Evidence shows that privatising welfare actually wastes money
An absolutely devastating report from the Public Accounts committee should make all political parties rethink their approach to reforming welfare.
The ‘Pathways to Work’ programme was launched nationally between 2005 and 2008 to help reduce the number of incapacity benefit claimants ‘through targeted support and an earlier medical assessment’.
It is delivered by contractors in 60% of districts, with Jobcentre Plus providing the service in the remainder.
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Burnham now attacks unions role in Labour
Channel 4 News today reports that Andy Burnham wants Labour party rules changed to take away power from the unions.
His comments come in advance of the final Labour leadership hustings at the TUC conference this month.
He said he thinks unions have too much sway by funding campaigns, and therefore giving some candidates an ‘unfair advantage’.
He also said he wanted to include making the MP ballot secret, so their MPs’ votes are not made public. He says this would prevent MPs from voting for the people they thought would win, rather then the person they want to win.
But Andy Burnham opens himself up for criticism, given his earlier comments on the role of unions within Labour.
At the beginning of the Labour leadership race, he said:
Trade unions, like the Labour party, have a proud past and a bright future. They are at the heart of the labour movement and under my leadership I want them to be at the heart of the Labour party too….
That means closer ties to the trade union movement, not just at the top of the Party, but from constituencies up.
Why I’m seeking judicial review over Liam Fox’s Atlantic Bridge
contribution by Stephen Newton
You may easily have missed it, but in July the trustees of the Atlantic Bridge, a charity founded by defence secretary Liam Fox to promote closer ties between senior Conservatives and their US allies, agreed with the Charity Commission that they would cease all their current activities immediately.
This was a serious blow to those who would import US style neo-Conservatism to Britain and not just because the charity will no longer be able to pay for Fox and co to travel the US.
Yet while the effective closure of the Atlantic Bridge was a significant success in itself, questions remained over the fate of the charity’s assets.
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David Miliband’s economic policy requires a second look
I commented last week on a very interesting Labour Uncut article by Anthony Painter, regarding the politics of “Ed Balls economics”. This provoked an interesting twitter debate with Anthony and Sunny.
I argued earlier in the summer that Labour should drop, or heavily modify, the four year timetable. I’m now, after much discussion, more comfortable keeping it – as long as we place more emphasis now on what is being termed the “escape hatch”, i.e. the option under the Darling plan to slow or stop the deficit reduction if the economy head south again.
continue reading… »
Woolas in court today over election dispute
We have been reporting on the ongoing controversy around Labour MP Phil Woolas’ general election campaign.
Briefly, Woolas’ Libdem opponent Mr Elwyn Watkins alleged that during election campaigning he was the target of a vicious campaign by Woolas that wrongly portrayed him as a courting votes from militant Muslims.
Woolas was taken to court. As the BBC’s Arif Ansari reported:
He argues not only that the allegations were serious and false but that Mr Woolas knew that to be the case.
In legal language, the Liberal Democrats are claiming that Labour breached Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act, 1983. In ordinary language, the Liberal Democrats are claiming that Labour lied to the electorate.
Today the case will be heard in court.
A defeat for Phil Woolas would see him disqualified from being an MP and a by-election in an extremely marginal Labour-Liberal Democrat contest, says Mark Pack.
Libdem blogger Nick Thornby will be covering the case on his blog after getting media accreditation.
Last month the Telegraph reported more details from Phil Woolas’ campaign.
His team allegedly hoped that by exploiting the racial divide in Oldham, the scene of race riots in 2001, they would “bring out the white Sun-reading vote”. The incendiary remark was made in an email allegedly written by Steven Green, Mr Woolas’s campaign adviser, which is contained in court papers seen by The Daily Telegraph.
The MP’s election agent, Joseph Fitzpatrick, allegedly sent an email in the run-up to the poll saying: “We need … to explain to the white community how the Asians will take him [Woolas] out … If we don’t get the white vote angry he’s gone.”
Woolas eventually won the seat by 103 votes. It is the first time in nearly a hundred years such a case is going to court.
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