At one point during the election campaign I found myself in Boston Tea Party for Sunday brunch with a rather hungover @BenMosley, @BevaniteEllie, @BenCooper86 and @Conorpope, to give them their Twitter names. We started playing fantasy Cabinet 2020 (ie on my insistence they all have glittering careers ahead of them). Ben’s dream role was Defence (he grew up on army bases), Ellie wanted to follow in the footsteps of her hero Nye Bevan at Health… Can’t remember what job we gave Ben, but when it came to Conor we simultaneously burst out laughing with “Culture Media and Sport!” Which we found hilarious – the joke being that DCMS was the department for someone who couldn’t be trusted with anything except going to concerts, art gallery openings and the FA Cup Final. Not a bad choice for someone who’s doing an English degree, is a part time stand-up comedian and has rather excellent taste in music for one of such tender years.
This is when I have to cover myself by saying that of course there is a lot more to DCMS than that, and it’s actually quite a political battleground at the moment, with the future of public service broadcasting at stake, the digital economy, etc. And of course recent occupants of the post on the Labour side have been fine Ministers who have proved themselves first in other departments. (Jeremy Hunt may be slightly more difficult to defend).
All this is by way of preamble to a topic which will no doubt occupy many blog inches (?) over the coming month: the Shadow Cabinet elections. Nominations don’t even start till after the new leader is elected, but the horses are already out of the traps and those of us who aren’t standing for election will probably find we don’t have to buy ourselves any drinks between now and the beginning of October.
We vote tomorrow on whether the Shadow Cabinet should be wholly/partly elected/appointed, and how many places there should be, but I think on current practice there would be 19 elected places. The prediction is that as many as 80 MPs could put their names forward (so that’s basically everyone except me, Jack Straw and the 67 MPs in the 2010 intake, isn’t it?)
There are some people I’m obviously going to vote for – and can I predict now that Yvette Cooper will top the poll? (We’re also voting tomorrow on what proportion of the Shadow Cabinet should be women, and how many votes should be cast for female candidates, but I can’t see anyone not voting for Yvette. Harriet btw is already in there as Deputy Leader.) When you then factor in the unsuccessful leadership candidates, three of whom are dead certs for a Shadow Cabinet place and big hitters like AJ, there aren’t actually that many places going…
So who will I be blessing with my vote? I’ll be looking at political balance for one thing… I’m almost certain to vote for people like Jim Murphy and Liam Byrne, because they’re so good and hugely likeable too, but they are very much on the Blairite wing of the party (though I think it’s time we consigned that term to history) and I’d want them balanced out by people with a more leftish take on things. Jon Cruddas, for example, though he wants to be elected Party Chair and I’m not sure he’s even running.
There’s also one test I’ve set… which takes us back to my introductory ramblings. What role can I see them taking? Someone like Chris Bryant, for example, who is one of our most effective performers in the Chamber and an absolute master of parliamentary procedure, I can see in a variety of roles, e.g. Foreign Office (though unlikely for a new boy), Justice, Deputy PM’s department, Leader of House, DEFRA, DCMS, Wales (though he’d be wasted there – one of the drawbacks of winning a Shadow Cabinet place is that you can’t speak on any other topic, unlike junior shadows). I can’t see him so easily in an economic role, but that doesn’t matter – he’s ticked enough boxes, he deserves his place. And he is the one non-incumbent who can be absolutely certain of getting my vote.
Some other MPs, however, may have been very effective and capable junior Ministers, but when it comes to imagining them leading on a departmental brief, I struggle… and if you then find yourself in “well, possibly DCMS….?” territory, then it probably means that they haven’t won their spurs yet. Of course you could argue that they simply haven’t had the chance to prove themselves, and I’ll be asking anyone who solicits my support what role(s) they see themselves in, and why they think they’d be good at it. (I may on the other hand just perfect the art of being seen to be engrossed in a very important phone call whenever I see one of them approaching!)
Hugh Richard's funeral service was in Hereford Crematorium today. The tributes were touching and inspiring. it was wonderful to see again friends from the Nuclear Free Wales campaign of 1980-81. So many are still engaged in the environmental movement. Some have massively contributed to the widening understanding of the perilous condition of our planet.
