My friend Sean Dilley, political correspondent for TalkSport reckons Labour have a bit of work to do on equalities issues. Sean is blind and operates with the assistance of a wonderful labrador guide dog called Chipp. Chipp is very popular in the Palace of Westminster.
Labour doesn't need The Sun. We've got Twitter.
I confess I don’t know any of the other candidates, but I’ve come to know Iain
quite well over the past couple of years and I would count him as a friend.
Politically, he’s wrong on just about everything, of course (well, he is a Tory,
after all) but I genuinely believe he would be an asset to the Parliamentary
Conservative Party if he were to achieve his ambition. This is someone with a
significant political achievement to his name; Iain Dale buit the template for
serious political blogging in the UK and no-one has yet managed to improve on
it.
He’s also honest, principled and speaks his mind. And his head certainly wouldn’t be turned by the prospect of front bench responsibilities.
If you’re a voter in Bracknell, even if you normally vote for a party
other than the Tories, I hope you’ll seriously consider lending your vote to
Dale.
If the Tories want to reach out to the middle ground whilst also having people
with fundamental links to the Thatcher era, a foot in both camps candidate, then
Iain is their man. Would I vote for him over a Lib Dem ? No. Would I attend an
open primary if I lived in Bracknell and vote for him. Yes I would. I prefer Lib
Dems, but if I couldn't have a Lib Dem, I think Iain Dale would be a good
choice.
How about a nice big cup of shut the **** up - think before saying something stupid.
I pointed it out to a journalist who retorted, "Yes, we're going to show it to Andrew Marr if he shows his face."
Ouch
Just listened to the hideous Yvette Cooper at the Neo-Labour conference. I couldn't even bring myself to look at her she's so chillingly slimy. My God she was in nausea over-drive, even for her. I’ve never voted for any of the main three parties, and probably never will, but the faux melodrama of the depression of the thirties and of the last recession under the Tories, I fully expected her to have tears running down her cheeks. Typical Neo-Labour quasi-religious rantings that bear no resemblance to the truth:"...and we learnt too, of the importance of the strong leadership, of our chancellor, and our prime minister, and we thank them, and pay tribute to them now: Alistair Darling, and Gordon Brown!...Conference we know that unemployment is never a price worth paying."Except for the three million officially unemployed…obviously. Apparently there's more help than ever before "...including Job-Centre Plus..." who's entire help to me over seven months was repeatedly, "Do you need any help searching our database?" They were so much help I’ve set-up my own company and am struggling along on my own.
Maybe that’s just sour grapes though. Neo-Labour has helped other people:"...like Anthony who I talked to in Castleford, who got a job after fourteen months on the dole. He told me it's transformed his life. He's now got a place of his own, he's done management training, and his first ever holiday abroad."
So all you need under Neo-Labour is training and you can call yourself a manager: Tea and coffee management degrees; stationary management degrees; table, chair and crockery management degrees. Then there was this priceless and magical figure manipulation:"Conference, look at the facts. For every 100,000 people we get off unemployment, we save, £700,000,000."What?! Over how long?! That's £7000 per person. On the paltry £62.50 per week I had to beg for, that's 112 weeks, or 28 months, or 2.25 years unemployed! My money got stopped after 7 months and I've paid in for the last twelve years since I started working."...David Cameron doesn't believe in active government to help the unemployed, because David Cameron doesn’t believe in active government. Their campaigns for broken Britain, for an age of austerity, are all designed to break people's faith in a brighter future. They want us to despair of the purpose of politics, or the role of government. A council of despair that would have run Britain into the ground if we had followed it last year."Err...surely that's what's happened under Neo-Labour? Thankfully she finished and received a glum looking standing ovation then the silly woman chairing conference said, "Wow! That was inspiring!"
I think I may need a bigger bucket to get through this week.
Here are the Top 50, together with their rankings last year...As they meet at their party conference in Brighton , Labour’s members know that an unelected politician, who has twice resigned in disgrace, now holds the government together:
Baron Mandelson, of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and of Hartlepool in the County of Durham, First Secretary of State, Lord President of the Council, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and the most powerful man on the Left of British politics.
Never before in The Daily Telegraph’s annual survey of the British political elite has Gordon Brown been off the top spot. But these are extraordinary times. When Brown brought Mandelson back into the Government, it was presented as the return of an experienced minister, In reality, it was the return of a political manager.
In a crisis, Mandelson stays calm, gives instructions, offers advice and issues threats to those who need to hear them. When Brown’s leadership was most heavily challenged, in the wake of the expenses crisis and the meltdown in the European elections, it was Mandelson who kept him in office. If he walked tomorrow, the government would not fall – but the remaining confidence in the future of brand Labour, as currently constituted, would disappear.
There is another reason for Mandelson’s supremacy: he is the only minister offering a coherent narrative of how Labour might win the next election, based on a return to the New Labour project of making policy that sits comfortably with middle England (hence Brown’s recent, and almost certainly doomed, attempt to portray himself as the champion of the middle classes).
