Tim Montgomerie We know that Alistair Darling had plans to raise VAT but Nick Gibb MP, Education Minister, has pointed out that Labour also had plans to end Education Maintenance Allowances. In a 2007 Green Paper from the Department for Education and Skills you can find this nugget: “We think that EMA should continue until […]
By Jonathan Isaby Many papers this morning consider the first pronouncements by Ed Miliband's new shadow chancellor, Ed Balls. Balls is to move into his boss's suite of offices (which Cameron and Osborne shared in opposition) and appears to have been ordered to backtrack on the position he had been taking on how to deal […]
Tim Montgomerie selects some of the blogosphere's reaction to Ed Balls' replacement of Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor. Matthew Hancock MP provides the official Tory line: "Ed Balls wrote the fiscal rules that brought Britain to the brink of bankruptcy. He was at the Treasury when they loaded PFI off balance sheet, and took a […]
by Paul Goodman "The appointment of Alan Johnson looks like a weak compromise. Balls has been dispatched as Shadow Home Secretary to bully Theresa May. Cooper has been sent out of the country altogether – for parts of year at least – to trot the globe as Shadow Foreign Secretary. It looks as though Miliband […]
Tim Montgomerie Interviewed by Jon Sopel for today's Politics Show the former Labour Foreign Secretary, and co-founder of the SDP, was very warm about Ed Miliband and the changes he is making to the Labour Party. He said that he was open to voting and possibly even joining Labour again. 'Even at the age of […]
by Paul Goodman The conventional wisdom is that successful leaders of British political parties move quickly once elected. Tony Blair was swift to try and change perceptions of his Party, and won three terms as Prime Minister. So was David Cameron, and though he didn't win the last election, he did make it into Downing […]
By Jonathan Isaby Labour leader Ed MIliband has written a piece behind the Times' paywall today that he has now helpfully reproduced on his own website. He accuses the Government of propagating "a great deceit designed to damage Labour" over his party's handling of the economy: What is this deceit? It is that the deficit […]
Tim Montgomerie Conservative HQ has published a dossier that attacks Ed Miliband as a ditherer. Releasing the report Sayeeda Warsi commented: "Ed Miliband's first hundred days have been characterised by dithering and disarray. No wonder people on his own side are already losing patience with his lack of leadership. After winning off back of the […]
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 […]
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 If political parties assail their opponents, they're accused of wasting time and money. (Or of getting the attack wrong.) If they don't, they're charged with not having lacking the will to win, not going for the jugular, failing to fight back, and so on. Even so, Ivan Lewis's call yesterday for an […]