Labour party

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: the NHS report that Labour tried to block

It emerged this morning that Labour MPs took the extraordinary step of blocking the publication of the Health Select Committee report into the NHS – because the conclusions backed up government reforms. I have just been handed details of this report, and it’s clear why Labour wanted it suppressed: it contradicts the party’s attack message. Here are the main points: No sweeping privatisations: there has been little increase in private sector providers since 2010. Nor has there been an extension of charges or top-ups during the current parliament, and that these are not planned. Less red tape: a general trend of declining administration costs in the NHS. No evidence that

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour’s lame ‘same-name’ email campaign

‘Labour has vowed not to feature Prime Minister David Cameron on billboards ahead of the general election,’ reported the BBC last month. ‘The party said it would focus on issues rather than personalities. and not use negative personal campaigning.’ It seems that has not stretched to the party’s email campaigning though. Steerpike’s inbox has been inundated with fundraising emails from all of the parties, but a particularly naff example is doing the rounds today. Labour appear to have enlisted the help of people with identical names to Tory leaders to send out emails. Such as: I couldn’t resist jumping on the bandwagon here! I’m a Labour Party member of 25 years’ standing. I am

Ed West Ed West

The Labour party loves to hate Tony Blair

I’ve met people at political events who seem otherwise normal, and then Tony Blair’s name is mentioned and their eyes light up in a way that suggest a chemical reaction has taken place in their brain. Likewise whenever the former Labour prime minister is mentioned online, it’s like a hand grenade has been thrown into the loony pond. Up they all chirp on social media, announcing how the war criminal must be sent to the Hague one day. The most recent case was Tony Blair’s offer to fund Labour candidates at the election, and the decision by two of them to turn it down; in both constituencies, Northampton North and Dundee East,

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Justine Miliband rushes to her husband’s defence

Justine Miliband has given an interview to the BBC, a sort of ‘back my husband, my hero’ contribution to the Labour election campaign. She starts by talking about the pressures on the family and how ‘being a working mother’, she hasn’t really had a chance to think about what it would be like for the family with Ed in Downing Street. ‘I’ve thought about this and I think it’s going to get worse, I think over the next couple of months it’s going to get really vicious, really personal, but I’m totally up for this fight and I’ve thought about the reason why and the reason is because I think

Sebastian Payne

Tories ahead by four points, according to two pollsters

Are the polls beginning to swing consistently towards the Conservatives? Two polls out yesterday have the Tories ahead by four points. In its latest poll for The Sun, YouGov has the Conservatives on 35 per cent, Labour on 31 per cent, Ukip on 14 per cent, the Lib Dems on eight per cent and the Greens on six per cent. Out of YouGov’s six polls in March so far, Labour has been ahead in one of them. Another last week had the main parties neck and neck while the Tories have been ahead in the others. Lord Ashcroft reported similar results in his latest weekly poll. The Tory peer has the Conservatives on 34 per cent, Labour on 30 per

Monday

Steerpike

Commons sexism row: Barry Sheerman calls Esther McVey a ‘hard-hearted Hannah’

Things became heated in the commons today after Barry Sheerman told Esther McVey to stop being a ‘hard-hearted Hannah’ during a Department for Work and Pensions questions. The incident occurred after Sheerman voiced his concerns over the department’s handling of the government’s welfare reforms. McVey has taken none too kindly to the term, which is a reference to an Ella Fitzgerald song. The Conservative MP says that it is ‘not the first time that the opposition benches have been like this to me’. Sheerman meanwhile insists his innocence, claiming it was not a sexist comment. ‘She has a reputation for being a very hard champion of the welfare reforms this Government has introduced and I believe it

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

A masterclass in dodging questions from Philip Hammond and Caroline Flint

Two politicians put in very assured and impressive performances on Marr this morning – if you can include nimbly dodging questions that you don’t want to answer ‘impressive’. of course, within the parameters of the way politicians are expected to behave, Caroline Flint and Philip Hammond did very well because they didn’t give anything away that they didn’t want to, and they’d clearly practised rather a lot in order to stop themselves giving away that information. Flint was asked to rule out a pact between Labour and the SNP. She didn’t, but she also survived the questions rather well: ‘We are focused on winning a Labour majority government and let

