Labour Uncut — Inside Labour Politics

UNCUT: Oxbridge wonks are people too, says Jessica Asato

15/10/2010, 03:20:25 PM

When is a job not a proper job? And can you get by in politics without having done one?

Apparently not, if my previous experience of writing online is anything to go by. Whatever I wrote, be it an argument for universal childcare or a fairer funding system for older people’s care, the most frequent comment was that my opinion was irrelevant since I had never done a proper job.

On the face of it, the commenters had a point. I have never stacked shelves at Tescos, or dealt with angry customers in a call centre. I have never been a street cleaner or driven a bus. I cannot claim to have come from a family of miners or dockers. My career path, if it can be given a linear route at all, has been predominantly academic and political. Put the words Cambridge, think tank and Progress on any CV and it will scream privileged, middle-class Blairite. I am the walking, talking stereotype of a NuLab politician and I worry about it. Read the rest of this entry »

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INSIDE: The first salvo of the latest PLP election campaign

15/10/2010, 01:57:04 PM

Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
They leave their trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!

But, no. It begins again. Been and gone the select committee elections and the shadow cabinet elections and the leadership elections. Each of them fuelled by endless barrages of letters and texts and calls and, above all, emails.

Now comes the first salvo of the new election: that for the half dozen places on the PLP’s backbench Parliamentary committee. Read the rest of this entry »

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INSIDE: Select committee vacancies caused by front bench appointments

15/10/2010, 11:34:46 AM

We have been asked what happens to elected Labour members of select committees now that many of them have been appointed to the front bench.

The short answer is that there are fresh elections for the newly created places. On one select committee (BIS), the entire Labour cohort of new intakers (Luciana Berger, Jack Dromey, Chi Onwurah and Rachel Reeves) has been catapulted to shadow ministerial stardom. On most of the others, only a couple of places are at stake.

The full details are set out in the email below, to Labour MPs from PLP secretary, Martin O’Donovan. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: A man for all seasons: Dan Hodges interviews Peter Hain

15/10/2010, 09:00:36 AM

Hain. A signature surname. No introductions necessary.

Some politicians travel on a journey. Peter Hain streaks like a comet.

Anti-apartheid insurgency. Letter bombs. Arrest. Conspiracy. Sensational acquittal. Liberal activism. Labour defection. Left wing standard bearer. Moderniser. Cabinet minister.

It’s a biography most politicians would die for. And those are just the highlights. Where, Uncut wonders, can Peter Hain possibly be heading next.

“Chairman of the national policy forum”.

Oh. Er, that’s a bit prosaic isn’t it? What about policy guru? Or supremo? Ed Miliband personally selected you for this role. Surely it must come with some grand honorific?

“I’m also Ed’s representative on the national executive”. Representative? Not capo? Consigliere? We’ll work on it.

“What I want to say to followers of Labour Uncut is – ‘I’m interested in your ideas. If you’ve got a new ideas or policies, I’d like to hear them’”.

Brilliant. Uncut’s followers – we do like to think of ourselves as something of a cult – are all ears. This is fresh. Innovative. Hain – the Peter Hain – is reaching out to us. The doors of the policy forum, the inner-sanctum where Blairite alchemists concocted their heady third-way brew, are to be thrown open. How will it work, Peter? Tell us. Bring us within the fold.

“Well, at the moment, you know, I’ve only just been recommended for this post. I’m just interested in new ideas basically”.

Ideas. Well, I’m sure we can come up with some. Maybe need a little steer though. Bit of guidance. Know it’s a fresh dawn and everything. New politics. Inclusivity. But after all those years of visionary leadership and iron discipline, perhaps a little nudge?

“It’s my job to act as funnel for Ed Miliband’s vision and strategic objectives to be channelled through. And then for the party to be engaged in that”.

So what is Ed Miliband’s big vision?

Read the rest of this entry »

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UNBOUND: Friday News Review

15/10/2010, 07:35:18 AM

Spending Review

When Mr Osborne moved into No 11 in May, he could plausibly argue that the UK and its major trading partners were through the worst of the slump and on a straight road to recovery. Couple that with the panic over European government debt, and coalition ministers had (in their eyes) sufficient grounds to argue that they needed a serious plan to tackle government borrowing – and needed it now. Both parts of that argument no longer look so solid. The undoubtedly real alarm over government debt that gripped international markets this spring has eased. And besides, the truth is that the UK – a major economy with a good credit history, whose deficit is largely financed by domestic investors – was never in the same boat as Greece or Iceland. Meanwhile, the economic outlook has become considerably bleaker. – The Guardian

