Labour leaders debate on Newsnight: quick thoughts
1) This will change nothing.
2) Ed Miliband comes across as most sensible but needs the sharpness and focus of his brother.
3) Errr.. that was really lame?
Watch: Hughes attacks Tory right on VAT & CGT
“I hope we don’t get a VAT rise because it is the most regressive form of tax. It penalises the poor,” says Simon Hughes today in a warning-shot to the Conservative led coalition.
“I hope that chancellor, together with my colleagues in the treasury, find a way that is fair so the poor, the less well-off, don’t suffer and the people with broader shoulders carry the burden,” he adds.
The Social Liberal Forum published an open letter to Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander this week, saying the budget needs to, “spells out an agenda not only for our straitened financial circumstances but for fairness as well.”
Their call was then taken up by three senior Libdems.
In an interview with the Daily Politics show today Simon Hughes repeated his call and acknowledged that the “Tory right” in the form of MPs like John Redwood were campaigning to keep Capital Gains Tax down and increase VAT instead.
Watch the video
Tories back away further on rape anonymity
The Tories have today backed away further from their proposals to grant anonymity to rape defendants.
Justice secretary Ken Clarke said there would be no early legislation on whether anonymity would indeed be allowed.
This follows recent statements by Cameron also backing away from initial plans. At a recent PMQs debate he said he “believed there was a case for it between arrest and charge.”
That was a retreat from the original plans to extend anonymity in rape cases to all defendants.
Ken Clarke today also hinted at free vote when the House of Commons debate it, opening MPs up to external pressure on the issue.
Bloody Sunday: when it’s right to reopen history
Perhaps the violence was not on the scale witnessed in Lebanon or Sri Lanka or Liberia or the Congo or Yugoslavia in recent years.
But it is impressive testament to the English language’s command of euphemism that four decades of conflict in Northern Ireland can be popularly designated as ‘the Troubles’ rather than the civil war they very clearly represent.
Those days are once more in the spotlight with this afternoon’s publication of the Saville report into the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972, during which 14 peaceful demonstrators were shot dead in the streets of Derry by the British army.
continue reading… »
Cruddas backs Ken for Mayor: full statement
The influential backbench MP Jon Cruddas has endorsed Ken Livingstone to be Labour’s candidate for London Mayor.
In a statement, Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham, said:
London has faced economic upheaval in recent years, and will soon come under serious attack from the national government as it imposes a series of devastating cuts on the services Londoners rely on.
The Mayor of London can play a big role in defending Londoners from these cuts, and building an alternative to the conservative agenda. Labour needs a candidate who can win in 2012, uniting the party and taking the fight to a Boris Johnson administration that has let Londoners down.
Labour needs a candidate who will be a top class Mayor from day one, who knows the levers of power, and how to use power in the interests of all Londoners. For me, Labour’s candidate must be Ken Livingstone. He has my vote, and I call on all Labour members to unite behind him too.
Ken Livingstone today formally applied to be Labour’s candidate for Mayor of London.
I want to be Mayor of London for one overriding reason; I want to do everything I can to protect Londoners from the recession and the effects of the new government?s policies. If I am selected and then elected by Londoners my aim is to use every lever to make sure our quality of life is protected and improved.
Not a mayor who spends his time defending bankers but instead one who will use Mayoral budgets and powers to protect ordinary Londoners.
Instead of Boris Johnson?s wasteful projects we must concentrate on defending public services and holding down fares. We need to halt the present short-sighted policy of cutting 455 police officers and if elected Mayor I will stop Boris Johnson?s threat of cuts to the 630 safer neighbourhood police teams.
I believe it is absolutely essential that the Mayor of London is accountable and regularly holds press conferences with the media. It is astounding that under Boris Johnson there are just two press conferences listed on the GLA website in the last year. What does Boris Johnson have to hide?
My campaign for Labour?s candidate for Mayor is broad-based. I have received backing from all parts of London and all sections of the Labour Party with councillors, MPs, trade unions, Young Labour members, and CLP officers joining with me to campaign for a better future for our great city.
Ken visited Labour Party HQ and handed in his nomination form alongside the Chair of his campaign, David Lammy MP.
The nomination form can be downloaded from www.kenlivingstone.com.
