lewington said: ‘I am loathed to kick a man when he is down but he demonstrated a clear lack of judgment and professionalism. I fear his reputation is so badly damaged that only a long period building churches in Rwanda will restore it.'" Singleton's the journo who had the lowdown on the McBride-Carter wars last year, so it will be well worth keeping an eye on the PR Week website for his insights into Smeargate.

Peter Hoskin

Field laments the “nothingness” that is Brown’s government

From our UK edition

It's hardly surpiring when Frank Field writes damningly of Brown's government - but his latest blog post still deserves mention.  Even by Field's standards, it's particularly unequivocal and incisive.  Here are some choice passages:   "Harold Wilson asserted that the Labour party was a moral crusade or it was nothing.  The McBride affair has left Labour members looking at nothing.   That is the reality check that McBride has wrought on the party... ...Week after week MPs have been turning up but with almost no serious work to do.  There is the odd bill to be sure.  But there is no legislative programme to speak of.  Even the debates that are put on to fill in time are ones that deny MPs a vote.  The whole exercise is vacuous... ...

Peter Hoskin

Francis Maude has Tom Watson in his sights

From our UK edition

And while we're talking about letters, here's the full text of the one Francis Maude sent to Sir Gus O'Donnell last night: "Dear Gus, The e-mails sent by Damian McBride raise serious concerns about the operation of 10 Downing Street, and the degree to which the rules about the role of Special Advisers are being enforced. Mr McBride was hardly a peripheral figure. He was personally appointed by the Prime Minister and directly responsible to him. He worked alongside the Minister for the Civil Service, Tom Watson, at the heart of the Prime Minister's office. I am sure you will agree that this episode is of fundamental importance to the integrity of the conduct of government, which you have an important role in protecting.

Peter Hoskin

Lost in the post | 14 April 2009

From our UK edition

The letters that Gordon Brown sent to the victims of McBride's smears sound as clumsy as you'd expect.  Here's the Standard's report: "[Brown's] handwritten letters expressing “great regret” to senior Tories smeared by aide Damian McBride were dismissed as insincere and inadequate — and unreadable. One recipient, Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who was falsely accused of a one-night stand with another MP, complained that she could not make out all the Prime Minister's words because they were scrawled in a thick black marker pen because of his poor eyesight.

Peter Hoskin

Brown and out<br />

From our UK edition

The tone of today's analysis of the McBride scandal is encapsualted by two articles in the Independent.  The first, by Michael Brown, suggests that "Any remaining chance of a Labour victory has been torpedoed by incompetence, sleaze and spin at the heart of Mr Brown's operation in Downing Street".  While the second, by Steve Richards, claims that "This fiasco may have fatally damaged Gordon Brown’s capacity to take on the Tories".  It's hard to disagree with either observation.

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s unconvincing clean-up operation

From our UK edition

Over at Red Box, Sam Coates has published the open letter that Gordon Brown has sent Sir Gus O'Donnell about the McBride scandal.  Here it is.  Have a sickbag to hand before reading: Dear Gus I am writing about the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers, and the proposals I want to make to tighten this up. I am assured that no Minister and no political adviser other than the person involved had any knowledge of or involvement in these private emails that are the subject of current discussion, and I have already taken responsibility for acting on this - first by accepting Mr McBride's resignation and by making it clear to all concerned that such actions have no part to play in the public life of our country.

Peter Hoskin

Charlie Whelan’s trail of resentment

From our UK edition

Guido's keeping shtum about how he got his hands on the McBride emails, so it's worth highlighting this passage in today's Guardian: "Some Labour sources were pointing the finger at the Unite trade union which is riven by splits. Charlie Whelan, the union's political director who is a former Brown aide, was copied into the email, as was his aide Andrew Dodgshon. There is no suggestion that either of them leaked the emails, but there is a suspicion that one of Whelan's many enemies in the union may have. One Unite source said: 'There is no shortage of people who would be prepared to leak those emails. People are queueing up to punch Charlie's lights out.'" The final quote calls to mind Alastair Campbell's comments to Hugo Young on p.542 of the Hugo Young Papers.

Sunday

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s gang ruins things for decent Labour supporters

From our UK edition

His post on the Damian McBride scandal appeared earlier, but it's worth rounding off the afternoon with the words of Tom Harris, a Labour MP who has done himself credit today: "...this isn’t about positioning or spinning or misdirection or whatever. This is about standards of political activity, standards which have fallen far, far below what is remotely acceptable, especially for someone working at the very heart of government. We screwed up, big time. We have no-one — absolutely no-one at all — to blame for this but ourselves. The damage the Labour Party and the government have sustained this last 24 hours has been entirely self-inflicted. And the people behind this sordid little mess owe everyone named in these emails a very public apology.

Peter Hoskin

Speaker Martin caught out again

From our UK edition

Just in case the continuing Damian McBride story isn't raising your blood pressure high enough on this Easter Sunday, it's worth mentioning the latest expenses row surrounding Michael Martin.  Not only is the Speaker involved in one of those "three home" schemes - renting one, claiming for a second and living in a third - but it's emerged that he and his wife went on a jolly to Dubai courtesy of the taxpayer.  Here's how the Telegraph reports it: "The Speaker last week spent four days in the United Arab Emirates on an official visit hosted by the authorities in the Gulf state. He was accompanied by his wife, Mary Martin, whose business class flights to Dubai were paid by the British taxpayer.

