For some time, Labour has been trying to push the line that behind the Cameron facade there’s an old-school, “nasty” party waiting, drooling, for an opportunity to engineer the country as they see fit. Over the past couple of days, it’s become clear that they’ve struck on a new variant of that attack. Yesterday, we
I wouldn’t normally start the day by linking to a public sector website – but this one is actually worth your time. It’s the launch version of data.gov.uk, created with the help of Tim Berners-Lee among others, which aims to present statistics about government performance in a straightforward, easy-to-access way. You’ll get a sense of
Another snippet from Jonathan Freedland’s column which deserves a separate post: “Labour has a harder task [on the economy], pressing voters to engage with the abstract arguments, asking them to accept that the deficit is not the only threat that matters. That effort is undermined by interviews like Alistair Darling’s with the FT [yesterday], in
Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1200: Still waiting. You can watch live coverage here. 1202: And here we go. Brown leads with condolences for fallen soldiers, as well as for those affected by the earthquake in Haiti. 1203: First question from Danny Alexander on rural Britian losing out on broadband services. Brown says
Expect Labour to make much of today’s employment figures, which show that unemployment fell by 7,000 in the three months to last November. Already, Yvette Cooper has claimed it as a success for “government investment”. While Gordon Brown will surely repeat that message in PMQs. But is it really testament to government action? Or is
How do politicians achieve that “unspun” look? Why, by emulating the spin of a soft drinks company, of course. This from Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian: ‘[The Labour campaign team have] taken a look at the branding of Innocent smoothies, hoping the authentic, unspun look might fit their own ‘unairbrushable’ product, G Brown. They were
Alistair Darling’s got an interview in today’s FT, and you know the story by now. Yep, the government thinks that borrowing needs to come down drastically; extra growth would go towards cutting the structural deficit; there’ll be the “toughest settlement” on public spending for twenty years, only it shouldn’t be introduced too quickly; those bankers
First there was Ken, then Peter Mandelson, and now Jon Cruddas is the latest name to be linked with Labour’s campaign for the London Mayoralty. According to the Standard, the Dageneham MP is winning “high level backing” to take on Boris in 2012. As James said last week, there’s every reason to believe that Cruddas
A noteworthy point from Tim Montgomerie in ConservativeHome’s latest general election briefing*: “The Daily Mail continues to blast Labour for neglecting marriage, as in an editorial today. It accuses Labour of being ‘deluded’ and ‘opportunist’. The Conservative policy is praised as ‘creditworthy’. The family is one of the top concerns of the paper’s Editor, Paul
Oh dear. Seems like Labour supporters don’t have too much faith in their party of choice. A new poll for PoliticsHome finds that only 47 percent of “natural Labour supporters” believe that their party is either “fairly likely” or “very likely” to fulfill its manifesto pledges. That’s against 77 percent and 75 percent for Tory
Last week we heard that the Tory leadership are considering limiting their £20-a-week marriage tax break to make the policy more affordable. And, today, Iain Duncan Smith outlines just how that might work. In his latest report for the Centre for Social Justice, he sets out a range of costings for the policy: For all
So Gordon is selling himself as a champion of the middle classes. There is, as various commentators have pointed out, more than a little bit of hyposcrisy about that. But the thing that strikes me most about our PM’s change of tack is how similar it is to Darling’s honesty over cuts last weekend.
Another weekend, another set of embarrassing revelations for Gordon Brown. The Mail on Sunday continues its serialisation of Peter Watt’s Inside Out; this time focusing on what Watt wryly describes as Labour’s “plans … for swapping the most electorally successful Labour Prime Minister in our history for Gordon Brown.” Ok, so the Blairite-Brownite wars
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
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
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
Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200. 1201: And we’re off. Brown starts with condolences for the fallen in Afghanistan, both soldiers and journalists. He also says that the world will support Haiti, in the wake of their earthquake. 1203: First question from Bill Wiggin, who says that we entered the recession with one of
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”
So what’s happened to the Tories’ policy-a-day blitz that was meant to fill all of January? Tory announcements and speeches were happening thick ‘n’ fast at the beginning of last week, and, obviously, we had Cameron’s speech yesterday – but it hasn’t been quite as non-stop as we were led to believe. This is
The Robinsons, Peter and Iris, are already in it deep. But this snippet from Martin Fletcher’s column, highlighted by Iain Martin, raises the level of, erm, ordure: “In 2007-08 the pair received a total of £571,939 from [their political] posts. They also use their parliamentary allowances to employ their two sons, daughter and daughter-in-law as