An aide to the Prime Minister spreads some nasty gossip in a private email to a blogger. The blogger’s emails are hacked, the emails are leaked to another blog, and the aide resigns. It’s a juicy and very modern tale of a spin doctor getting a taste of his own medicine. But is it really [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized, bbc, conservatives, davidcameron, jonathanbirch, journalism, labour, ukpolitics on April 12th, 2009 | No Comments »
Creative Commons licensed photograph courtesy of Flickr user jgraham.
Even after eleven years, there’s still something a bit shocking about tuition fees. If the vice-chancellors get their way, fees will rise to at least £5000 per student per year. It’s a policy that flaunts its pragmatism on its sleeve. I still think fees defy any principled [...]
Filed under: barackobama, education, jonathanbirch, labour, religion, ukpolitics on March 17th, 2009 | No Comments »
Photograph courtesy of World Economic Forum
Last year I made a fairly failsafe prediction that David Cameron would have a good 2008. Gordon Brown’s contempt for PR was only ever going to boost his public image in the short term: foresaking spin is fine until you have a policy to present or defend (say: a tax [...]
Filed under: jonathanbirch, labour, ukpolitics on September 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
They always have to go one better, don’t they? The week Europe tries to recreate the Big Bang, America decides to kick off the Big Crunch. In the eye of the storm stands US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson: perhaps the world’s most powerful man, at least for this week. The kind of financial titan we’d [...]
Filed under: gambling, jonathanbirch, labour, ukpolitics, uspolitics on September 16th, 2008 | No Comments »
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user lmg
The messy aftermath of Peter Hain’s resignation will not clear for sometime. Hain has fallen on his sorry sword for not declaring 17 donations in his deputy leadership campaign in time, a feat Gordon Brown disparagingly referred to as “incompetence”. But expect more swords to be self-sharpened in the coming [...]
Filed under: corruption, jackprevezer, labour, ukpolitics on January 25th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Remember September, when Northern Rock nearly collapsed? Savers withdrew around £2bn in savings, prompting the government to guarantee customers’ money up to a total of £100 000 per person. Estimates at the time suggested the taxpayer was crediting Northern Rock to the tune of about £20bn. But Northern Rock (naturally) lends out far more than [...]
Filed under: gambling, gordonbrown, jonathanbirch, labour, ukpolitics on December 24th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Compare:
“So, making education for skilled work our first priority, we need to provide new incentives and new obligations to train; we need to transfer resources from welfare to education and move claimants from passive recipients of welfare benefit to active job and skill seekers; far-reaching reforms of our welfare state and education system to put [...]
Filed under: conservatives, gordonbrown, ideas, labour, mattclifford, tonyblair on November 28th, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Apparently it is all over. The leadership contest that never was, never will be. Leaving aside Gordon Brown’s qualities as leader (which will be the source of endless speculation until the handover and beyond) I thought I’d better write something about the accusations that all of this is somehow undemocratic, stemming from Sir Ming [...]
Filed under: constitution, democracy, gordonbrown, labour, ukpolitics on May 17th, 2007 | No Comments »
This is absolutely brilliant. Not because I feel the country is necessarily crying out for a constitution, nor because I feel it would be particularly beneficial, but because the hand-over programme appears to finally be unfolding with consummate political skill. A discrete day for the retrospectives of Blair’s term in office (which are generally far [...]
Filed under: constitution, davidcameron, democracy, gordonbrown, labour, ukpolitics on May 12th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
In recent posts I’ve been sceptical about an anyone-but-Gordon succession for Labour after Blair. However, this book review by David Miliband on Anthony Gidden’s new book is well worth reading.
I’m very impressed by Miliband’s diagnosis of New Labour’s failings. My concern about Miliband has been that I couldn’t see what he had to offer [...]
Filed under: davidcameron, davidmiliband, gordonbrown, labour, ukpolitics on March 26th, 2007 | No Comments »
