All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The latest IPSOS-MORI poll has the Tories nine ahead, with Labour down three to 32. Although, the Tory lead is considerable this poll will not send Labour into a tailspin. As long as the party is above 30 and the Tory lead is less than 15, Labour MPs will not start thinking the unthinkable. Hat Tip:
Over at that new daily must-read The Three Line Whip, Iain Martin has news of a letter that puts Wendy Alexander in a very difficult position. Alexander wrote to Paul Green, who as a tax exile is not entitled to make political contributions, to thank him for donating to her campaign. Wendy, sister of Douglas
If–and this is still phenomenally unlikely–this current sleaze scandal either topples Gordon Brown or brings about a challenge to him, Alan Johnson is being tipped as the man to watch. He is certainly the opposite of Brown—charming, comfortable in his own skin and English—and is, as Nick Boles wrote in The Spectator during the Blair
A big winner of donor-gate is Chris Huhne. He’s been the face of the Lib Dems on this, as Vince Cable continues to hound Northern Rock. The ability to jump on a news issue is a key skill required for a Lib Dem leader, and he’s demonstrating his credentials here. Where on earth is Nick
There was a moment of unintentional humour during Jack Straw’s interview on the Today Programme when he was asked if Labour had changed the culture as well as the law around fundraising and replied, “We have changed the culture quite considerably”. You can say that again, Jack. The problem for Labour is that this scandal
This evening, Peter Hain has announced that his campaign failed to register a £5,000 donation from Jon Mendelsohn, the chief fundraiser who was told by Peter Watt of how Abrahams was donating money back in the autumn. It is also been reported that it was Gordon Brown’s campaign manager, Chris Leslie, who put the Harman
The new YouGov poll for the Telegraph puts the Tories 11 points ahead, which is the first time the pollsters have found the Tories to have a double digit advantage. Add to this the fact that Labour’s funding practises are now to be investigated by the police (again) and the worsening economic conditions and it
Given that the Metropolitan Police are probably more familiar with Labour Party financing than Gordon Brown himself, this shouldn’t be a long investigation. It could be over in as little as there months. The starting point here is the end point which Yates could not get to: that a crime has been committed. All that’s
Yates of the Yard is back. So runs the delicious rumour now the Old Bill has been dragged into the donations scandal: Yates won’t run the investigation but he has been appointed the overseeing officer. And Yates has a dossier of all the donors ready. He knows this situation backwards. To help his team on
Guido explains why.
I was bicycling to work along the south side of Hyde Park, admiring the last of the autumn colours, when, glancing to my left, I saw an enormous Ferris wheel. I know I am strictly a fair-weather cyclist and this week has been a rain-filled one, but this huge machine has sprung up near Hyde
Martin Bright has a typically excellent column in the New Statesman about this whole fundraising scandal. Here’s the key graf: “Claims that no one but Watt knew what was going on are already unravelling. As the story broke, one former Labour fundraiser told me: “It just doesn’t wash. You make it your business to know
How well is school literacy doing under Labour? The international PIRLS study shows England has plunged from 3rd to 19th in the league tables between 2001 and 2006 – a staggering dropped exceeded only by Morocco and Romania. This is how well we’re preparing for globalisation. Doubling the education budget has not, after all, worked.
