We won! Rod Liddle not in consideration for Indy editor after ‘protests’
Did we win?
The Media Guardian today reports that Rod Liddle may no longer be in consideration as editor of the Independent after “howls of protest” from readers and others.
The decision to end talks is understood to have been taken after a meeting between Liddle and Simon Kelner, the managing director and editor-in-chief of the Independent and Independent on Sunday. “He will not be the editor,” one source with knowledge of the talks said.
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Kelner first approached Liddle, the former editor of the BBC Today programme, in May last year to ask him if he was interested in the position. Liddle was then offered the job in November after a meeting with Lebedev and his son Evgeny in Venice.But after MediaGuardian.co.uk broke the story about Liddle being lined up to edit the paper in January, there were protests from staff, politicians and readers. “He then went through this extraordinary campaign of hostility,” a source said.
Yesterday’s meeting appears to indicate that Lebedev had a change of heart about appointing the Sunday Times columnist to the paper.
“The liberal howl-around was so intense that he can’t afford to alienate the Independent staff by appointing Liddle so he will appoint someone else,” the source said.
If confirmed, that would be extraordinary.
I wonder where that pressure came from.
Get your Eton hands off my school
contribution by Sam Bumby
An article in yesterday’s Independent highlighted the failings in the Conservative school policy. Personally I think it was a rubbish idea to start with. Allowing parents, charities and trusts to run schools?
It sounds to me just like an idea to privatise the school system, an idea which allows any idiot with a ton of money to influence and indoctrinate youngsters with their own opinions.
Obviously that is still the case today, but in small isolated specialist schools which provide top quality education for the highest fee payers. Imagine if that was the only choice for your kids (minus the massive bill of course)?
The wonders of a central education system mean that every child has access to the same basic education and whilst it may vary regionally, what is taught is practically the same.
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Purnell to quit parliament
I have today told the executive committee of my local party that I do not wish to be the candidate for Stalybridge and Hyde at the next General Election.
I have been proud to represent the people of Stalybridge and Hyde. And this has been an extremely difficult decision to make. But I have decided that I no longer wish to be an MP.
I have spent all my working life in or about Westminster. And while this has been a huge privilege, I’ve realised I don’t want to have spent all my life in frontline politics.
I’m looking forward to completing my project at Demos. After that my hope is to contribute ideas to public service and to the Labour Party.”
LC Mission Series: part 1 – Building a new Left Movement
The biggest mistake The Left made in 1997, when New Labour came to power, was to assume their job was done. Actually it had just begun. The job was to keep putting pressure on the government to follow a leftwing agenda. Instead the Left was absorbed by the newly elected party and there was no opposition to their right-ward shift.
What we lack is infrastructure. An infrastructure that can be cranked up continually to force governments to pay attention.
It was never really built because it was assumed the Labour Party was the left. It was assumed that getting into power and holding on was beneficial for the left. Why? Because it was assumed there was no difference between the two.
But that is no longer true. On many issues the Libdems and Greens are far more progressive, and there are tons of people who see themselves a progressive/left-wing/liberal but aren’t part of any political party. How can they make themselves heard?
What I’m trying to do here is lay out some sort of a vision for Liberal Conspiracy. What is this site about? what sort of content should it publish? Where is it going? What is it’s raison d’etre? I want to try and answer some of those questions.
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Two sets of economists slam Tory ‘cuts’ in FT
Two separate letters have been published in the Financial Times slamming Conservative Party proposals that government spending should be cut immediately. Both will be printed in the morning edition of the FT.
A letter by Lord Skidelsky and others is titled: First priority must be to restore robust growth
Sir, In their letter to The Sunday Times of February 14, Professor Tim Besley and 19 co-signatories called for an accelerated programme of fiscal consolidation. We believe they are wrong.
