Labour party

Friday

James Forsyth

The government caves in to the Muslim Council of Britain

The government has caved in its dispute with the Muslim Council of Britain. The government broke off relations with the group over its deputy director-general Daud Abdullah signing the Istanbul Declaration. Indeed, Daud Abdullah even instigated legal action against the then Communities Secretary Hazel Blears over her statements about what the declaration called for. But now Stephen Pollard is reporting that the government is bringing the MCB back in. A DCLG spokesperson tells Pollard that an MCB commitment to examine “their internal processes and ensure that the personal actions of all members, including senior leaders, remain true to the organisation’s agreed policies, avoiding a repeat of the issues which arose

David Blackburn

Burnham’s exocet misfires

The sword of truth is working overtime this afternoon. First, Andy Burnham writes a letter to David Cameron demanding answers about a £21,000 donation from John Nash, chairman of CareUK, to the office of, oh dear, Andrew Lansley. As Paul Waugh notes, a conflict of interest scandal looms here because CareUK is a private firm that makes £400m running GP surgeries and so forth for the NHS. But the truth will out as they say. It turns out that the Chairman of BUPA, Lord Leitch, wasted £5,000 on Gordon Brown’s unopposed leadership campaign. BUPA also does rather well out of the NHS. The indefatigable Waugh has dug up this gem from a

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Pizza Strategy for Labour?

Hopi Sen argues that Gordon Brown needs to run a Harry Truman-like campaign. That’s probably right. But Labour’s problem is that Brown is in a position that’s more like the Truman of 1951 than the surprisingly victorious Truman of 1948. The economy has done to Gordon waht the Korean War did to the great haberdasher and, like Truman, Brown’s approval ratings have plummeted. (At one point Truman’s slumped to 22%). Eventually, of course, defeat in the New Hampshire primary helped persuade Truman not to run at all and it was Adlai Stevenson who was defeated by Eisenhower. It’s too late – surely! – for Labour to persuade Brown to step

Thursday

James Forsyth

Labour’s coming man?

The Labour leadership drama now looks like it will take place in opposition not government. This will have an effect on the kind of leader Labour elects. If one of the coups against Brown had been successful, Labour would have almost certainly selected someone who could be presented as a credible Prime Minister from day one: a David Miliband, an Alan Johnson or – if they had gone for the caretaker option – Jack Straw. But in opposition, the Labour’s electorate is likely to feel that it can pick someone who will grow into being a credible PM in opposition. At the moment, there are two people who everyone assumes

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour rebels muster to oppose reform of universal jurisdiction

Martin Bright and the Jewish Chronicle have the scoop that Labour will change the laws so that the power to issue arrest warrants under universal jurisdiction will pass from magistrates to the attorney general. What this means is that foreign politicians will not be arrested in this country for human rights abuses or war crimes without the say-so of the attorney general. The aim is to prevent a repeat of the situation where the Kadima leader and former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni could not visit the UK because of an arrest warrant issued by a magistrate. As I blogged yesterday, there is a Labour revolt brewing over this issue.

Martin Bright

Labour’s Revolting Over Israel

As the Labour Party descends further into student union gesture politics, it is perhaps appropriate that the last backbench rebellion before the election is set to be over Israel and the Palestinians. As James has pointed out on Coffee House, disgruntled Labour MPs are preparing for battle over the issue of universal jurisdiction, which blew up when an arrest warrant was issued for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni. Not to be outdone, the Jewish Chronicle will be splashing on the story tomorrow and has already put the story up on its website. I had it on very good authority that the government will announce the law change next week. 

Peter Hoskin

Labour put “guarantees” at the heart of their campaign

Does Gordon Brown look like the kind of guy who can keep a promise?  Because that’s the main question which stands in the way of Labour’s election strategy, if Andrew Grice’s revelations in the Indpendent are anything to go by.  According to Grice, Labour are going to repeat their trick from 1997, and focus on five or so pledges – what Downing St now calls “guarantees” – during their election campaign.  It’s not certain what they’ll be yet, but Grice reports that Labour MPs are being instructed to concentrate on the following policies in their constituencies: — Training or further education will be provided for all school-leavers and a job

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Is there a Labour revolt brewing over any changes to universal jurisdiction?