Yet he has not had it all his own way. Alistair Darling’s stubborn refusal to be consigned to the dustbin of British politics kept both Mandelson and Ed Balls out of the Treasury, while his insistence that retrenchment would be necessary, given the scale of the fiscal disaster we face, helped puncture the Prime Ministerial fantasy of Labour “investment” vs Tory “cuts”.
Darling climbs 19 places accordingly. Similarly, while David Miliband slips due to his vacillation over the leadership, his refusal to leave the Foreign Office limited Brown’s scope for reconstructing his government and again demonstrated the limits on the Prime Minister’s power.
Yet the dramatic changes on our list since last year do not just reflect convulsions within the leadership – they demonstrate a wider malaise on the Left of British politics.
Of course, our survey, put together with the help of a panel of experts, is not scientific – that is part of the fun. But while the succession of ministerial resignations – including Hazel Blears, once tipped for a top job in government and party; Caroline Flint, a former rising star who thought herself “political window dressing”; and of course Damian McBride, number seven on our list last year – have created openings, there have been few new faces demanding a place at the high table.
The unions have improved their rankings overall, and some old faces have come out fighting: John Prescott, with the help of his son David, has used the internet to rally the troops and extend his political life, as has Alastair Campbell, and Charles Clarke has kept his profile high with a series of biting attacks on Gordon Brown. But who else?
James Purnell, last year’s golden boy and a major player in those bloody days of June, slips back a little. Yes, he was the only Cabinet member to summon the courage to resign on principle – but his resignation was not the knockout blow he expected, indicative of the extent that Brand Blair has declined in relevance, as many within Labour have lost faith in the one virtue that kept the project alive for so long – election-winning.
Purnell is now doing some hard thinking about Labour’s ideological direction at the think-tank Demos, Of his former colleagues, Harriet Harman has been a big winner, keeping the parliamentary ship afloat, holding the party together and positioning herself for life after Brown.
Of the Miliband brothers, it is Ed, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, who came out of the expenses scandal and the leadership crisis best off.
Generally, the Brownite loyalists have slipped back as the Prime Minister’s authority receded: Ed Balls is down eight places, Douglas Alexander down seven, though Balls’s wife Yvette Cooper continues her slow creep up the rankings. By the same token, the prime minister’s advisers – McBride apart – might have done their jobs well, but those jobs have become increasingly difficult, hence their slide down the rankings.
So a vacuum has certainly opened up, but who is filling it? The old Left has climbed – Dennis Skinner enters our list at 68, for example – but not nearly as much as they should have done. Whenever Labour has lost power before, whether in the 1930s, 1950s or 1980s, there has always been a strong and coherent Left-wing position, critical of the governing wing of the party and ready to make its case after a defeat.
Yet the sheer scale of the party’s plight seems to have shocked them into silence: Jon Cruddas (up 61 places) and co have raised their voices, but have yet to produce a credible alternative to the existing agenda on the really big issues (even though they are well-positioned for the carnage the next election will bring about).
It has been left to lower-profile figures such as Jessica Asato at Progress and Richard Reeves at Demos (whose position on the Left is nominal at best) to make the running on issues like constitutional reform. Indeed, apart from the arguments about public expenditure, this is the only area in which clear Red water has developed.
Admittedly, in the current economic and fiscal environment, it is hard to see what the domestic agenda of a resurgent Left would really look – another stimulus package, paid for with even higher direct taxation on the rich? Yet globally, the state is back, a liberal sits in the White House and the recession is slowly responding to various forms of fiscal stimulus (or emerging from the cycle as it would have done anyway, depending on your economics). It should be a time of dynamic new entries to the list. But the great thinkers of the Left seem strangely muted, while the younger generation seems to be keeping its head down and waiting for the election.
There are very few fresh faces on the scene, very few new ideas surfacing. The Left is treading water as the sharks on the right circle and wait for the kill. By the next year, the corpse will have been picked clean, and not many of the people at the top will remain relevant. The question most of our 100 names are spending rather too much of their time thinking about is who will replace them.
Earlier this evening I was part of a Question Time style panel at a Fabian Society fringe meeting titled CAN LABOUR WIN? Chaired the the Observer's Gaby Hinsliff, the meeting also heard from Ed Balls, Caroline Flint, Caroline Lucas and Sunder Katwala, the director of the Fabian Society.
"What did you make of Gordon Brown holding hands with Michelle Obama then? There's a lot of men in the world would've liked to be in THAT position!"
The truth is that if Phil Williams HAD made the comment above he would have been traduced by the politically correct, dungaree wearing lobby. But when a female presenter says something like that no one bats an eyelid.
"What did you make of Obama holding hands with Sarah Brown then? There's a lot of women in the world would've liked to be in THAT position!"
He's doing everything in his power to delay these proceedings and drag them out. He knows her background and he knows that she cannot afford to keep fighting.
Dozens of Conservative parliamentary candidates are working in the lobbying industry that seeks to influence their party’s leadership.