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There is no disagreement that fiscal consolidation will be necessary to put UK public finances back on a sustainable basis. But the timing of the measures should depend on the strength of the recovery. The Treasury has committed itself to more than halving the budget deficit by 2013-14, with most of the consolidation taking place when recovery is firmly established. In urging a faster pace of deficit reduction to reassure the financial markets, the signatories of the Sunday Times letter implicitly accept as binding the views of the same financial markets whose mistakes precipitated the crisis in the first place!They seek to frighten us with the present level of the deficit but mention neither the automatic reduction that will be achieved as and when growth is resumed nor the effects of growth on investor confidence. How do the letter’s signatories imagine foreign creditors will react if implementing fierce spending cuts tips the economy back into recession? To ask – as they do – for independent appraisal of fiscal policy forecasts is sensible. But for the good of the British people – and for fiscal sustainability – the first priority must be to restore robust economic growth. The wealth of the nation lies in what its citizens can produce.
The two letters are signed by over 60 leading economists and have prompted the Financial Times to declare that they ‘have backed Alistair Darling’s decision to delay spending cuts until 2011′.
The second letter, signed by Prof Lord Layard and others, is titled: ‘Sharp shock now would be dangerous‘
It says:
Second, Britain’s level of government debt is not out of control. The net debt relative to GDP is lower than the Group of Seven average, and on present government plans it will peak at 78 per cent of annual GDP in 2014-15, and then fall. Even at its peak, the debt ratio will be lower than in the majority of peacetime years since 1815. Moreover British debt has a longer maturity than most other countries, and current interest rates on government debt at 4 per cent are also low by recent standards.
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A sharp shock now would not remove the need for a sustained medium-term programme of deficit reduction. But it would be positively dangerous. If next year the government spent less and saved more than it currently plans, this would not “make a sustainable recovery more likely”. The weight of evidence points in the opposite direction.
Liberal Conspiracy reported a few days ago that the letters were expected.
The two letters now put Conservative economic policy at odds with the consensus that the economy should be allowed to recover before the deficit is reduced.
The signatories to the letters include two Nobel laureates – Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Solow – and five former members of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, including Sir Andrew Large and Rachel Lomax, two former deputy governors. Alan Blinder, a former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve, is also a signatory.
Homophobic: Balls u-turn on faith schools slammed
The government was sharply criticised today by the Libdems for “pandering to homophobia” by allowing faith schools to avoid sex and relationship education if they so wanted.
The British Humanist Association, Children’s Rights Alliance for England and the Accord Coalition have also condemned the Government amendment to its own Children, Schools and Families Bill, describing it as “discriminatory”.
They urged people to write to their MP expressing their anger.
An amendment to the Government’s Children, Schools and Families Bill that would allow faith schools to teach sex education “in a way that reflects the school’s religious character”.
Liberal Democrat Shadow Schools Secretary, David Laws said:
The Government has already given an opt-out from sex and relationship education up to age 15. This looks like it will further water down the information which all young people should be entitled to before they reach the age of consent. State funded schools should not be free to put their own spin on sex and relationship education.
The Government should not pander in any way either to homophobia or to those who want young people kept in the dark when they are already exposed to these issues through the media well before the age of 16.
The amendment has been described by the Accord Coalition as looking “like a 21st century Section 28″.
The Catholic Education Service is openly claiming victory on its website in forcing the amendment from the government, but campaigners say that the u-turn will damage the health and well being of many young people.
You can write to your MP using the BHA system urging them to oppose the amendment when it is debated Tuesday (23rd February).
LC editor Sunny Hundal is a supporter of the Accord Coalition.
Today the Green Party voted for equality in civil partnerships or marriage for couples of same or opposite sex.
Update: Ben Cooper informs us that the government has responded:
Let’s be absolutely clear, faith schools cannot opt out of statutory PSHE and SRE lessons when it comes into effect in September 2011. All maintained schools and academies will be required to teach the full programmes of study in line with the principles outlined in the Bill including promoting equality and encouraging acceptance of diversity.
Schools with a religious character will be free, as they are now, to express the views of their faith and reflect the ethos of their school, but what they cannot do is suggest that their views are the only ones.