Hugh and his devoted wife Mag have designed and built a splendid eco-perfect home in the village of Hundred House in a glorious mid-Wales valley. Hugh's brother Tim vividly described their childhood that taught them independent reasoning and a love of reading. The tributes were followed by some of Hugh's favourite music. The song by the Byrds matched Hugh's character 'Wasn't born to follow'.
Brian Alcock described the students days that he shared with Hugh as an architectural student in Cardiff. Paul Dorfman paid tribute to Hugh unique leadership of the anti-nuclear movement. He quoted at length from this blog recalling how the Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance changed the opinion of a nation. We heard too of Hugh and Mag's family life. Linda Hood was the Humanist Celebrant.
His death was expected. His friends paid tributes to him in his final days. He appreciated the messages. Today was a chance to share our sorrow and gratitude for a life brilliantly and productively lived.
The simple problem with this Bill is that the Coalition Government has lumped everything together from whether or not we should have a referendum on the alternative vote to whether the number of MPs should be reduced through arbitrary boundary changes and no consultation. Because a lot of Labour MPs (and others) are objecting to certain aspects of the Bill, namely the issues surrounding boundary changes, we are being made to look like we're anti-reform.
In reality, the Labour Party had already stated in its pre-election manifesto that we were happy to have a referendum on AV. We have by no means gone back on our word on this and have even repeatedly asked Nick Clegg to separate the Bill out so we can still vote "yes" to having a referendum on voting reform, but vote "no" to other major aspects of the Bill which are too critical to the future of Parliament to simply let pass by without any objection.
To summarise, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives want to gerrymander constituencies by imposing a top-down, hasty and undemocratic review of boundaries. They will base the number of constituents in each constituency on who is on the Electoral Register when it is updated in December, but what they don't seem to recognise is that millions of unregistered voters will be excluded from the calculations. They will have no chance to appeal the boundaries.
Taking Edmonton and Enfield for an example, the following is true:
1. A comparatively high proportion of Edmonton's 65,443-strong electorate are not on the electoral register and are likely to still not be on there when the Boundary Commission makes its calculations.
2. This will lead to distorted electoral data. The constituency will be thought to be smaller than it is and, in order to reduce the number of MPs in Parliament, there is a good chance that Enfield will only retain two MPs, not three. This will actually leave constituents underrepresented and struggling to get the help they need from their MP.
3. There is a likelihood that when the new boundaries are drawn up, they won't respect local authority boundaries (or any other geographical boundary) so the constituency of Edmonton could, for example, include parts of Haringey as well as Enfield causing numerous administrative, political and organisational problems.
4. Reducing the number of MPs by 50 will save little money. In fact, it is likely to end up costing more money. Not only will the rushed boundary review itself cost a serious amount of money, but there is quite a large possibility that the reduced number of MPs will need more staff just to help them with the extra work that the extra constituents present them with. Extra staff are not free.
The Bill is heavily flawed. And partisan. I will be doing everything I can from here to try to separate the Bill, however, you have the power to do something too and make sure you complete the electoral registration canvas forms that should have already been put through your letterbox - this will ensure that you are on the Electoral Register, and if the boundary changes are rushed through, at least they will be based on slightly more accurate information.
IT’S NOT unknown for people to travel some distance in order to attend an interview for a job. Neither is it all that unusual for those candidates to be reimbursed by his or her potential employer, even if he or she is unsuccessful.
So you can hardly blame my colleague, Chris Bryant, for offering to reimburse travel costs to a candidate who travelled from Liverpool to London and back again in order to make his case for filling the vacancy in the Rhondda MP’s office.
Naturally, Chris sought the advice of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa, as if you didn’t know by now) to make sure this was allowable under the new rules. No, came the depressingly inevitable response. But on the plus side, they told Chris that they would have no objection to him paying the money out of his own pocket, which I personally think is jolly decent of them.
So, naturally enough, Chris asked Ipsa (using an FOI request) what their own policy was; did they ever reimburse travel costs to interview candidates?