An interesting but worthless column from Jackie Ashley. “It won’t be easy for Gordon Brown to dig himself out of the hole he has fallen into in recent weeks. But a broad back, an ability to say sorry, a coolness under fire and an unwillingness to dump on colleagues would certainly help.” Worthless, I say,
Jackie Ashley, a commentator who is generally seen as on side with the Brown project, has written a piece on how the Prime Minister can begin to recover. She spends most of the article explaining why the green shoots of recovery were already popping up at PMQs but there is a real sting in the
When Nick Robinson dropped the bombshell on the Today Programme that Jon Mendelsohn had known about how David Abrahams was funnelling money to the Labour party, I assumed that—if this was true—Mendelsohn would be gone by PMQs. But he’s still there tonight. Mendelsohn’s has stated that he was aware of what was going on, he
Vince Cable’s new nickname for the Prime Minister looks like sticking and so we now have to work out who can claim credit for it. As Stephen points out, Leo McKinistry used it in his Express column on November 19th. Can anyone find an earlier usage? Leo concluded his column by saying, “Brown shows all
Three Line Whip, the new Telegraph politics blog, points out that because Harriet Harman was elected by the Labour party membership she serves at their pleasure not Gordon Brown’s. This means that Ms Harman is safe unless this scandal meta-sizes again. Also worth checking out at the Three Line Whip, which promises to become a
What does Jon Mendelsohn know? Enough, it seems, to keep his job. There was muffled laughter in the house when Brown said a “former bishop of Oxford” would look into all this. Who else? Graham Norton? Cameron did well venting incredulity that Brown would use the old Blair-style inquiry device to kick this into the
I wonder whose turn it will be today to ask the planted PMQs question so Brown can apologise to Labour, rather than the Tories, as he did last week over disc-gate. That was Hoon’s brainwave, but any brownie points he earned will have been destroyed by his disastrous Newsnight interview where he exculpated Jon Mendelson,
Nick Robinson sets out what he believes Jon Mendelson knew and when he knew it in this blog entry. The series of events as laid out raises serious questions about Mendelson’s judgement Mendelson is a Brown appointee and if he remains in post, and Sky is reporting that the Brown camp are inclined to protect
Nick Robinson has just reported on the Today Programme that Jon Mendelsohn had been told by Peter Watt, the Labour Secretary General who has already resigned over this scandal, how David Abrahams was making these donations to the Labour party. Mendelsohn was unhappy with the arrangement but reportedly did not inform the relevant people at
Cricket Housekeeping: 1. Since this post making the case that Shane Warne is, indisputably, a greater cricketer than Muttiah Muralitharan it’s only fair to note that Murali had the chance to show that he can win matches in Australia as well as Sri Lanka. Granted, the tests were played at Brisbane and Hobart rather than
Yeah, so Megan can’t find New York style pizza in Washington. Well, I can’t find Scottish pizza here either. I forgot to ask earlier if any readers know of anywhere on the eastern seaboard that does a good, proper deep-fried pizza*? *Photos from a fine chippie I used to frequent regularly: Piccante on Broughton Street
The mysterious David Abrahams called into Newsnight this evening and his exchange with Jeremy Paxman makes things even murkier but does seem to bring the scandal closer to Downing Street. Just to add to the list of questions that now need answering, the Dunns have now remembered being given money by Abrahams and in exchange
I’d urge you to read Stephen Pollard on how well known David Abrahams was on the Labour circuit in the 1990s and this post from Boulton and co by Joey Jones, the two posts taken together suggest that this story will run and run, . Jones spoke to Baroness Jay this morning about why the
Has anyone heard from Jack Dromey? Last time a Labour funding crisis emerged, the party Treasurer was touring TV studios venting pious anger. Now, silence. There are plenty unanswered questions about all this. If Brown and Benn didn’t take this money from Janet Kidd (the secretary in whose name the cash was being donated) then
When a patient’s heart stops beating, medics have about ten minutes to revive it. So it is with the Labour government. Gordon Brown is running out of time to get his defibrillator working. He failed yesterday, and failed again at his monthly press conference. He looks puzzled, bewildered and out of his depth. He is
Gordon Brown’s press conference was, unsurprisingly, dominated by the Labour fundraising scandal. Notably, Brown described Peter Watt’s resignation as a “necessary first step.” He also expressed his confidence in Harriet Harman’s explanation of how she ended up accepting an improper donation. Although, Nick Robinson thinks that Harriet Harman should be “Worry. Very worried” by what Brown
Daniel Finkelstein flags up the key questions that Labour must answer about this whole fundraising affair. Do read the whole thing.
The morning papers are dominated by the Labour fundraising scandal and the resignation of the Labour Secretary-General Peter Watt. The Daily Telegraph reports that, “David Abrahams, the millionaire property developer at the centre of the furore, won planning permission for a controversial development after the Highways Agency, under the department run by the then Transport
Mercy me. Mark Halperin makes a lateish run for Most Incriminating Column of the Year with this entry, published in today’s New York Times in which he laments how terrible it is that the media have confused campaign froth with the stuff that might actually indicate whether or not a politician is capable of performing
This is the sort of thing that reminds me why I enjoy The Economist‘s under-appreciated sense of humour: George Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are both deeply religious, referring frequently to God’s guiding hand. Both are idealists rather than pragmatists, and skilled at folksy populism. Both have replaced dozens of competent officials with like-minded conservatives. And
Melanie Philips, I’m afraid, continues to show signs of becoming Britain’s answer to David Horowitz. Her latest salvo culminates in this absurdity: Annapolis is America’s Munich — and Israel is the new Czechoslovakia. Previously Philips, unsurprisingly, lamented John Howard’s defeat in Australia. For myself, I rather think that 12 years in office is long enough