Friday

Steerpike

Ukip should not attack others for attacks

‘What I’m seeing in this election is the influence of these big American advisers and it’s becoming the most negative, personal and nasty campaign I’ve ever seen.’ So said Nigel Farage to LBC this morning, as he promised to ‘rise above’ personal attacks in the coming election slog. Stung by rumours about his declining health, fingers are being pointed about a certain antipodean master of the dark arts, but are Ukip really in any position to lecture on the Americanisation of our political process? Not only was Farage at CPAC last week to address the Republican right, his party’s official YouTube feed is littered with aggressive US style attack ads:

Steerpike Steerpike

Tony Blair spotted fine dining in Burma following his ‘blood money’ Labour donation

This week Tony Blair donated £106,000 to the Labour Party, with £1,000 going to each Labour candidate fighting for a target seat. Ed Miliband has since faced flak for accepting the ‘blood money’ funds, due to unease over the source of the cash given Blair’s dealings with dictatorships such as Kazakhstan. Not that any of this is worrying Blair. Mr S hears that the former Labour leader has been busy sunning himself in Myanmar, where human rights are regarded as among the worst in the world. Blair, who has an estimated worth of nearly £100 million, was spied fine dining in the country’s capital Naypyitaw. When a journalist inquired as to what he was doing there, they were

Thursday

The Spectator

If you really love the NHS, you know it needs to change

To adapt Aeschylus’s aphorism on war and truth, the first casualty in a general election campaign is objectivity. Over the next eight weeks NHS staff can expect nothing but saccharine praise from politicians who are falling over themselves to say how wonderful the health service is, how committed they are to it. The Conservatives may revive their ‘NH-yes’ slogan, promising to safeguard its budget. Labour proposes to protect it from what few reforms the Conservatives promise and even Ukip is posing as ‘the party of the NHS’. A true friend of the NHS, however, would accept that all is not well, and that ‘protecting’ its current structure is an act

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Night of the long claymores: the SNP are poised for a historic, momentous, victory.

The latest Scottish polling conducted by Lord Ashcroft is another reminder, should you still need it, that this year’s election looks like being an unmitigated disaster for Unionism. The noble, if mischievous, Lord’s research reveals that, as matters stand, the SNP are still on course to all but wipe Labour – and everyone else – off the political map. It will be a bloodbath; a night of the long claymores. Gordon Brown’s Kirkcaldy seat? Gone. Alistair Darling’s Edinburgh constituency? Taken. Charlie Kennedy’s Highland fortress? Sacked. Even Jim Murphy’s East Renfrewshire seat is threatened by the Nationalist insurgency. So too is the last remaining Tory MP in Scotland, David Mundell. Which, in

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Justin Forsyth has far more to apologise for than Tony Blair’s Save the Children award

You almost have to admire Justin Forsyth’s brass neck. He is a former Gordon Brown spin chief earning a Prime Ministerial £138,000 for running Save the Children. Or, rather, transforming it into Save the Labour Party with various attack ads claiming that kids need to be rescued from wicked Conservative austerity. Here’s an example of its handiwork: You’d think that Forsyth would be rather embarrassed about abusing the charity’s resources in such a way, but last year Save the Children went one further and gave an award to Tony Blair. That really was too going far. There was outrage from Save the Children staff and donors, even an online petition – it’s bad enough

Mark Gettleson

Suburban legends: Why London’s property boom seems set to help Labour win seats

Economists have for some time spoken of a ‘great inversion’ of London, whereby property price hikes in inner London, often linked to gentrification, has made suburbia comparatively more affordable. These changes, marked in the five years since David Cameron became Prime Minister, could have a profound effect on how the general election result pans out in the city. This is especially the case given the ability of such changes to affect the social and demographic makeup of London, as people from poorer backgrounds, the young and ethnic minorities are more likely to be susceptible to price increases in the private rental market. In some ways, this is nothing new, with