Peter Hoskin

Gordon Brown has lost all moral authority

From our UK edition

So this is the way New Labour ends - in a shower of immorality.  Sure, the expenses scandals were bad enough, but Brown could wriggle out of those; promise a review; and wait for the revelations to appear about Tory and Lib Dem MPs.  But Damian McBride and "Smeargate" is something else; something altogether more final.  The public is getting its clearest glimpse yet into the workings of the Brown machine.  And it's a grim sight. It's always puzzled me how Brown has managed to perpetuate the "son of the manse" shtick.  Read any biography of the man - I'd recommend Tom Bower's - and the truth is clear: his is a political career built largely on gangsterism and deceit.

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

How resigned is McBride?

From our UK edition

With McBride gone, it's worth referring to a passage from Philip Collins' article for the Times yesterday.  Speaking about high profile resignations, he makes this point about those who leave government: "The incidents that fade from the memory quickest are the alleged scandals: David Blunkett (twice), Peter Mandelson (twice), Beverley Hughes, Peter Hain. To this number we might yet have to add Tony McNulty but probably not Ms Smith. Why the distinction? Because Ms Smith is more damaging to lose. We can see that there is neither rhyme nor reason to this list because ministers are allowed to come back. What sort of misdemeanour is sufficiently bad to require resignation but not so bad that it does not prevent your return to government a few months later?

Peter Hoskin

Will the blogosphere claim McBride’s scalp?

From our UK edition

There's a storm brewing over No.10's, ahem, methods. One of Gordon Brown's chief enforcers, Damian McBride, has been caught sending emails which make "lurid suggestions" about top Tories, and which sound awfully like a smear campaign. The story makes the cover of the Telegraph, although the man who prompted it - and who has the emails in his possession - is the blogosphere's favourite son, Guido Fawkes. All in all, McBride's actions leave a nasty taste in the mouth. And they hardly reflect well on a political class already mired in scandal. The official response is that the emails were "juvenile and inappropriate," and that no-one in Downing Street, "except the author," knew about them.

Friday

Peter Hoskin

A call for reformation

From our UK edition

There's an incredibly important comment piece by Dr Taj Hargey in today's Times.  Hargey is chair of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford and the Imam of the Summertown Islamic Congregration, and describes the "McCarthyite" campaign which the "Muslim heirarchy in Britain" have waged against him.  In the face of fundamentalism and Wahhabism, he calls for a reformation of Islam: "We need a reformation that saves Islam from foreign-inspired zealots. That reformation is already under way, with Muslims going back to the pristine teaching of the transcendent Koran, not taking on trust the hadith (a compilation of sayings of the Prophet Muhammad recorded some 250 years after his death by non-Arabs) or the corpus of medieval man-made Sharia (religious law).

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

A risky forecast

From our UK edition

Uh-oh.  Are the Government about to make an official forecast they might regret?  Speaking to the Standard, the Treasury minister Stephen Timms strongly hints that a 2009 recovery may be pencilled into the Budget.  Here's what he said: "I wouldn't rule [growth this year] out. The question is when in the second half of the year and we will be a bit clearer about what we expect when we publish the Budget forecast" Now, this isn't quite as outlandish as the forecasts in the PBR.  But it's still towards the optimistic end of the spectrum, and you'd have thought the government would play it safe rather than risk backtracking once again.

Peter Hoskin

Balls in the dock?

From our UK edition

Is Ed Balls in line for a kicking?  Today's papers report that the heads of school sixth forms and colleges are considering suing the government over the terrible blunder which led to their budgets being unexpectedly cut.  Good on them.  They have a right to know exactly what went wrong here, and to hold Balls and his department to account.  Sure, whatever embarrassing revelations come out of this, I doubt Balls will ever accept responsibility.  As the exam marking fiasco revealed last year, that's just not his style.  But he - and Brown - might be given plenty of cause to squirm.

Peter Hoskin

Bob Quick quits

From our UK edition

It's just been confirmed that Bob Quick has resigned from his role as a Met assistant commissioner.  He will be replaced by John Yates.  You felt it was coming after Quick's horrendous blunder outside No.10 yesterday, although he's certainly courted controversy and embarrassment before then.  With this happening in the wake of the Ian Tomlinson tragedy, the Met now faces a titanic task to restore its battered reputation.

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Does Cameron need to diversify?

From our UK edition

Is Cameron overdoing it on the economy?  A silly question, perhaps, given that we're caught up in a recession.  But it's one prompted by an article in today's FT, which notes that: "David Cameron has made only one speech dedicated to health and education in the past nine months, compared with 18 on the economy." Of course, the worry is that the party's message on the public services will get submerged under all the economic talk.  That may or may not be happening already but, even given the relative importance of the issues, the 18:1 ratio does seem rather unbalanced. To my mind, all this underlines just how Cameron-centric the Tory party has become over recent months; something which the Tory leader himself appears to acknowledge.

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s post-G20 rhetoric sounds a lot like his pre-G20 rhetoric

From our UK edition

Yesterday brought plenty of insights into Labour's pre-election strategy - rumours of poster campaigns; a series of attacks on the Tories; and talk of how the Government would use the G20 to refine its domestic message.  But perhaps the most striking aspect of it all was how, fundametally, the approach remains the same.  The emphasis is still on those infamous dividing lines: "investment vs cuts", "nice vs nasty" etc.  And, while there are efforts to wrap a post-G20 bow around some of this, the content is wearily familiar.     Gordon Brown's interview with the Independent today does little more than confirm this.

Peter Hoskin

Put your questions to Eric Pickles | 8 April 2009

From our UK edition

We ran a Q&A with Eric Pickles back in August.  But as he's had an eventful few months since then - what with being made chairman of the Tory party, as well as his appearance on Question Time a couple of weeks ago - Eric has kindly agreed to another Q&A with CoffeeHousers now. Same drill as usual: just put your questions for Eric in the comments section below; we'll pick out the best 5 or so on Sunday, and put them to the Tory chairman; and he'll get back to us with answers early next week.