Government

“What did he mean by that?” is the question one is left with after reading Derek Simpson’s interview with the Mirror. Simpson tells the paper that New Labour is dead and that “if you could convince me there is somebody who could take over and go down the Old Labour route without hesitation I’d share the view that if Gordon is not prepared to do it he should stand aside and let that person do it. That could save the Labour government.” This is, to put it mildly, rather off message and Unite have rushed out a statement this morning saying that Brown has Simpson’s “full support” and is the

Jackie Ashley complains in her column today about Labour misters going on ‘mic-strike’ saying that it will lead to Labour being beaten so badly that it might not be able to come back. Ashley is speaking for a lot of people in the Labour party, one hears frequent complaints these days about Minister who are prepared to pick up the cheque each month but not to put in the hard yards. The consequences of ‘mic-strike’ were evident this morning. William Hague was on the Today Programme talking about the latest revelations concerning the government’s relations with the Gaddafi regime but no Foreign Office minister was prepared to do a response.

After the abortive plot to smear Richard Dannatt, you’d have thought Labour would have learnt their lesson: that it’s often politically foolish, not to mention indecent, to pick petty fights with the military top brass.  But – what’s this? – today’s Mail on Sunday reports that certain Labour figures may have been priming another smear campaign against Dannatt’s successor, General Sir David Richards: “The threat to target the General, who took up his new job just nine days ago, was one of the real reasons that Labour MP Eric Joyce resigned as an aide to Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth last week. Former soldier Mr Joyce has told friends he attended

One question that arises from the publication the Lockerbie documents is why Jack Straw suddenly decided against excluding al-Megrahi from the PTA? Straw justified his change of heart on the grounds of “overwhelming national interests”, though trade and commercial interests were not a contributing factor in that calculation, a point he reiterated last weekend. But, in an interview with the Telegraph today, Straw contradicts himself: ‘”Yes, it (trade deals with Libya) was a very big part of that (including al-Megrahi in the PTA). I’m unapologetic about that. Libya was a rogue state. We wanted to bring it back into the fold and trade is an essential part of it –

Brown’s delivery may have been beyond sepulchral, but the content was encouraging. He laid out how Afghan stability is being bolstered by the increased activity and competence of Afghan security forces, the replacement of the heroin crop with wheat, an intensification of government in rural hinterlands and by arresting urban corruption. At least there now seems to be a degree of co-ordination between coalition and Afghan security operations, civic reconstruction and the administration of government. These are welcome changes but there is still no overarching sense of what the ‘Afghan mission’ hopes to achieve, beyond the dubious contention that it will make the West safer. As a result, a number

Once one gets beyond one’s revulsion at the British government using the prospect of the release of a convicted mass murderer to grease the diplomatic skids, one is struck by the government’s incompetence during the Megrahi affair. Megrahi is the only man convicted of a bombing that killed 180 Americans—how did Whitehall think that Washington was going to react to his release? The United States is this county’s most important strategic ally and it seems bizarre to strain relations with it in the hope of improving relations with Libya. The correspondence between the Scottish Executive and the British government strongly suggests that if London had been prepared to offer this

Reading the transcript of Gordon Brown’s interview with the FT one is struck by how little of a domestic policy message Brown has. Say what you like about Labour’s mantra in 2001 and 2005 of Labour investment versus Tory cuts but it was clear. By contrast, Brown’s attempt to explain his new dividing lines to the FT is distinctly muddled. Brown’s main line is that things could have been a lot worse without the government’s action. But that is, of course, a hypothetical. It also seems doubtful that the public will share this view or forget who was Chancellor in the decade before the crisis. Brown then moves on to

Alistair Darling has long suggested that the original dividing line between the Tories and Labour concerned Labour spending, which will stimulate growth, versus Tory inaction. And last week, Darling was quoted in the Mail on Sunday setting out a new dividing line between the parties by framing the “debate in terms of our cuts being better than their cuts”. It is a stance that presupposes Britain is returning to growth thanks to the government’s strategy. And that is the message of an opinion piece, titled ‘The cure is working’, penned by Darling in this morning’s Guardian. Here’s the key section: ‘The Tories have opposed our measures every inch of the

It’s been terrible a morning for Gordon Brown in the editorials and on the front pages. And David Cameron, scenting blood, has condemned Gordon Brown’s leadership over the al-Megrahi affair. These pieces share the same basic analysis: Brown’s calculated caution is the cause of his problems. John Rentoul, admittedly no fan of the PM, writes in today’s Independent: ‘This has everything to do with a pattern of behaviour, an inbuilt caution that served Brown well enough on the road to No 10, but which is disastrous in anyone actually holding the top job.’ Brown’s leadership style has been unremittingly disastrous because it is not leadership; it is the political equivalent