After a bit of embarrassing, tongue-tied delay, the answer came back:
During the implementation stage of IPSA travel expenses were paid to some of the candidates that applied for the Chair and Board member positions. This has not continued.
This has not continued because the Chair and all the board have now been appointed. And once they were safely appointed, they pulled up the drawbridge after them.
This same organisation denies MPs the right to reimburse travel costs to candidates hoping to be employed in jobs paying a fraction of what an Ipsa board member gets, let alone what the chairman gets!
Hypocrites. Stupid, sanctimonious, incompetent hypocrites.
Whenever such a cat’s skein of evasion, misleadingness, distortions and downright lies unravels, there is always a serious and dangerous abuse of power at the root of it. And that applies here, big time, for all the participants – the police, the Home Office and Home Secretary, the News of the World, Coulson himself, and at the back of it all…..still unquestioned, Murdoch. Consider the evidence in each case.
The police:
Yates defends the Met by saying they will always look at new evidence if it becomes available. What he doesn’t say is that the Met has been sitting for years on a pyramid of evidence (widely reckoned to amount to 3,000 illegal phone-taps), but have refused to disclose it or investigate it. He says he interviewed other News of the World reporters than the royal correspondent, Clive Goodman. But he won’t name anybody and has not interviewed reporters who the evidence clearly shows intercepted voicemail messages. He admits not having talked to Sean Hoare, the former NoW reporter who said Coulson was aware of widespread hacking. But a dozen such reporters spoke to the New York Times about phone hacking, so why has the Met been so negligent in following up the evidence? The police agreed with the DPP to warn ‘all potential victims’ that their phones had been hacked into, but in fact told only a fraction: why?
The Home Office:
Theresa May said yesterday in the House that “the investigation has already been reviewed by the Met”. That is highly misleading: Yates when asked a year ago to establish the facts, reported within hours there were no grounds to reopen the 2006 inquiry, and regularly denied he had conducted a review. She also said “the CPS had full access to all the evidence gathered”. This is not true: the Guardian unearthed that a crucial email which the police found identifying two NoW reporters handling voicemails had not been handed on to the CPS. May further said that “there was early and regular (police) consultation with the CPS…to produce the best evidence”. In fact the police urged the CPS to ‘ring-fence’ evidence to conceal the identities of victims. And she also said that the “police made it clear that those they believed had been intercepted were contacted by members of the Met”. They were not.
The News of the World:
The NoW management and the whole Murdoch stable have persisted in claiming that nobody else was involved in hacking besides the two convicted. But a dozen NoW reporters have explicitly denied this and said phone-hacking was rife at the paper. Coulson has denied knowing anything about it. Several of his former employees have insisted he did. Theresa May stone-walled in a half-hour painful cross-examination in the Commons by saying she could not interfere with police operational matters. But of course that’s not true where there’s clear evidence (which there is) that the police have hugely mismanaged this affair. We need a public inquiry to discover why – a trail that will inevitably in the end lead to Murdoch and his power and his ambitions.
Ed Miliband has responded to a letter he received from Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, today, in relation to the forthcoming spending review.
Ed said:
Danny Alexander and the coalition government are preparing a devastating package of cuts which will damage the economy and hit those on low and middle incomes. I am today calling on Danny Alexander to take the steps now that will mean a fairer comprehensive spending review which protects public services and those on low and middle incomes.
* First, he should raise taxes on the banks by a further £5billion — retaining the bankers’ bonus tax, increasing the bankers’ levy and introducing a new financial transactions tax, and using this to protect public services and critical entitlements like the Winter Fuel Allowance and Child Benefit, which help many families and the elderly.
* Second, he should set out immediately his plans to tackle tax avoidance, as Nick Clegg promised. This could save public services from a further £3-4billion of cuts.
* Third, he should set out how he plans to act to implement a living wage across the economy. Many people are surprised to discover that taxpayers are spending £6billion each year subsidising low pay through benefits and tax credits and foregone taxation. Danny Alexander should adopt my plan to give tax cuts to businesses who adopt the living wage and cut our welfare bill.
