Now it's not often I just reprint a Tory Party press release, but I can't really add to its content...
At a Treasury Select Committee hearing today, Sir Nicholas Stern revealed that it was Gordon Brown who appointed Labour MP Colin Challen to a high profile climate change taskforce – clearing the way for Brown’s close ally Ed Balls to stand unopposed for the new Morley and Outwood seat. Responding to a question from David Gauke MP, Sir Nicholas also admitted that he’d had no prior knowledge of the appointment until the Chancellor informed him he’d be working with Challen.
Commenting, Chris Grayling said:
“This is yet more evidence of Gordon Brown’s blatant cronyism. Only two months ago, Colin Challen was adamant he’d be standing against Ed Balls for the Labour candidacy for the new Morley and Outwood constituency. Less than two months later Challen had changed his mind, clearing the way for Brown’s closest crony to get a safe seat. Now we know why – Gordon Brown had given him a plum job in a high profile climate change taskforce. This is unacceptable behaviour for a man who would be Prime Minister.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
· Under the Boundary Commission’s review of Parliamentary boundaries, Ed Balls’ seat of Normanton will disappear. Outwood, which was formerly part of Normanton, will be merged with Morley, which was formerly part of the Morley and Rotherwell seat, to create a new seat of Morley and Outwood.
· The majority of the new Morley and Outwood seat is made up of areas previously in Morley and Rotherwell. The sitting MP for Morley and Rotherwell, Colin Challen, who has served just one full term, had always maintained that he would fight for the new seat. But today, Colin Challen announced that he will be standing down as an MP at the next election (PA News, 30 January 2007)
· Ed Balls has insisted that he will stand for the seat, telling the Wakefield Express: ‘That is what I intend to do’ (Wakefield Express, 6 November 2006).
· In November 2006, Colin Challen asserted that he would be fighting Ed Balls for the candidacy for the new Morley and Outwood constituency:
‘I shall be seeking to be re-elected as the Labour candidate - if I were successful I would be representing a seat that contains two thirds of my existing seat’ (Wakefield Express, 6 November 2006).
· However, just two months later, he announced his decision to withdraw from the race, citing his appointment to a leading role in Labour's climate change agenda:
"I have become so involved in climate change now, especially in the last six months, that I want to find new opportunities in that area. I have found those now."
"I expect shortly to be involved in further practical work to speed those changes, particularly in the developing world - notably Africa - and to further examine the economics of climate change following the report last year from Sir Nick Stern, with whom I shall be working."
Full (uncorrected) transcript of Nick Stern’s admission:
David Gauke MP
“Was it [Colin Challen] the Chancellor’s appointment, do you know?”
Nick Stern
“The Chancellor asked me personally if I would be interested in doing this and I said that I am.”
David Gauke MP
“But Colin Challen as well – was that the Chancellor’s appointment?”
Nick Stern
“Yes – I learned about it from the Chancellor and I thought it would be a good idea.”
David Gauke MP
“I understand that Colin Challen is going to be working closely with you on climate change issues, and I’m just interested to learn when you learned of that appointment, and precisely what you will be doing together.”
Nick Stern
“My understanding is that, err, we’ll be looking at some ideas on how economists and Parliamentarians can talk to each other. Colin and I haven’t had the chance to get together and work out the details, but I must say I’m very happy to do it.”
26 comments:
Correction:
Colin Challen is the sitting MP for Morley and Rothwell
Do you know what? This make me feel sick. Full proof that Broon will run the country with a bunker full of cronies.
Though not as sick as watching an epsiode of GBH over the weekend - you might remember the incident of the Labour boot boys and special needs school. Reminds me of what lies behind the splintering New Labour veneer...
And what will Colin Challen actually contribute to this climate change taskforce? Would he have been offered this job if his constituency was elsewhere?
“My understanding is that, err, we’ll be looking at some ideas on how economists and Parliamentarians can talk to each other. Colin and I haven’t had the chance to get together..."
What a waste of time and effort and taxpayers' money.
nobody imagined that he was whiter than white..
had to come out sooner or later.
just let him know that we all watching him, his every move, all the time.
