There must be something about stepping back onto Scottish soil that invigorates Alistair Darling, because his Edinburgh speech is one of the most political and confrontational he has delivered for some time. Sure, Darling is a Labour man, so it's part of his job to oppose the Tories. But, compared to his Cabinet colleagues, he's normally so restrained about it. Here, though, the gloves are well and truly off.
The Chancellor calls Cameron a "real risk to Scotland's future," and throws in a dash of Thatcher-baiting ("The Tories ... are as out...
The Times continues its attack on the Tory policy of trying to field candidates in Northern Ireland today. In its leader on the subject, it declares that the Tories should abandon their efforts and that this is relatively easily done as ‘there is no great ideological cause at issue.’ This is wrong. There is a massively important principle at stake here, a party that aspires to govern the United Kingdom should run candidates in all parts of it. To put it another way, the people of Northern Ireland deserve a chance to vote...
James Forsyth offers a note of caution over Cameron’s welcome attack on lobbyists, and says that the Tories’ death ads are the sort of hardball politics the Tories should play.
If it turns out that a transparently self-serving referendum on AV isn’t an instant fix to Britain’s political problems, what are politicians to do? As Pete noted, the stalk your MP i-Phone app is a step in the right direction. Another welcome measure is Winkball’s unique video hustings.
Over 3,000 parliamentary candidates of all hues (although intriguingly the BNP is excluded whilst Sinn Fein and the DUP are included…?) are given a few minutes to summarise their broad manifesto and detail which local issues are important to them. Viewers can leave comments...
Ten days on and Danny Finkelstein still seems to be upset with me for my Keith Joseph lecture, where I said the Tories risked being ensnared by Brown's 'investment v cuts' rhetoric. For reasons that I'm still not quite sure of, Danny hates the idea of cuts. He may have (and I hope he didn't) take it personally when I said it was precisely this attitude amongst the Conservatives that created the climate for the fiscal crisis Britain is now facing.
Over the last decade, Brown increased spending by 16 percent of GDP (see graph below)-...
Not the most arresting headline I grant you, but bear with me. Geoff Hoon’s political corpse is still warm (well, lukewarm as it’s Hoon), but the search for his successor is underway. The indefatigable Paul Waugh has the runners and riders: John Knight (the leader of Ashfield District Council), James Connell (Hoon’s former SpAd) and Michael Dugher (another former Hoon SpAd who is now Brown’s Chief Political Spokesman).
Mischievously, Waugh asks:
‘Will Labour insist on all-women shortlist? And if not, why not?’
The Times reports that Owen Paterson, the Tories’ Northern Ireland spokesman, will review the process by which the Northern Ireland First Minister is appointed – by creating a Northern Irish executive and official opposition. The prospect of what Paterson describes as a “voluntary coalition”, presumably between the Unionist parties, has the potential to keep Sinn Fein permanently in opposition. Such a coalition jeopardises Cameron’s neutrality if he becomes Prime Minister, a point that Sinn Fein will exploit. The Conservatives seek to move Ulster’s politics away from sectarianism and into the mainstream, concentrating on...
Is it just me, or is there something grimly hilarious about The Man Who Claimed To Have Abolished Boom-And-Bust describing our recent economic turmoil as a "one-off"? Yep, here's Brown in today's FT:
"We are paying a one-off cost for globalisation."
More seriously, this is the technocratic side of Brown which Downing St will hope to contain during the election campaign. Calling the recession and its rocky aftermath a "one-off cost" is unlikely to play well with people who have lost their jobs and businesses.