Uk politics

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Richard Branson forces government into a great train U-turn

Sir Richard Branson is not a man who takes kindly to failing to get his own way. That was why few people were surprised by the Virgin boss’ furious response to the government’s decision to award the West Coast Mainline to his rivals First Group. It wasn’t fair, he protested, and thousands of people seemed to agree, signing a petition criticising the decision. This morning it transpires that Branson’s frenzied campaign against the contract actually led to the discovery of an enormous mistake at the heart of the bidding process. Civil servants checking their sums before a court case questioning the decision realise that they had in fact got those

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 – Labour conference special

Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour conference this afternoon was undoubtably his best speech yet and has revitalised the Labour cause.The Spectator team have gathered this evening in Manchester for a special podcast to discuss both Miliband’s speech and the Labour conference overall: The View from 22 – 2 October 2012. Length 13:24 Download audio file (MP3) Subscribe with iTunes Subscribe with RSS Listen now: We’ve also spoken to some other media figures for their reaction to the Labour leader’s speech: Peter Kellner – President of YouGov listen to ‘Ed Miliband’s speech – Peter Kellner’s view’ on Audioboo

Jonathan Jones

Labour conference: Great (Harvard) minds think alike

Listening to Ed Miliband’s conference speech, I was stuck by the similarity of one section of it to that of another speech given by someone else who’s taught at Harvard: law professor Elizabeth Warren. Today, in Manchester, Miliband spoke of ‘the system’ not working in much the same way as Warren — now running for the United States Senate — spoke of ‘the system’ being rigged in her speech at the Democratic National Convention last month. Just compare the two clips: listen to ‘Ed Miliband, 2 Oct 12 and Elizabeth Warren, 5 Sep 12’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Miliband and Balls talk inheritances

One of the more sombre passages in Ed Miliband’s barnstorming speech this afternoon was when he tackled the thorny issue of what a Labour government would actually do about the cuts. While both the Labour leader and Ed Balls are keen to regain the trust of the British public on the economy, they are also trying to introduce a counter-narrative to the ‘are you ready to trust Labour with your money again?‘ line that Nick Clegg produced last week. Just as George Osborne and colleagues have spent the first two and a half years selling the line that they are ‘clearing up the mess’ of the last Labour government, Miliband

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Ed Miliband Makes a Pitch for One Nation Progressivism – Spectator Blogs

The first thing to remember about Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour conference today is that it’s not about you, it’s about us. That is, it was designed to persuade the media to give Miliband a fresh look more than it was an attempt to impress the general public, far less the Labour members gathered in Manchester. Initial impressions are that he succeeded in this aim. See Tim Shipman and Fraser Nelson, neither of whom are normally considered much of a Milibander, for good examples of this reappraisal. (John Rentoul is, of course, an exception.) Indeed, I can’t recall when the British half of my twitter timeline was last quite

Sebastian Payne

Labour conference: Polling suggests Ed Miliband is still not seen as PM material

As Ed Miliband prepares to present a carefully crafted image of ‘Ed the human’ to the Labour conference this afternoon, polling out today suggests the nation still does not see him as a future Prime Minister. In a ComRes poll for the Independent, just 22 per cent of voters said they agree that Ed Miliband has what it takes to be Prime Minister, compared to 33 per cent for David Cameron: On the economy, Balls and Miliband continue to rank below the public’s view of Cameron and Osborne. The poll found that 24 per cent of voters trust the Labour team to make the right decisions about the economy, compared

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Angela Eagle’s policy Trumpton

At the very end of a rather long and wonkish fringe about Labour’s policy review last night, Angela Eagle started describing what she called an ‘electronic town square’. She’d already told the audience about Star Trek salutes, so this town square, which sounded rather like Labour’s answer to Trumpton, was quite in keeping with the slightly quirky discussion. But the electronic town square is even more interesting than Star Trek because it’s an example of how the party is trying to update the way it creates policy and engages with its members and members of the public. Sadly, you won’t find Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, or Grub in

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Ed Miliband brings his personal story to the fore

Ed Miliband wants voters to see a little bit more of the man he is this conference, and his speech today is expected to be very personal, giving even more vivid glimpses into the Labour leader’s life. He will draw on his own upbringing in the speech, pointing to his parents’ experience as Jewish refugees and the education he received at a London comprehensive. Although this is being billed as the most personal speech Miliband will give, it’s not as though he hasn’t delivered speeches before about his identity. In his first speech as Labour leader in 2010, for instance, he told the hall that he wanted ‘to tell you

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Ed Miliband to announce big educational reforms (but won’t mention GCSEs)

Each day of the Labour conference covers a different aspect of Britain that Ed Miliband wants to rebuild, and tomorrow’s theme as the Labour leader gives his speech will be rebuilding the education system. Miliband will announce plans for a new Technical Baccalaureate which starts at 14 and runs until 18. The idea is to target those children who will not be going to university, but who, according to Miliband, do not currently have the same road map for their future as those going down an academic route. Describing these students as the ‘forgotten 50 per cent’, he will say: ‘In the 21st century everyone should be doing some form

Sebastian Payne

Labour conference: Chris Bryant admits Labour’s immigration policy was flawed

‘Intellectual laziness’ — that’s how Chris Bryant described the left’s bashing of the Tories’ tough stance on immigration. The shadow immigration minister spoke this evening of his ambition to shape a new immigration policy for Labour in the role he personally requested from Ed Miliband: ‘By the next general election, I want to build a coalition of the rational on immigration. Last time, immigration hurt our vote…we failed to explain our policy. It’s not racist to say that talking about immigration is the most important political matter we face’ In his quest for a new rational policy, Bryant presented two key messages for Labour activists to take to the doorstep in

