All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
According to Steve Richards today, Labour figures have given Brown until this autumn to improve the party’s position or they’ll ditch him. Hm. Hasn’t Brown been threatened with these kinds of utlimatums before? Oh yes: The Sunday Telegraph, 20 April, 2008 “The Prime Minister, who is battling a growing rebellion over his abolition of the
ConservativeHome interview William Hague and it’s all very jocular and genial. Except for when it’s being a little bit troubling and alarming. To wit: ConservativeHome: Name three specific things you would change about British foreign policy. William Hague: First, we would create a fully fledged National Security Council, comprising all relevant senior ministers and chaired
Away from the BNP and the Woes of Brown (which sounds like an Aberfeldy tea-room or something) the other notable european result came in Scotland where the SNP’s handsome victory (29-21 over Labour) confirmed that Labour can no longer automatically consider itself the natural governing party in Scotland. Given that the 2007 Holyrood election was
That the civil case against the Omagh bombers has succeeded is wonderful news, a triumph for justice against terror. Ruth Dudley-Edwards, who is writing what will be a superb book on the trial, has a moving piece in the Mail today about what the families went through and what the verdict meant to them. All
One detail from the Indy’s poll about how Labour leaders other than Brown would do particularly amused me: Ed Balls would do a better job than Gordon Brown at holding down Cameron’s majority. Now, in a way this illustrates the problem with this kind of poll: the one percent uptick in Labour support is due
The Guardian reports that the new schools minister Vernon Coaker is a member of the Socialist Educational Association. The SEA campaigns, among other things, for ‘the Government to end the setting up of academies’. So, we have a schools minister who is opposed to the biggest educational innovation Labour has made in its 12 years in
So where have the emails and signed letters calling for Brown to resign gone to? They certainly didn’t appear during the PLP meeting yesterday, which leads you to wonder why. Didn’t they get enough signatures? Did the signatories decide to hold off, to give Brown time to reconstruct his premiership? Or are they planning to
The exchange that follows is not a spoof. It happened on the Today programme this morning and simply defies parody. David Miliband is taking of the need for “radical change”. James Naughtie says that it “failed to occur”. He replies: “No no no. It did occur on the economy. You cannot deny that we have
One figure I’d like to see is the ratio of Labour MPs who think Gordon should go against those – all six of them – who actually told him to go during the PLP meeting yesterday. What would it be? 10:1? 20:1? 30:1? One thing’s for sure: those half-dozen honest souls aren’t the only ones
Boss Man d’Ancona asks us to consider what we would think and what we would do were we Labour MPs. A scary thought, I know but that’s the point of the exercise. For myself, I like to think I’d agree with Tom Harris. That is, if I were a Labour backbencher I’d be very concerned
The front page of tomorrow’s Indy splashes on a poll that shows Johnson would do substantially better than Brown. It has come a bit late, but it does give the rebels some evidence that dumping Brown really would be worth the pain and dislocation it would cause inside the party.
As Fraser said earlier, the rebellion has not been defeated: Brown has not had some moment that restores his authority. Instead, he has made the same pledges that he has made before—to set out his vision, to be more inclusive and to call off his bully boys—and they look like they will be enough to
It’s over and Brown is safe. This, at least, is the verdict from the Commons bars from which I have just done a brief tour to sample the mood on behalf of Coffee Housers. One minister I spoke to – by no means a diehard Brown loyalist – whipped out a list of dissenters who
Cameras are forbidden from filming the committee corridor in full action, which is a shame because it is quite a sight. It seems that Brown’s loyalists have been instructed to go and brief as many journalists as they can—not that anyone is being fooled by the spin, but it is an amusing sight nevertheless. Just
Ben Bradshaw has come out of the PLP meeting claiming Brown gave “the speech of a lifetime”. What a shame the rest of us never see this fiery, articulate Prime Minister. When he goes out in public he is trapped in the body of a stuttering, gaffe-prone bully. Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth was also sent out of the meeting at
I’m standing outside Committee Room 14 where Brown is having this supposed make or break meeting. As soon as he swanned in, there was a cheer and the banging of desks. Had he walked into a Tory meeting by mistake? No, this was his henchmen doing their version of crowd control. And there is plenty
Alistair Darling has kept silent since the government reshuffle. He knows that any interviewer worth his salt would press him on whether he discussed any alternative jobs with the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister’s staff. But Darling will have to break his silence tomorrow at Treasury questions. Darling finds himself in a nigh-on-impossible position.
