Labour's fighting instincts flourishing in opposition

In2minds

Keith Vaz, now there's an honest man.

Fex Urbis

I really like Keith Vaz, he's one of the good guys.

Maggie

The Labour Party, together with their partners in crime The Guardian and the BBC, have introduced a new law while nobody was looking. Guilty Until Proven Innocent.

Alex

I do not understand why a feud between the New York Times and Wall Street Journal is creating the lead story over here!?

I understand the Guardian stands to lose a lot of income from Central and local government job advertisements and so would like Labour back in power - but again why is this newsworthy!?

The Guardian also has a feud with News International - so what!

Typically I am a news "junkie" but I am getting so turned off by this story and the Hague story that articles or broadcasts on those topics from any organisation (including The Spectator and BBC) tend to make stop reading (and buying) and switch off.

Mark Heenan

Yeah but what's the point? The only people likely to be interested in Andy Coulson are probably tribal Labour loyalists who don't need any more convincing that Tories are scum, the other, more normal 99% of the population will be wondering why Labour is wasting its time on this trivia when there are so many other things going on in Westminster which, unlike what the No10 communications director may or may not have done in a previous job several years ago, will actually have a significant impact on the daily lives of millions of people. This isn't an example of fight, it's an example of Labour being rather too focussed on the man rather than the ball.

Robert Taggart

Liebours fighting instincts ? Just down and dirty !
Liebour find themselves inhabiting their home ground - opposition. Opposition for its own sake. They are the party who always call others names first, claim wrong doing upon their opponents first, and then, when their opponents do likewise back... they , Liebour, do not like it !
Sleight of hand ? um, no, just second nature to the natural party of opposition !

Holly ......

What have they accomplished apart from proving they are spiteful & vindictive?
Meanwhile,the real government are left alone
in peace. to run the country properly.
I for one hope this drags on for at least another five years.
While they are 'picking on' Coulson,they are leaving the coalition alone..They just haven't worked that out yet.

wrinkled weasel

This is such a non-story, and the political capital being made out of it is more transparent than glacier mint.

Nobody outside Westminster is interested, and yet, the BBC et al are wetting themselves in glee. If ever there was a story that was so full of such nasty, machiavellian oomschka, this was it, and as the Speccie has commented, Alan Johnson hasn't altogether covered himself in glory either.

If this is the exent of Labour's taste for blood, and their hunting sense, we have no worries. Really, no worries.

Dave B

That Keith Vaz is still in parliament boggles me.

Braveheart

Substitute "AndyCoulson" with "Alistair Campbell" and the Spectator would be doing its nut.

There's a real story here and it will come out.

Chuck Unsworth

What I want to know is when are the cops going to be interviewing Vaz?

ollie

Labour have a lot more fight in them because they weren't virtually wiped out at the election - though only God knows why they weren't. They ahve a 100+ seat start on the Tories after '97.

I still find it mind boggling that eight and a half million voters wanted Gordon Brown to continue as PM of this country.

Regarding Vaz.....nah. The public can sniff naked partisan opportunism - which is the core of this Coulson story. This could end up backfiring on Labour - as Postman Twat is already finding out.

Paul

Blair got a majority of 60-odd seats in his last election to the Tories falling 19 seats short of a majority in the last election, yet the Tories won a larger number of votes than Blair - this bias in the electoral boundary system was bound to make 2010 Labour less despondent than 1997 Tories.

Doesn't change the fact that Labour are coming across as opportunistic pygmies ("it's a Watergate scandal"?) who think the police should re-investigate matters at their beck and call.

TrevorsDen

But Labour were behaving like an opposition when in govt. Constantly worrying about the news agenda whilst forgetting the country was going to hell in a handcart. Let them get on with it - Its meaningless drivel.

Vaz will be in his 59th year when the next election comes. Many more Labourists will be in their dotage.

Maggie

The BBC has become the story. Mark Thompson should resign.

strapworld

Mr Forsyth. I find it odd, indeed quite disgraceful that you omit to mention in your comment what Guido Fawkes has written.

I make no apology for copying his blog. It makes the whole story stink more than you wished to potray it! Let us have some honesty please!