Jon Stone

The policy basis for Labour and Lib Dems happily sharing a bed

Beyond whispering about a possible Lib-Lab pact, what actual policy evidence is there for the two parties looking to work together? Quite a lot, it turns out. The basis of a joint programme appears to be forming, with the parties already converging on a surprising number of policies. Here are some of the areas where Lib Dems and Labour would be quite comfortable with one another: Splitting up retail and investment banking Ed Miliband announced yesterday that he’d break up banks’ retail and investment operations. This policy is more associated with Vince Cable than any other politician, and the Business Secretary was a strong proponent of the plan when he

Sebastian Payne

Labour conference: Chuka Umunna plays good cop with trade unions

Ed Balls channelled the bad cop with the trade unions this morning, warning conference that ‘there will be difficult decisions in the future from which we will not flinch.’ This afternoon, Chuka Umunna was sent out to play the alternative good cop. The shadow business secretary spoke at a Unite fringe event this lunchtime, repeating his well-mocked line that the unions are ‘wealth-creators’: ‘I am totally unapologetic to say that trade unions like this one are wealth creators. We need to celebrate unions like Unite.’ In return for this new-found good will, the Unite leader Len McCluskey praised Umunna’s speech as ‘first class’, stating he had ‘never heard a front

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Jon Cruddas to create Labour’s own Big Society project

Jon Cruddas is frightened. Not of what he describes as the ‘bloody big’ task of leading his party’s policy review, but of the future direction of the Conservative party. Throughout his lunchtime interview with James Purnell at the Labour party conference, Cruddas brought up Britannia Unchained, the latest book from a group of Conservative MPs about how Britain can become a world leader, and about what is currently holding the country back. The party’s policy review chief said the vision presented by those MPs was ‘quite frightening’ because of its stance that the ‘state is totally malign’, and its support for what he described as a world where ‘if you

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Labour conference: The Ed Balls two-step

Ed Balls’ speech was a wide-ranging affair. It started with a tribute to the Olympics and Tessa Jowell’s role in securing them, a make-nice gesture given how badly those two have got on over the years. It ended with a paean of praise to the Labour spirit of 1945. In between, it included attacks on the Liberal Democrats as the ‘same old Tories’ — Balls’ response to Sunday newspaper reports that they won’t work with him. On the economy, the Ed Balls two-step was much in evidence. He promised to spend money now, saying he’d put the as yet unknown proceeds from sale of the 4G spectrum into house-building. But

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Len McCluskey perks up delegates

Labour delegates were clearly out late last night, as it took them quite a while to get going this morning. It was only when Unite general secretary Len McCluskey took to the stage in the conference hall that there was a resounding round of applause for the first time in several hours. He even garnered cheers from delegates, and a small standing ovation when he sat down from one block of seats in the hall. The reason? McCluskey was continuing his hunt for cuckoos in the Labour nest, urging Ed Miliband to abandon the policies of his New Labour predecessors. The biggest cheer from the floor came when he said

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Blank sheets of paper are all the rage on EU policy

It’s no secret that the Conservative party is in a bit of a pickle about Europe at the moment, and Douglas Alexander quite wisely chose to exploit the ravine that is ever growing between eurosceptic backbenchers and the Prime Minister in his speech this morning. But where does Labour stand? Well, that’s still not entirely clear. This is what the shadow foreign secretary said about the Tories and Europe this morning: ‘Just two years into Government and that’s David Cameron in a nutshell: out of touch at home; out of his depth abroad. But what’s the Conservatives’ strategy for the EU? Nothing, it’s a blank page. What’s the Conservatives’ strategy

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: Ivan Lewis fakes a battle with the Tories over aid

Ivan Lewis used his speaking slot this morning to launch a series of attacks on the attitude of many Conservatives towards international development spending. ‘Conference,’ he said. ‘It turns my stomach when I hear multi-millionaire Lord Ashcroft demanding that support for the world’s poorest should be slashed. The nasty party is back. It’s the same old Tories.’ These are the sorts of attacks that you can imagine Labour delegates going wild for. But it was difficult to really trust that Lewis actually believed what he was saying to the hall. His speech was muted, workmanlike, and the applause dutiful. He did accept that ‘we won’t be able to reverse the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour conference: anti-promise Ed Balls ‘can make no commitment’ on cuts or tax

Last week’s Lib Dem conference dealt with a promise Nick Clegg wished he had never made. This week’s Labour conference is in part about promises Ed Miliband and Ed Balls won’t make at all, or at least not for a few years. The Shadow Chancellor was cagey when he appeared on BBC Breakfast this morning, saying ‘I can make no commitment now to reverse any of those cuts or the tax rises, because we don’t know what the economy’s going to be like in two months’ time let alone in two years’ time when the election comes’. Having kicked up a real song and dance about the government’s decision to

Sebastian Payne

Labour conference: Douglas Alexander describes ‘total unanimity’ for continued EU membership

Rumours are swirling at this Labour conference that the party leadership is considering offering a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the European Union. If the party did do as Jon Cruddas hinted it should over the weekend in the Telegraph, we at least know how Douglas Alexander would campaign. The shadow foreign secretary told an Open Europe fringe last night that staying in would be in Britain’s interest: ‘We are struggling to sense any growth as it is, and shrinking our market from 500 million to 60 million would not to help. We should be working in the nation’s interest to return to growth.’ Alexander also made clear his regret