Ken’s supporters:
Val Shawcross AM, London Assembly member for Lambeth and Southwark
Nicky Gavron AM
Lord Toby Harris
Claude Moraes MEP
David Lammy MP, Tottenham
Jon Cruddas MP, Dagenham
Jeremy Corbyn MP, Islington North
John Cryer MP, Leyton and Wanstead
Virendra Sharma MP, Ealing Southall
Andy Slaughter MP, Hammersmith
Cat Smith, Vice Chair, London Young Labour
Tom Copley, London Rep, Young Labour National Committee
Louise Haigh, TULO officer ? London Young Labour
Ben Furneaux, Youth Officer ? Ruislip CLP
Veronica King, Tooting CLP women?s officer
Steve Hart, Regional Secretary, UNITE (personal capacity)
Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary
Cllr Claire Kober, Leader ? Haringey
Cllr Liam Smith, Leader ? Barking and Dagenham
Cllr Catherine West, Leader ? Islington
Cllr Julian Bell, Leader, Leader – Ealing
Cllr Stephen Cowan, Labour group leader, Hammersmith and Fulham
Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, Labour group leader, Westminster
Cllr Mo Khursheed, Labour group leader, Hillingdon
Cllr Tony Newman, Labour group leader, Croydon
Cllr Jonathan Simpson, Mayor of Camden
Cllr Martin Whelton – Cabinet member for community and culture, Merton
Cllr Alan Hall, Chair Lewisham Labour Group; Chair, Lewisham West & Penge CLP
Cllr Paul Convery, LB Islington
Cllr Leonie Cooper, LB Wandsworth
Cllr Sue Sampson, Hounslow
Cllr Paul Sathianesan, Newham
Cllr George Savva MBE, Enfield
Cllr Richard Livingstone, Southwark
Labour has no choice but to embrace political pluralism
contribution by Jane Watkinson
With so many interesting discussions throughout the day, it was rather disappointing Compass’s conference didn’t take place over a few days instead of the one.
Central to the conference was the tribalism vs. pluralism debate.
Caroline Lucas opened with an important question: “To what extent does the left want pluralism in political representation?”
continue reading… »
The Sun and a Tory MP do the Taliban’s job for them
1. Patrick Mercer, former chief pusher of Glen Jenvey, gets wind of a new horror being deployed by the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan: fake IEDs buried with used hypodermic needles, intended to cut and scratch those attempting to defuse such devices.
continue reading… »
Tesco signs ‘let girls be girls’ campaign
Retail giant Tesco is the latest to sign the Mumsnet website campaign, ‘Let Girls be Girls’, against premature sexualisation of children.
The u-turn has come literally hours after Tesco was criticised for selling high-heeled shoes to girls as young as three.
The Mumsnet website explains the reasoning behind the campaign:
A growing number of toys, clothes (‘sexy’ slogans on young girls’ clothing) and accessories (Playboy-branded stationery sets, anyone?) encourage children to enter the world of adult sexuality.
There are plenty of reasons to be worried by this trend:
- It introduces children to the world of adult sexuality, when elsewhere we are rightly encouraging them to resist the pressure to become sexually active at a young age
- It tells girls that the most important quality they need is ‘sexiness’ and that female sexuality is all about pleasing others
- It encourages a culture in which children are viewed as sexually available
- Authorities as varied as the NSPCC, the NUT and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams have all weighed in on this issue, calling for a halt to the premature sexualisation trend.
The campaign offers retailers a positive course of action – to pledge that they will only offer products “which don’t play upon, exploit, or emphasise children’s sexuality”.
Companies boast insider info on Budget
Private companies are boasting that they have inside knowledge of what is going to be in the Government’s emergency budget on 22 June, which, if true, shows exactly whose side the coalition government is on, said the Unions union last night.
Mark Fox, Chief Executive of the Business Services Association (BSA), has e-mailed councils telling them that the Fair Deal provision, covering pension entitlements, will be abolished in the emergency budget.
BSA brings together private companies bidding for contracts in local government. Fox further claims to have had private discussions with ministers about the Emergency Budget.
Unions say that ditching crucial pension protection for low paid public sector workers, who are transferred to private companies, would not save the State a penny. It would, however, make the contracts more lucrative for private companies.
It’s general secretary, Dave Prentis, said:
It’s totally disgraceful and unconstitutional that multi-national companies should be given details of what is to be in the emergency budget. This is a clear indication that we are not, as the Cameron mantra goes, all in this together.
…
The fact that its abolition won’t save the country a single penny, shows that the intention is to make these contracts more lucrative for private companies. There would be no level playing field with an in-house bid, because contractors could undercut, at the expense of the workforce.
Feeling positive about the Labour leadership? You shouldn’t be
For all their confident predictions that Labour’s defeat would push party members into a bout of despair and vicious civil war, the General Election has been a classic illustration of why no one should listen to right-wingers for political predictions.
Cameron failed to get his majority, Lord Ashcroft is livid, the Tory right is going to be increasingly marginalised and Labour managed to maintain a slew of progressive MPs.
The New Statesman Labour leadership hustings was over-whelmingly packed out, the Compass conference had sold out its thousand tickets before the event and there is sustained interested in the leadership elections.
A sense of excited anticipation is in the air, I think, because lefties think the upper hierarchy will finally return to its senses and re-discover their base. Don’t be so sure, especially when you see the arguments being made for David Miliband.
continue reading… »
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» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
» Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest?
» To win London, Ken Livingstone has to step outside his comfort zone
» This trade agreement with India will destroy thousands of lives
» UK debt hasn’t hit £1 trillion – mostly because of QE
» The benefits of being a “burden” on society
» Today’s economic figures will simply confirm UK’s “lost decade”
» Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away?
» Violence in the office
» Want a more responsible capitalism? Reform how pensions work
» The world is entering the third phase of the crisis, warns ILO
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