Saturday

James Forsyth

National parties no more

All the election forecast models agree, the next election result is going to be remarkably tight. On these models, neither Labour nor the Tories are going to come close to winning a majority. They would both be about 40 seats short. Now, events could intervene to change things. But, as I argue in the magazine this week, one of the reasons Labour and the Tories are finding it so hard to win a majority is that they are not national parties anymore. Compounding this is that no party is aiming for full spectrum dominance in this campaign. Rather, they are trying to talk up the issues that are best for

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Two parties, two failures of logic

Two party election policies, two failures to think things through. Or, at least, to engage with realities. First, Labour announces a cut in university tuition fees to a maximum of £6,000. Why? The sum itself isn’t important. For a potential student, £6,000 and £9,000 – or £18,000 and £27,000 – are much of a muchness. If you can pay off one, you can pay off the other. The issue, surely, is whether there should be tuition fees at all. I think not. But then I also think that the number of university places should be cut by about 75 per cent. Second, the Prime Minister announces a bunch of new

Friday

Steerpike

Alastair Campbell threatens a political comeback

It’s probably not the news everyone wanted to hear, but Mr S feels a duty to let readers know that Alastair Campbell is considering a return to politics. Furthermore, this could involve the former Labour spinner standing as an MP. Speaking to India Knight for the April issue of Red magazine, he comments that a friend recently suggested he join parliament. His reply was: ‘I’ll regret not doing it, but I know I’ll regret it if I do it as well… The size of the regrets will be big either way.’ Campbell goes on to discuss the inner struggle that took hold of him when a woman asked him how he has managed to walk away

Thursday

Alex Massie

Why an SNP surge at Westminster could mean the end of Britain

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-snp-threat-to-westminster/media.mp3″ title=”Alex Massie and Sebastian Payne discuss what an SNP victory will mean for the union” startat=42] Listen [/audioplayer]Anyone seeking to understand the strength of the SNP should look to those parts of Scotland where the party is supposed to be weakest. At the last election, the nationalists took just under 10 per cent of the vote in the Scottish Borders. This year, Tory canvass returns suggest the SNP may treble its share of the vote in one of the most staunchly unionist seats in Scotland. For months, opinion polls have made unremittingly gloomy reading for unionists. The nationalists are heading for a victory on a scale still not

James Forsyth James Forsyth

No one wants to fight a national campaign. This will be the least general election in years

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/the-snp-threat-to-westminster/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the not-very-general election” startat=780] Listen [/audioplayer]There’s normally an easy way to tell which party is losing a general election campaign. Whenever one side starts telling you to ignore the national polls and look at what is happening in certain key seats, it is a sure sign that they are in deep trouble. In this election, however, all the parties are arguing that what’s going on in their target seats matters more than the national polls. No one is keener to dispute the relevance of the national polls than the Liberal Democrats. To demonstrate that they’ll still matter after the next election — particularly

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Labour unsure about health policy its own councils support

The announcement today that Greater Manchester will receive full control of health spending – worth £6bn – has left Labour in a rather interesting position. On the one hand, it is easy for Andy Burnham to say that this sounds ‘like yet another NHS reorganisation’. But on the other, Greater Manchester includes a number of Labour councils who appear pretty happy to sign up to the provisional deal. Indeed, one of those councils is Wigan, which covers Burnham’s own constituency. Now one of the reasons that spending has been devolved to this area is that councils in Greater Manchester are keen, forward-looking and ambitious. George Osborne has long been a

Monday

Steerpike

Ed Miliband attempts to build bridges with the arts world, but where will the money come from?

After Labour confirmed that they would not reverse Tory art cuts, the luvvies turned on Ed. During a spending plans onslaught from the Tories earlier in the year, the party spin machine proudly boasted: p.44 of Tory dossier says Labour will cancel cuts to the arts budget. We won’t. — Labour Press Team (@labourpress) January 5, 2015 Leading to a thorough pasting from all sorts of media darlings: This is not something to brag about. RT @labourpress: p.44 of Tory dossier says Labour will cancel cuts to the arts budget. We won’t. — Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) January 6, 2015 @labourpress And you’re proud of that? Jesus. — Simon Blackwell (@simonblackwell)