So, Brown’s judgement awaits, as he goes into his meeting with the PLP in around 5 minutes’ time. To be honest, all the visible signs are that he won’t get chucked out tonight: the torrent of resignations expected today was but a trickle; reports are that Downing Street is “relaxed”; and there still seem to
A thought experiment, albeit an unpalatable one: imagine you were a Labour MP (I know, I know, but indulge me) and the fate of the Prime Minister and thus, by implication, the nation lay in your hands tonight and tomorrow. What would you do? Your party has just suffered a historic defeat, taking a disastrous
Meanwhile, though the BNP might be receiving all the attention, this sort of thing strikes me as being a mightily more grievous threat to society. It’s like something from a Philip K Dick story: Officers are targeting children as young as 10 with the aim of placing their DNA profiles on the national database to
It gets worse for Gordon Brown. A YouGov poll for Channel 4 has just come up with the following findings: “The BNP won its first seats in the European parliament not because its supporters are all racist, but because many voters feel insecure and let down by the main parties. Our exclusive poll reveals wider
One voice that’s been strikingly absent, so far, from the recent debate over Brown’s future has been that of Frank Field. He’s been a fierce, and integrous, critic of Brown for the past decade, so the assumption has been that he’s been holding back now so as not to ruin his chance of winning the
Alex Barker at the FT’s Westminster blog rattles off a series of facts to show just how bad things are for Labour, where Brown has led them to. This trio are particularly devastating: “Labour is now the third party of local government in England, with fewer councillors than the Liberal Democrats for the first time
Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no
What to make of the BNP’s success in Northern England last night? Regrettable, even infuriating for sure. A consequence of this government’s failure and, it might as well be said, proportional representation? Absolutely. The beginning of the end of British democracy, now liable to be swamped by a wave of neo-national socialists? Hardly. I’m with
To understand why Jane Kennedy has gone, ask yourself: what does Gordon Brown fear most? Not the spineless Cabinet. Not the PLP. But he could be ousted if someone uses on him the tactics he ruthlessly used to depose Tony Blair: line up junior government members and have them resign hour after hour. Last summer,
So Jane Kennedy has quit her position as a junior environment minister, and Paul Waugh tells us that there’ll be more resignations ahead of Brown’s meeting with the PLP tonight. In the meantime, Baroness Blackstone seems to implicitly call for Brown to go, via an article in the Standard arguing against one of the main
Here are some posts made on Spectator.co.uk over the weekend: Coffee House live-blogged the Euro-election. You can read the live blog here. Matthew d’Ancona provides an update on the Labour coup. Fraser Nelson laments the government of automatons. James Forsyth wonders whether Brown will be forced out in the autumn, and reports that more Labour
‘The fascists are coming’ read the coverline of the Spectator’s May 30 issue. Fraser’s brilliant cover piece, analysing the cunning and tactical mutability of the BNP, looks all too bleakly prescient this morning. It is axiomatic to democracy that we have to tolerate views we find objectionable. But, really, the election of two BNP MEPs
Stay tuned for live coverage of the European election results, and their aftermath, from 2100. 2057, JGF: Harriet Harman is seated in the BBC studio. She really has been a trooper for the Labour party in the last few days. 2058, PH: Just before the results come in, it’s worth noting that turnout was 43
Proverbial tumbleweeds are blowing through Westminster at the moment, as everyone waits for the European election results tonight. We’ll have full coverage on Coffee House later, of course. But, if you’re stuck for something to read in the meantime, I’d recommend Andrew Rawnsley’s piece in the Observer. Rawnsley sets out a host of reasons why
Fascinating stuff. PoliticsHome have published the full leaked email exchange between Peter Mandelson and Derek Draper which the Mail on Sunday reported this morning. To be honest, I think Mandelson’s comments about Brown are far less cruel than the Mail cover would have you believe. Sure, he drops words like “angry” and “insecure”; but within
John Rentoul in The Independent on Sunday argues that Brown won’t be forced out this time but will be in the autumn. Here’s the crux of his argument: “When he faces his next convulsion, probably in the autumn, the timetable will look very different. Alan Johnson will be able to come in and promise an
So, this morning’s Most Significant Intervention comes courtesy of Jon Cruddas, writing in the Sunday Mirror. Although the Dagenham MP makes sure to criticise the Government over Royal Mail, and over its general “drift”, the main message is that the party should stick with Brown: “Everyone knows our Government is in trouble. Serious trouble. But