The government wants to eliminate the UK’s budget deficit – which currently stands at 10 per cent of GDP – by 2015. To that end, the coalition has decided to slash £83bn from its budget, with cuts to government departments of up to 25 per cent expected. On October 20, Chancellor George Osborne will deliver his comprehensive spending review, which will reveal where the axe will fall. But how bad could it be… – The First Post

Britain’s economy is still in “grave danger” of collapse, Ken Clarke warned yesterday. The Justice Minister also said Wednesday’s spending review will be “the most dramatic in living memory”. He added: “We’re in grave danger of financial collapse. We’re not out of the woods yet.” Mr Clarke, speaking in Derbyshire, said the debt crisis was unprecedented and people must brace themselves for tough economic times. His comments put him at odds with the Prime Minister who said two weeks ago the economy was “out of danger”. – The Mirror

Team Ed

A leader’s back-room team is as important, and sometimes as famous, as his front-line personnel. Alastair Campbell and Philip Gould were indispensable to Tony Blair; Steve Hilton and Andy Coulson are closer to David Cameron than most cabinet ministers. Among the most senior members of Mr Miliband’s kitchen cabinet is Stewart Wood, an academic and aide to Mr Brown who advises on policy and media strategy. Greg Beales, who also served Mr Brown, helps Mr Miliband with policy and speeches. Gatekeepers include Polly Billington, a former journalist, and Katie Myler, a ministerial adviser when Labour was in office. They are a strikingly young bunch. Mr Miliband owes his leadership in part to grizzled trade-union bosses, but his most ardent supporters have always been youthful idealists who hear echoes of Barack Obama in his talk of “a new generation”. The Tories, who privately think Mr Miliband will have to draft in some more heavyweights before long, are unworried. – The Economist

Read the rest of this entry »

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INSIDE: Timetable for elections to the PLP Parliamentary committee

14/10/2010, 08:00:49 PM

We have been asked about the timetable and process for the election of the six members of the PLP Parliamentary committee. This is the group of backbenchers who meet weekly with the leader to keep him in touch with the views of the PLP rank-and-file.

The last time we were in opposition, the Parliamentary committee was the shadow cabinet. Standing orders have now changed to allow it to continue as a backbench body.

The timetable for the election is set out in the email below, from Martin O’Donovan, the PLP secretary.

(Tony Lloyd was elected unopposed as PLP chair).

From: O’DONOVAN, Martin
Sent: 12 October 2010 14:26
Subject: Reminder: PLP Chair and Parliamentary Committee elections

FAO Labour MPs

Dear Colleagues

Please find below a reminder of the timetables for the election of a PLP Chair and the new Parliamentary Committee:

PLP Chair
Nominations opened yesterday, and please note that nominations close TOMORROW (Wednesday) at 6pm. Full timetable is as follows:

Open nominations 9.00am Monday, 11 October
Close of nominations 6.00pm Wednesday, 13 October
Appointment of a proxy 7.00pm Monday, 18 October
Ballot 10.00am to 5.00pm Tuesday, 19 October

Parliamentary Committee
The timetable is as follows:

Open nominations 10.00am Wednesday, 20 October
Close of nominations 5.00pm Monday, 25 October
Appointment of a proxy 7.00pm Monday, 25 October
Ballot 10.00am to 5.00pm Tuesday, 26 October

Best wishes

Martin O’Donovan
Returning Officer and PLP Secretary

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INSIDE: Fiona MacTaggart’s email to Tory MP Mary MacLeod

14/10/2010, 06:30:04 PM

It is expressed with subtlety and elegance, but the message from Fiona MacTaggart to new Tory MP, Mary MacLeod, is clear: if you’ve got more than a tokenistic interest in the cause of women in Parliament, join the Labour party.

From: MACTAGGART, Fiona
Sent: 13 October 2010 15:11
To: MACLEOD, Mary
Subject: APPG women in parliament

Dear Mary,

Thank you for your invitation to become a founding member of an APPG women in parliament. I am writing to decline the invitation and to explain why.

AS you are a new member you may not be aware of the existence of the women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, which I chair, and which has been a powerful force for change on issues ranging from women’s representation in our party to hours and facilities in the house.