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This amendment is designed to clarify the position of faith schools. It does not diminish or detract from the over-arching principles set out in Clause 11, which all schools must comply with. Rather it makes clear that faith schools can teach their faith’s view on issues that arise within the teaching of PSHE. What they cannot do is suggest that their views are the only valid ones, and must make clear that there are a wide range of divergent views.
Tory class warriors: shameless and clueless
As mentioned earlier by Paul, the class warriors over at Conservative Home have got a new website called mylabourposter, which has pictures of people such as immigrants, burglars, foreigners, the BBC etc., and the caption ‘I’ve not voted Labour before, but‘ and then reasons why these people like Labour.
One of the posters is Frank Gallagher from Shameless, saying “I’ve never voted Labour before, but I can see the benefits”.
One nice thing about these posters is that some of them have an explanation beneath them to explain the joke to anyone who finds the humour a bit too subtle.
For the benefits one, their “fact” is “Labour’s over-complex welfare system means there has been more benefit fraud and less incentive to work”.
Really?
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Will bloggers get Lobby passes now?
A story in PR Week today has set some tongues wagging about the possibility of bloggers getting better access to the House of Commons.
The radical move would see selected bloggers allowed into the Westminster lobby system, provided they meet certain criteria.
PRWeek understands that conversations have been taking place between the Commons authorities and Financial Times political editor George Parker, who is chairman of the parliamentary press gallery.
Parker told PRWeek recent applications had forced the authorities to revisit the issue. ‘The system is being tested on a case-by-case basis,’ he said. ‘There’s no ban on bloggers at the moment, but things are being refined as we go along, because it’s a new form of journalism and the authorities are having to adapt.’
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Parker said: ‘What the Commons authorities are concerned about is that there should be no precedent set that would create a free-for-all. They don’t want to have the House of Commons over-run by bloggers.’
But the story doesn’t seem to have progressed from November 2008 when the Press Gazette reported of some discussion taking place on the same issue.
I would welcome a lobby pass if offered to Liberal Conspiracy. We’re not here to simply throw mud at the politicians and keep screaming they are all scum of the earth. Our aim is to think about, plan for, and demand more progressive politics. We’re about making this country better, not just to support one party. We may not follow PMQs obsessively, but we could at least find it easier to ask specific MPs questions relating to our campaigns or have more meaningful discussions when papers are published by government departments. Most of my fellow Conspirators agree. Bring on the Lobby Pass, if it ever happens.
Maybe around 2015 Westminster will be ready to make a tentative announcement on the issue.
Matt Wardman has more thoughts on the issue.
Mahmoud al Mabhouh: the ethics of state-sponsored assassination
There now seems little doubt that Mossad took out Hamas commander Mahmoud al Mabhouh, either with or without the complicity of other Palestinian elements. Yet astonishingly enough, the debate on the assassination somehow centres on alleged duplicitous use of British passports on the part of the Isrealis.
Effectively, the Israeli ambassador to London has been summoned to the Foreign Office for a bollocking, at which David Miliband will tell him: ‘Look, no problems with you lot bumping off that dodgy Pally bloke. But it’s just not on for your country’s hit squads to travel on fake UK papers, old chap. Don’t let us catch you doing it again.’
What is being missed here is the question of whether premeditated extrajudicial murder of specific individuals at the behest of a state can ever be morally legitimate, and whether or not it was morally legitimate in this instance.
16, pregnant and middle class – What the papers don’t say
Do the Tories really want to pick a fight over the issue of teenage pregnancies?
The reason I ask is not just because of the Tory’s latest statistical debacle; although it has to be said that their inability to get a decimal point in the right place hardly inspires confidence in a party that has aspirations of becoming the next government and taking over the running of the economy.
Last year, I put together a (popular) article that sifted some of the facts about teenage pregnancy from the media-driven fiction.
With an election in the offing, and the Tories already threatening to turn this issue into a political Aunt Sally, yet again, its seems to me to be about the right time to revisit this issue again and look at what the evidence has to say rather than what the Daily Mail would like you to believe.
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