Meet the minister for selling the unsellable
Fraser Nelson warms to Jim Murphy, the Minister for Europe, who is steering the Lisbon Treaty through parliament — and now promises that he would help Blair become EU President
I ask how he’s spending the half-term recess: constituency work. ‘I’m going back to my old school, where 42 per cent of the pupils are now Polish. Next year the majority will be Polish.’ But doesn’t this just sum up Labour’s failure, I ask, that one in four men in Glasgow is living off benefits and yet so many immigrants find work so easily? It is like lighting a tinderbox. He reels off facts, figures and explanations: the complexity of the problem and why he believes Labour is working.
We’re soon into the 40th of my allocated 30 minutes, and he has batted away two civil ser-vants who say his next visitor has arrived. He is no longer welfare reform minister (his last job under Blair), but is almost evangelistic about settling my doubts about Labour’s record on poverty. A third civil servant comes in, and shoots him a steely glance. ‘One minute,’ he says, unconvincingly.
When I finally leave his office, a wall of officials are looking murderously at me. The visitor we had kept waiting is Fiona Gordon, political secretary to the Prime Minister. Mr Murphy blanches. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise it was you,’ he said. She pretends not to mind. I make for the exit. ‘OK, Fraser, hope that you got all I said about Gordon,’ he says, with a wink. In fact, he didn’t mention the Prime Minister once. Given that his job is to take all the flak over Europe, that’s probably just as well.
A longer version of this article is available here.
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EyeSee
February 14th, 2008 1:15pmAnd there you have it. Not concerned with the truth or outcomes, just how Labour are perceived and will they get re-elected. Lies need to be called lies Fraser, not Labour's view or statistics.
John Bickley
February 15th, 2008 1:44pmI think the number of Polish children at his old school sums up Labour's problem. Europe is working for Europe (particularly Eastern Europe) not Britain. Labour has made it easy for UK citizens to stay on benefits (especially in areas where Labour controls the electoral seat). They're engaged in buying votes rather than reforming the benefits system and until they do that more Poles will come over here to do the jobs that Brits could do if they had no choice but to go out to work.
John, Basingstoke
February 20th, 2008 11:39amA Scot born journalist praising a Scot born politician in charge of steering through Parliament the EU bill to deprive true born Englishmen of their hard fought liberties just highlights how the "Scot Cabal" rule and subjugate us south of the border as I see it. From "Brown the brooding,indecisive manic- depressive the unelected PM" to "Gorbals Mick" a travisity of fairness, balance and fiscal rectitude as the Speaker, to Des Browne, Darling, Murphy, Alexander et.al. the faceless Brown dominated Cabinet and all Scots who wield power through select committees. Your revenge for Cullondon and the Act of Unity is now complete. An England unrecognisable from 20 years ago through mass immigration, heavy taxation, abominable public services, funded by an incompetant administration staffed by career politicans with their snouts in the public purse greedily devouring vast expense claims of the most dubious nature including the Speaker the so-call guardian of Parliament for the people. They has squandered billions of our hard earned monies. How much lower can this system fall before a sysmic change takes place to counter the last disasterous 10 years. So much for me warming to this article and Jim Murphy