My experience of non party groups, such as the 300 group, on these issues has been that they have not been able to have the same impact as party based networks and I would be reluctant to support a move which risks over time diluting the effective work which PLP women have accomplished. Now that there are a greater number of women on the Coalition government benches I would really welcome a stronger voice for you within your party and my belief is that this is the best strategy for advancing the cause of women in parliament. Our party based groups can then work together within our parties and across parties, and also with the women in smaller parties. I have been acutely aware that every political group which only has one representative, is represented by a women and have tried to include them in appropriate activities.

I would have hoped to discuss this with colleagues at a PLP women’s meeting but unfortunately your email was sent 10 minutes after the end of our last meeting and we are not due to have another one for nearly three weeks, a longer gap than we normally have, because that meeting is due to elect a new chair following my appointment to the front bench.

In the meantime I would like to meet you, with other officers of the PLP women’s group to discuss how PLP women can best work with women in other parties. We have already done so on specific issues, eg IPSA and its impact on women and families.

I am circulating this response to colleagues to make them aware of my response.

Yours ever

Fiona Mactaggart Chair PLP women.

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UNCUT: Pat McFadden on the Browne report

14/10/2010, 04:05:16 PM

Student finance always combines policy with highly combustible politics. And so it is with the parties treading round the Browne Review as if it was an unexploded land mine, accompanied by headlines about degree costs running into tens of thousands which alarm students and their parents alike.

But first, step back. Many similar headlines were around in 2004 when legislation increased fees to £3,000. Since then participation has continued to rise, including from low income groups, confounding predictions that fear of debt would put off prospective students. Upfront fees were abolished, making higher education free at the point of use for students. Graduates paid but only when they were earning. And safeguards were built in to write off debt if graduates took time out of the labour market to have children or had low lifetime earnings.

There were also less welcome consequences of the 2004 changes. Charging no real rate of interest on loans had the unintended side effect of limiting student numbers because it costs the state more to borrow the money for the loans than it gets back in repayments. So although participation has gone up, universities are still held back from taking on as many students as they would wish because it is too expensive for the government. Read the rest of this entry »

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INSIDE: Tony Lloyd re-elected unopposed as chair of the PLP

14/10/2010, 10:33:56 AM

As the email below notes, Tony Lloyd has been re-elected unopposed as chair of the PLP.

The last time Labour was in opposition, the “parliamentary committee” was the elected shadow cabinet. Standing orders have now changed, though, such that the parliamentary committee continues to exist as it did in government: six elected backbenchers who meet the leader weekly, with the PLP chair, to represent backbench opinion.

This cements Lloyd’s position as the most powerful and influential PLP chair of the modern era.

He also chairs the weekly meetings of the PLP and mediates the increasingly fractious relationship between MPs and IPSA.

Lloyd ran unsuccessfully for the office he now holds several times over many years. He was then part of the soft-left resistance to the Blairite autocracy. He was loyal to Brown, though, and will be pivotal to Miliband.

FAO Labour MPs

Dear Colleague

At 6pm this evening nominations closed in the election for the Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Nominations were received for one candidate, Tony Lloyd MP.

Tony Lloyd MP has therefore been duly re-elected to serve as Chair of the PLP.

Best wishes

Martin

Martin O’Donovan
Returning Officer and PLP Secretary

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UNCUT: Far from being the left’s embarrassing secret, the state is actually its trump card, says Anthony Painter

14/10/2010, 08:54:51 AM

What weird contorted, politically arrogant logic comes to the conclusion that David Miliband should join the Tory-Lib Dem coalition, as Nick Boles attempted to argue yesterday? While setting on a course that gives Margaret Thatcher a run for her money in terms of its social and economic destructiveness, the government has finally been lifted from the ground with the hot air of its own rhetoric. The definition of socialism is what a Labour government does and anything this government does is progressive reform – by definition. Why? Well, because it’s a progressive reformist government, duh.

With Labour’s leadership election out of the way, the fog of war is starting to clear. David Miliband and all those on the left who know that the state must change – be more personal, more local, and more innovative – equally know that the type of reform offered by the Tories and Lib Dems is anything but progressive. David Cameron and Nick Clegg know that as long as they can be seen to be taking it out on relatively high earners as well as the least well-off then the progressive fig leaf will stay in place.

So high rate taxpayers lose £1billion of child benefit. Others much lower down the earnings ladder lose up to £15billion a year. There is a £9billion hit for 3.5 million disabled people over five years according to the think tank, Demos. Progressive. Then there is the pupil premium: the government’s get out of jail free card when it comes to fairness. Or so they think. It conveniently ignores the fact that there already is a pupil premium. It goes to local authorities. Meanwhile, investment in creating the school buildings of the future for many is cut. Progressive. Read the rest of this entry »

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