Following the issuing of an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the government committed to looking at changes to the way that ‘universal jurisdiction’ is applied. David Miliband said that, “The Government is looking urgently at ways in which the UK system might be changed in order to avoid this sort of situation arising again.”   It is expected that the government will say what changes it intends to introduce next week. But judging by a debate on the Goldstone Report in Westminster Hall yesterday, there will be trouble from some Labour backbenchers over this. Five Labour MPs spoke out explicitly against any change and several more did so implicitly.  

Peter Hoskin

Getting around Gordon

Ok, ok, I get the message: you CoffeeHousers don’t much care for James Purnell.  But this exchange between him and Nick Robinson, to be aired on Radio 4 later, is still worth a read: “I asked James Purnell how you could get radical policies past a reluctant prime minister. Here’s his reply: James Purnell: The other thing that you could do is outflank and No 10, by trying to be more radical…you could just unilaterally go out and commission someone to review the system for you, and then the prime minister would be left with the choice of either firing you or pretending that they were into that idea all

Peter Hoskin

What a difference 13 years make

Hearing Cameron joke, in PMQs, that Labour would airbrush Gordon Brown out of their election campaign, I couldn’t help but think of Labour’s 1997 manifesto.  As you can see to the left, it proudly featured Tony Blair’s face (and not much else) on its cover.  So: what chances that Labour use Brown’s face on the front of this year’s manifesto?  And, more importantly, how long before someone makes a spoof version of the 1997 cover with an image of the current Labour leader?

Peter Hoskin

Memo to Brown: before boldness comes unity

Stop sniggering at the back.  I mean, all I asked was whether Gordon Brown can be bold and radical.  The way things are looking, he certainly needs to be – and, according to Philip Webster’s insightful account of yesterday’s three-hour Cabinet meeting, the PM has called on his colleagues to think up as many “eye-catching” proposals as possible for Labour’s manifesto.  One “senior source” says that the party “should have the most radical manifesto yet put to the electorate.” Which is, of course, much easier said than done – a fact highlighted by another passage in Webster’s report, which reveals: “Mr Brown said there must be no repeat of last

David Blackburn

Cuts and strategic dividing lines are indivisible

Daniel Finkelstein suggests an alternative analysis to that which prevails about the cabinet split. Labour’s aristocrats are divided not over style or substance, but the timing and extent of spending cuts. Finkelstein locates his argument in Labour’s repetitive history of poor financial management. Every Labour government runs out money and becomes riven by the prospect of retrenchment, a policy that is instinctively anathema to the left. The current episode dissents from the model in one regard: ‘As Chancellor, Mr Brown spent money as if there would never be a bust — an absurd hypothesis. And now, as Prime Minister, he is blocking the measures necessary to put right this error.

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Turnbull savages chancellor Brown

Andrew Turnbull, who was permanent secretary at the Treasury from 1998 to 2002 and Cabinet Secretary from 2003 to 2005, has previous when it comes to criticising Gordon Brown. But his recent piece in the FT — ‘Six steps to salvage the Treasury’ — is one long barely coded attack on the PM. Take this line: “First and perhaps foremost, it [the Treasury] needs a strong ministerial team – a chancellor who wants to be chancellor for the full term rather than coveting the prime minister’s job.” Interestingly, Turnbull comes out in favour of the Tories’ plans to create an Office of Budgetary Responsibility. I know this is derided by

