by Paul Goodman I smelt fear in Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet appointments. The movement of the Balls/Cooper duo to non-economic posts, and the appointment of Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor, suggested anxiety – a dread of them grabbing Labour's steering wheel. According to a Labour List monthly poll, Miliband would be right to be wary. […]
by Paul Goodman Ed Miliband won't have wanted to distract media attention from Vince Cable yesterday. So he stuck to saying that the Business Secretary should have been sacked because his remarks about Rupert Murdoch and the BSkyB decision were in breach of the Ministerial code. It was a cautious but sensible approach to take. […]
Tim Montgomerie According to The Observer – and confirmed by James Forsyth in the Mail on Sunday – "Ed Miliband has banned the shadow cabinet from using the word "coalition" to describe the government because it sounds too moderate and reasonable, and fails to convey what he says is its true "ideological, rightwing agenda"." It […]
Tim Montgomerie During the leadership race Ed Miliband wasn't nice about the Lib Dems but he avoided knocking them during his first speech as leader and has today made a direct overture to a party that, at the grassroots level, leans left: "To those who are reluctant to abandon ship but are concerned about the […]
Tim Montgomerie If you thought Ed Miliband represented a break from the spin'n'smear of the Blair and Brown years, think again. Perhaps the appointment was made in desperation (a YouGov poll yesterday found only 27% of voters thinking he was up to the job) but the Labour leader has appointed The Times' Tom Baldwin as […]
Tim Montgomerie The overnight polling made bleak reading for the Liberal Democrats but here is my list of the seven things that might, might, might get them back in business by the time of the next General Election… Staying the course. As Lord Ashcroft's polling confirmed, the idea that a vote for the Lib Dems […]
By Jonathan Isaby In politics it is always a good thing to know thine enemy. And a political enemy of any right-thinking Conservative is the recently-elected General Secretary of Unite, Len McCluskey. The latest issue of the Left-wing weekly, Tribune, carries an interview with him and it is well worth reading. Citing Tony Benn and […]
by Paul Goodman The BBC's report is headed "Geoff Hoon, Stephen Byers and Richard Caborn rebuked". Sky's is called "Three Ex-MPs Face Parliamentary Ban". According to the committee, Hoon committed a "particularly serious breach". It recommends suspending Byers' pass for two years and Caborn's for six months. The three former Cabinet Ministers were snared by […]
by Paul Goodman Ed Miliband wants a graduate tax. Alan Johnson doesn't. We referred to the latter publicly rubbishing the idea as recently last Saturday. Behind the Times paywall this morning lurks a compromise position which has clearly been carefully cobbled together. The paper's headline is – "£9,000 is too much. A graduate tax is […]
By Jonathan Isaby Today saw the publication of the OECD's 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which assesses the abilities of children coming towards the end of compulsory schooling in reading, maths and science in dozens of countries around the world. The full details of the report are online here, but the stark facts […]
Tim Montgomerie Phil Woolas isn't the only Labour candidate to have been exposed as a dishonest campaigner. Leah Fraser, Conservative candidate in Wallasay at the last election, was also the victim of untruthful attacks. She has just received an apology from the local Labour person responsible. From Leah's blog: "Sometimes, people (and political parties) go […]
By Paul Goodman According to Guido Fawkes/Paul Staines, who has today issued a blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of looters, the Guardian isn't averse itself to tax avoidance (which of course, unlike tax evasion, is perfectly legal) – see here, here and here. The man in the basement with a match, a […]
By Paul Goodman Alan Johnson in the Daily Telegraph today on the 50p tax rate (Unready Eddie thinks it should be permanent, Johnson doesn't) – “We all come into this position having said what we said in a debate that has been going on since May. There will be differences of opinion that you can […]
By Paul Goodman The Times (£) has the story as an "exclusive", which suggests it also has the serial rights. And the Guardian has the first interview with Brown since he left office – part of the pre-publication preparation. It reports – "Gordon Brown is poised to break his seven-month silence on his election defeat […]