More than a quarter got their jobs after being selected to fight seats.
Only seven Labour and three Liberal Democrat prospective candidates with realistic hopes of victory have jobs in public affairs or communications.
Workers who processed the MPs’ claims included serving soldiers, who were moonlighting between tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to earn extra cash for body armour and other vital equipment.
The soldiers were furious when they saw what MPs, including the Prime Minister, were claiming for and their anger convinced one of their civilian colleagues that taxpayers had a right to know how their money was being spent. The mole who leaked the data has told his story for the first time, in the hope that it will shame the Government into finally supplying the right equipment for the thousands of soldiers risking their lives in Afghanistan.
“It’s not easy to watch footage on the television news of a coffin draped in a Union Jack and then come in to work the next day and see on your computer screen what MPs are taking for themselves,” he said.
“Hearing from the serving soldiers, about how they were having to work there to earn enough money to buy themselves decent equipment, while the MPs could find public money to buy themselves all sorts of extravagances, only added to the feeling that the public should know what was going on.
“That helped tip the balance in the decision over whether I should or should not leak the expenses data.”
One of the expenses that particularly enraged staff was Gordon Brown’s claim for a Sky TV sports package, which cost £36 per month.
But it was the position of the soldiers, who had used their annual leave to find temporary work as security guards, that caused the most outrage. “As the days progressed the soldiers joined in the conversations and became as angry as those doing the editing,” the mole said.
“Everyone in that room was of the same mind. This was our money and these were our employees, effectively, but no one could hold them to account.
“Pretty much everyone working in that room was being paid a pittance to do their job. Meanwhile the MPs were being well paid and claiming a fortune on their expenses, yet what have they done for us in the last 10 years?
“That was why I leaked the information: because the British public deserves better.”
Indeed it does. I stick to the view that the mole performed a public service by leaking this to the Daily Telegraph, and the Telegraph were right to publish, even if some of the stories were reported in an unfair and lurid manner. Many MPs were correctly banged to rights, but there were quite a few innocent victims too. I am thinking mainly of those MPs who weren't mentioned but who were all tarred with the same brush.
So, yes, the mole did the right think and performed a public service, but we should also remember that he was paid handsomely for the information. The actual figure has never been revealed, but the sum of £70,000 has been mentioned. UPDATE: It has been confirmed that he was, in fact, paid £110,000.
I would like to think that bearing in mind what he says about his motivations, he has donated this money to Help for Heroes.
You can order the Telegraph book HERE.
Sorry for the lack of posting since lunchtime. When you get a call to say "can you present our evening show tonight?" from a nationally renowned broadcaster it kind of throws your schedule.That was the most laid back debut I've ever heard. You're a natural.
Consider yourself part of the LBC team.Job done!
UPDATE: From 7.15 to 8 we'll be asking "What's the point of the Liberal Democrats?" I'll be talking to Mike Smithson and taking calls from listeners
From 8-9 it's the Parliament Panel with guests James Brokenshire MP, Will Straw and Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP. Subjects include the LibDem Conference, Gordon Brown's award, Baroness Scotland and much else.
From 9-10 we'll be talking about assisted suicide. I'll be interviewing MS sufferer Debbie Purdy, the woman whose legal case brought about a clarification of the law.
How can you have an Attorney General who has been fined for breaking the law?
1. Subrosa thinks the LibDems have lost the plot. Surely not.
Many congratulations to Anita Anand, who has been visited by the stork and is expecting. That means Peter Allen will have to find a new sparring partner on Drive (step forward Asma Mia) but more to the point the seat next to Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics will become vacant. That set me wondering who would be a good short term cover for Anita's maternity leave.
Its a fairly crucial period to cover as it will be in the runup to the election so it probably needs to be someone who is an experienced interviewer. My vote would go to 5 Live's Shelagh Fogarty - and not just because she happens to be a friend! She has the interviewing experience, a waspish sense of humour, a good political brain and perhaps just as importantly has worked well with Andrew Neil before on 5 Live.
If you are attending the Liberal Democrat Conference today in Bournemouth, can I cordially extend an invitation to the Total Politics fringe meeting which is being held jointly with Henley Business SchoolAsked why he had opted out of the NHS, he said: “Because we were very keen to see a particular consultant for a particular problem very quickly.”
Because I can see the consultant I want, when I want.
Andrew Pierce just asked Lynne Featherstone why no there are no black Lib Dem MP's and the answer came back:
"We don't have any safe seats where you can just place people, you have to earn your spurs in the Lib Dems."
What would Jimmy Macintyre make of that?
It’s time for tea with the Taleban - and tea with the multitude of local tribal Afghan insurgent leaders.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think we can end the military mission overnight. We will still have to ask our amazingly brave armed forces to stand up to hostile insurgents. Perhaps for some time to come.
But tea is actually the most potent drug in Afghanistan if you want peace. It’s how peace deals have been struck in Afghanistan down the ages.