It's worth noting that even in coparison with the IPCC Summary for Policymakers, issued on February 2, The Stern Report on Climate Change is now exposed as an extemist hysterical scaremonger's rant: in short, it is utter rubbish.
The faults in this latest IPCC report are many and various, but modest compared with Stern, and for discuaaion another day.
Whatever happened to the campaign to raise money to finance Ed Balls in having a sex change operation, so he could get past NuLabs all-wimmin shortlists for a new safe seat as Edwina No-Balls?
"We’ll be looking at some ideas on how economists and Parliamentarians can talk to each other".
Labour Parliamentarians don't understand economics, so that will be one short discussion.
How much is he getting paid for this?
p.s. Iain - check out the new forces of Conservatism in Islington (i.e. my blog!). And a link would be nice, too...
HmmmI `d love to know who this arthurian is ..someone I know surely.
Isn`t the Balls problem conjoined with delaying the boundary commission. If Gordo wants to bring this to a conclusion perhaps he`s going to jump early . I `ve always thought it was his best chance
This story was reported in the Yorkshire Post on the 31st January. What does it say about the official opposition that it's taken them a week to do something about it?
MP moves out for ally of Brown
Blair is under investigation for selling seats in the Upper House of the legislature;
Brown is being asked about buying seats in the Lower House of the legislature.
Balls' Union supporters mass infiltrated the Morley & Rothwell Labour constituancy party. Voted a number of themselves onto the selection committee, then told Challen to go or be deselected. The gutless little man went after insisting he would fight for his seat.
Both with 'alleged' Bilderberger associations.
I'm a Labour voter, and I find this pretty hard to take. Not so much the cronyims, tho that's not great, but the sheer clumsiness of it. No subtlety, no ear for how this would play, especially in the current climate. Machine politics.
The disappointing thing is that Balls will still get thousands of Labour-voting ignoramouses voting for him out of blind hatred with what the Tories did 25 years ago to the mines.
Depressing
So Broon will run the country with a bunker full of cronies, eh? And just exactly what do you think Cameron's doing?
It shows that Brown views climate change as an opportunity to raise taxes and fix jobs to suit his cronies.Galloway is at least correct about Blair and Brown-two cheeks of the same arse.
Anon 9:52, the important thing to realise about the modern "Labour Party" is that they have been completely hijacked by a Conservative, Tony Blair, who obviously seeks to maintain that by bringing in friends as much as possible - Brown is slightly less conservative than Blair but pretty similar, which is why (in the past) they were good friends. The attacks on Blair/Brown on Tory blogs like this one are only due to jealousy - a different group of Tories got into office! Rather than political disagreement. The Blair programme is very, very similar to the previous Major and Thatcher programmes. So despite all the apparent venom this is really just an in-house squabble within one very large Tory Party in Office.
Anon 10.08-I run my own business and I can assure you that this government is not like the last two.Taxes and regulations are crippling and there is no incentive to take on staff.Only the public sector is thriving and Brown is now struggling to fund them.I don't recognise your arguement at all.
Morley and Outwood isn't as safe as Normanton used to be. I think it has a notional Labour majority of about 6000. At least he'll have to work hard this time on keeping his majority above the 'marginal' 4000 status.
Apologies if I've missed this somewhere, but what is Colin Challen going to be paid for doing nothing - sorry, sitting on this "high profile task force"? As this is taxpayers' money we are entitled to know.
Also, has Mr. Challen considered that he may have been given this job now to clear the way for Gordon Brown's creature, Ed Balls, but once Balls has been elected, what's stopping Gordon Brown deciding the task force is a waste of money and scrapping it - in the interests of fiscal prudence, of course?
This is Tory spin it seems. Colin Challen has been offered no job, paid or unpaid by the Chancellor or the Treasury. And I'm told that the exchange printed in your blog refers specifically to a possible CONFERENCE and not to an ONGOING SITUATION or APPOINTMENT.
I hope you bunch of crooks will apologise if and when this turns out to be the case. I agree with the Fink. There's nothing fishy about this. And it looks increasingly as if the prospective "job" which never seemed quite right because of the unpredictability of the start date is a myth.
This really makes my blood boil. I voted labour to help fight injustice. Only to find that the way to get on is just to be a friend of someone in power.How sordid.
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