"In giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, Yates of the Yard has thrown a spanner into the Labour spin machine as it tries to keep the Coulson story going. John Prescott has made a song and dance of the fact his phone was “hacked” – a fact flatly denied by the police. He is not on the list of suspected victims. Prezza has been caught telling porkies… If Prezza isn’t on it, claims by Chris Bryant are looking shaky, as are the rumours that Mandy and even Blair were on the list. If this was true Guido would rather a newspaper was quick to spot the security flaws and not Iranian intelligence. The Labour Party are obviously so keen to make capital out of this issue that they aren’t going to let a pesky bit of truth get in the way. Though it’s funny the sudden change of heart that Alan Johnson has had. While he was Home Secretary he was adamant that there was no grounds for an inquiry and there was nothing he could do, yet he has taken a very different tone in opposition. Many wondered why Johnson didn’t run for leader and perhaps now, without such a great need to keep News International’s tabloids away, we might read why exactly Alan Johnson was so keen to avoid confrontation with Coulson’s former employers while in office".

Braveheart

@wrinkled weasel

"..we have nothing to worry about..."

What do you mean "we"?

Matt

I have just read Mandelson's pooterish autobiography from which it was clear that even when in power Labour thought about nothing - absolutely nothing - other narrow tactical political advantage every day.

anne allan

Ah - Chris Bryant; quite happy to pose in his underpants on a gay website, but upset that there is an outside chance his phone calls have been intercepted.
Listen, Duckie; thanks to your Stalinist government ALL our phone calls and emails are kept on record. Not nice, is it?

Paul Hawkins

Any fear of Labour coming up with any.....policies? The Coulson story will die as the americans will not divulge any evidence. Labour - all talk and no action. Nothing's changed.

perdix

Not surprised really - Liebour have several free propaganda outlets: BBC, Guardian, Mirror & FT, all willing to push their story to the top of the page.Tamely followed by any newspaper hungry to shout scandal eg Telegraph (which is Mail with bigger pages).

wrinkled weasel

Sorry Braveheart. "We". Those who learned during 13 years of Labour, the words, Pot, Kettle and Black. I refer you also to 13 years of turning Britain into the most surveilled country in Western Europe, RIPA, Walter Wolfgang, Damian Green, Cash for Honours, The Dodgy Dossier and all the other attempts to subvert the instruments of law and order in order to exert, merely, political control.

That do?

Alan Edwards

The BBC became the Ministry of Truth for the Labour Party during the New Labour big brother era which Labour is still taking advantage of.

Kasou

Well thats it then if Keith Vaz and Lord Prescott insist there is a case to answered then we can all rest assured that there is something to be answered, after all two such outstanding, honest, open gentlemen could never stoop to fiction or lies or theft or phone tapping , or stealing tax payers money.

So now we can ALL breath out in the sure knowledge that JUSTICE will at last be done, despite Alan Johnson insisting last year that all had been investigated.

Vulture

What this non-story demonstrates ( apart from the reptilian nastiness of Liebore in general and greaseball Vaz in particular) is the pathetic weakness of Dave in allowing his chief spokesman to be trashed by the BBC & Guardian.

UNless the Tories purge the institutionally leftist Corporation their Govt. faces continual undermining from what is still the most influential media outlet in Britain. Is that what the flabby weed Cameron really wants?

Braveheart

@wrinkled weasel

If you think legal surveillance is a bad thing, surely you would want an investigation into the NoW's illegal version of same....

or is that too consistent a stance for the rabid right...???

Paddy

Ollie: 'I still find it mind boggling that eight and a half million people still wanted Brown to be PM'.

I was told it was because they knew Brown was useless and incompetent - and that they thought they would be able to slip under the radar and avoid job cuts and the like.

wrinkled weasel

Braveheart. I really should have no truck with someone who has named himself after a fictious construct, played by a revolting American actor, but, I welcome any police investigation.

As for "legal" surveillance, the definition of "legal" has been stretched of late. It might be legal, but it is Vladimir Putin legal, not 1832 legal.

TGF UKIP

"Labour today has a lot more fight in it than the Tories did in 1997" and more particularly than the Tories did in 2006, 2007,2008,2009 and for five months of 2010.

Tarka the Rotter

Oh dear... my previous post on the theme of 'VAZ washes whiter than white' has not made it to the board... for the record, it was a play on 'DAZ' not a racist comment... jeeze!

anxiouswarrior

the labour party will regroup soon and have the tories in thier sights, but the real opposition to yourselves and the rest of the right wing garbage running this country will soon be the british people when they realise what evil policies are about to bestowed on them by the this goverment and its cronies in fleet street canary wharf the square mile via wall street , the poll tax was defeated in 1990 and so will this govement and its murdoch poodles in the press

Paddy

Anxiouswarrior: I wish they would regroup and vanish off the face of the earth.

Ridcully

anxiouswarrior: What on Earth are you doing here when the Student Union bar has just opened?