Politics

In an interview on today’s Politics Show, David Miliband reiterated the government’s opposition to a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty, claiming that: “The reformed Treaty is there for parliament to scrutinise and then to pass …. Obviously, people will put down an amendment and parliament will have to decide, but I don’t think this Treaty meets the bar of fundamental constitutional reform that should be the basis of having a referendum.” Miliband’s stance – although hardly surprising – is going to be disappointing for groups such as I want a referendum.com, as well as, I’m sure, for many Coffee-Housers. The question now is of how the wider public respond

Peter Hain has been cleared of breaching the Ministerial Code and many in Westminster think the furore over his failure to declare all the donations to his deputy leadership campaign will now die down. But Rosa Prince points out over at the Three Line Whip yesterday’s decision actually raises huge questions about Hain’s version of events and whether he can carry on as a minister. Hain has been cleared because he told his permanent secretary of the donations to his campaign including one from the GMB union of £10,000—which was not declared until last week—who he was negotiating with in his ministerial capacity at the time. But as Rosa notes,

£180,000.00 or so doesn’t seem to buy you much of a political campaign these days. Peter Hain’s attempt at being deputy leader of the Labour party certainly ended in a lot of cheques being signed rather than in ballot papers being crossed in his favour. All that rather desperate spend only reinforced the impression that he was regarded as an outsider within the Labour movement as a whole-despite his status as a cabinet minister and MP of sixteen years standing. It’s all too easy though for a political campaign to run into such difficulties-because here the financial is an aspect of the personal. The moment a candidate puts his name

The news that Paddy Ashdown is going to be a reconstruction supremo in Afghanistan, coordinating the military and development work, seems to be announced every few weeks. But it has never been officially confirmed that he will go and do the job. Now, Michael White reports that there is a danger that the appointment might get dragged into the row between Britain and Russia over the Litvinenko assassination. Michael White reports on his blog that, “The foreign secretary is anxious that the row doesn’t spill over to Iran or Kosovo, policy areas where we need Russian cooperation. One casualty could be Paddy Ashdown’s Afghan appointment by the UN on Monday.

Great fireworks today over Northern Rock. Cameron started with sombre questions about taxpayers’ money involved – Can Brown guarantee the safe return of the taxpayers’ money given Northern Rock? Was he advised the liability could rise so high? Could it rise higher than £55bn? No answer. Brown tried his trick of last week of asking Cameron a question so often that Michael Martin intervened. “He doesn’t have to answer the Prime Minister’s question,” says Michael Martin. Not until the next general election, at any rate.   Then for Cameron’s coup de theatre. “I’ll tell you what you did. When it came to the need for a total guarantee of deposits,