I’m delighted to welcome former Deputy Leader of Sandwell Conservatves, Councillor Elaine Costigan to the Labour Party. Elaine says that “Michael Gove made me ashamed to be a Conservative”.
Elaine is a powerful voice for Wednesbury and Sandwell. She’s passionately cares about the future of Sandwell’s children and was rightly appalled by the Coalition government’s callous cuts to Sandwell’s schools. I’m delighted she’s joining Labour and look forward to further discussions with other councillors.
Up and down the country, people are realising that they were hoodwinked by David Cameron and Nick Clegg during the General Election. Whoever wins the Labour leadership election will have to build alliances with members of the other parties who feel betrayed by their political leaders.
Sadiq Khan has demanded Springfield Hospital make further changes to new plans for the development, following strong opposition from residents living adjacent to the hospital site.
Residents on Hebdon Road, Lingwell Road, Ansell Road, College Gardens, Beechcroft Road, Chancery Mews, Burntwood Lane, Openview, Fieldview, Tilehurst Road, St George's Grove and many other local streets have lobbied Sadiq on issues of concern that are still contained in the plans.
You can read Sadiq's letter to the Springfield Programme Director, Andrew Simpson, here.
There’s been quite a bit of comment (#deact on twitter) about Gordon Brown’s appointment to the Board of the Web Foundation. It’s been mainly negative, on account of the fact that that the DE Act is viewed by many as being a bit, er, rough around the edges. It’s passage in the Commons was certainly a hash and while there’s now some sensible engagement taking place from all sides on the issues extending from the Act with the Digital Economy all Party Group (DEAPPG), it’s fair that the former pm should bear ultimate responsibility, bad and good. And yet, it’s clear that politicians as a whole have a long way to go to understanding the implications of media and the importance of the Act. And it’s also true that it’s unlikely the DE Act was the pm’s top priority in the days before the beginning of a general election campaign.
But more important, Gordon Brown’s primary concern here is probably not the web per se, it’s the scope the web provides to help the world’s poorest. Most folk would accept that, I think. Equatorial Africa is largely excluded from the web and this mirrors it’s exclusion from most options for economic growth. Rwanda leads the way as a modernising state which stresses the importance of the web, yet even there internet access is limited to around 1% of the population. But with mobile telephone technology widespread in Africa, there really is potential for a revolutionion in internet access; one which may well largely by-pass landlines.
I spend quite a lot of time reading what people have to say about new technologies. Little of it, to be honest, is about how they have scope to help the most benighted populations in the world. Gordon Brown’s appointment has the potential to catalyse the views and action of those keen to help the world’s poorest and those interested in new technologies. There’s a big overlap on that particular Venn diagram, I’m sure.
So I think – good for the web foundation, and let’s give my old boss a break?
My own impression is that the impact of the recession in Edinburgh has already been much more serious in some sectors than his article suggests. Being at home in Edinburgh during the Parliamentary recess allows me to meet many more local people on a casual as well as an organised basis, and this summer I have been making a particular point of asking people how they have been affected by the recession. The picture is certainly mixed. Builders, joiners, architects, property lawyers – anyone involved in construction has certainly been hit very seriously. Financial services, though, do not seem to have been as badly affected as most people feared. The tourism and leisure sector seems to be more varied – and some businesses find unexpected benefit from the recession. And although I know many IT workers have been hit, one freelance IT worker I met said it was a very busy August – but that’s because people weren’t away on holiday so were using his services at a time when they normally don’t.
And I’ve certainly noticed many more people coming to my surgeries who have become recently unemployed, with benefits and other problems as a result, even though unemployment in Edinburgh is still much lower than in many other cities. But if Iain McWhirter is right, then that could certainly change if we do end up with a ‘double-dip’ recession as many predict, and which I fear will happen as a result of the Europe-wide rush to cut budgets quickly.
This Friday, I will be having one of my regular meetings with Jobcentreplus where I will be able to get a detailed picture of the current unemployment picture in Edinburgh. I’d be very interested in any views or information of how the recession is affecting particular businesses or sectors of the local economy to inform me for that meeting. You can post your views here, or send me an email or write to me if you prefer.
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