Daniel Korski

The Iraq Inquiry should call Gordon Brown now

Alastair Campbell is before the Iraq Inquiry. As one of Blair’s closest aides, Campbell’s role in the run-up to the Iraq war was key. But I suspect the spinner-in-chief will be doing what he was originally hired to do: namely, protect his master by attracting the incoming fire. In this case, though, he will be helping Gordon Brown, not Tony Blair.   Because it is Brown’s role in the Iraq War, not that of Blair, that is the most obscure part of Britain’s modern history. As chancellor, Brown was the second most powerful man in government. He held the purse strings. If he had opposed the Iraq War, it is hard

Monday

Martin Bright

Strange and Getting Stranger

It is just plain bizarre that Gordon Brown has announced that he will serve a full term if Labour wins the next election. He should be playing down his role in the forthcoming election (difficult I know, when he is Prime Minister) not reminding people that he will be around for another four years. It is also strange that he has written off the Hewitt-Hoon coup attempt as silly. This is the one thing it is not. It may have been unwise, badly organised and poorly timed. But the idea of giving the Parliamentary Labour Party the opportunity to save Gordon or the party was perfectly sound. Indeed, they were

Peter Hoskin

James Purnell’s third way

Guess who’s back.  Yes, James Purnell, the man who tried his best to topple Gordon Brown last year, has emerged from the relative obscurity of the backbenches and Think-Tank World to set out a new prospectus for the Labour party in today’s Guardian.  David nodded towards it earlier, but it’s worth looking at in a little more detail.  Why?  Well, because it’s an indication of how things could go for the post-election Labour party. The first thing that strikes you is how Purnell tries to defuse the controversy of his resignation last year.  “What?” you might think, “resigning from Brown’s government is controversial? Sane, more like.”  And, yes, I see

Peter Hoskin

Ed Balls says the same stuff, differently

The road to Damascus has nothing on this.  Ed Balls – in interview with the FT – has condemned the class war strategy, called for an end to Labour figures briefing against each other, and suggested that the government should be more “upfront” about spending cuts.  Hallelujah!  What a difference an attempted coup makes!  And so on and so on. But wait a minute.  What does the Schools Secretary actually say?  Worth looking at, that – because Balls hasn’t so much changed his arguments as changed the way he makes them.  Take, for instance, what he says about class war: “‘I’m totally against a class war strategy,’ he says. But

David Blackburn

It is immaterial who fronts Labour’s campaign

Divide and conquer, that is what preoccupies the Prime Minister. Later today, Gordon Brown will address the Parliamentary Labour Party to reassure them of the strength of his leadership and to invigorate the party by setting it on an election footing. How he achieves the former is anyone’s guess but he will realise the latter by investing Labour’s three election supremos: Mandelson, Harman and Douglas Alexander. In typical Brown style, these lieutenants’ roles are deliberately ill-defined. Who has ultimate authority? Who will be the attack dog? What is the difference between day to day running and managing an overall strategy? And which takes precedence? A pastmaster at internal intrigue, Brown

Sunday

David Blackburn

Hoon may strike again

David Miliband lacks the gumption to play Brutus, but does Geoff Hoon? The Sunday Times has obtained correspondence between Hoon, Brown and Blair illustrating that the then Chancellor overturned Treasury assurances that the MoD would receive additional funds for helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brown wrote: “I must disallow immediately any flexibility for the Ministry of Defence to move resources between cash and non-cash.” Once again we see the (supposedly) miserly Chancellor holding Blair to ransom at any opportunity, regardless of the consequences. Whilst Brown is a spectre of a Prime Minister, he was anything but as Chancellor. Blair set the war in motion but Brown is partly responsible for Britain’s

Peter Hoskin

What’s Ed Miliband playing at?

There’s that prism I mentioned: Ed Miliband writes an article for the Observer, which ostensibly backs Gordon Brown in the first paragraph, and it’s written up as the first, tentative step on his own leadership campaign.  Thing is, that’s probably also true.  The clue is in how far he steps off his ministerial beat*, to deliver an overall prospectus for the Labour Party: “Let’s start, as our manifesto will, with what the country needs in the coming five years. It can’t be about business as usual. We need to rebuild our economy in a different way from the past, with more jobs in real engineering not just financial engineering. This