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.
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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.
Why would Tories come out to support David Miliband?
Christopher Cook of the FT thinks I’m implying Conservatives are lying when I say Labourites should be careful of who they are publicly ‘worried about’ from the Labour leadership contenders.
That is a misreading of where I’m coming from, and partially in response to Soho Politico, I’ll explain why this is worth explaining.
I’ve said before I think David Miliband is a highly intelligent and capable Labour MP. I just don’t think he should be Labour leader for various reasons.
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When will London’s new cycles reach suburbs?
It is so hard keeping track of the cycling budget. We know that (up to now) whatever is claimed in Mayoral press releases from Boris is different to what has actually been spent.
It does feel like there has been a big expansion under this Mayor, but the reality is that in the first two years he spent around £8m less than the previous Mayor promised.
Much of that is because of delays in setting up the cycle hire and superhighways which the Green group had agreed with the previous Mayor as part of our budget deal.
Much of the gap between Ken’s planned expenditure and Boris delivery is explained by the cancellation of the LCN+. This was a big strategic scheme led by the boroughs to establish a linked up series of cycle lanes and facilities all across London.
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Unite deputy: let’s not repeat ‘mistakes’ of 80s
Mr Bayliss, assistant general secretary of Britain’s biggest union Unite, called at the TUC Congress yesterday for unions to re-think massive public sector strikes.
He said:
Public sector strikes will only deprive the vulnerable of services the Tories want to cut. We’ll be doing the bad guy’s job for him. Strikes will also turn the real victims, our members, into the villains.
The story will get changed from government savagery to union militancy. The Tories will hit us with even more restrictive laws and working people will look away in disgust.
He also cautioned Unite’s 1.6m members against repeating the mistakes of the 1980s and being dragged into battles they could not win.
He said the 12-day strike by British Airways cabin crew during Christmas was a mistake.
They had a good case — but the public and many of our members were so horrified they lost sympathy.
If I am general secretary of Unite there will never be any strikes called over Christmas.
I probably agree with him on both. I think mass demonstrations and other action might work better than strikes to fight the cuts.
Why attempts to arrest the Pope were justified
contribution by Adam Wilcox
Back in July I argued that the proposed arrest of the Pope was legal, had precedence and morally the right thing to do. Thanks to the cowardice Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, arrest does not seem likely.
Sadly the ‘Pope’ condoms and abortion clinic visits proposed in the the “blue-sky thinking” [Foreign Office memo] are not going to happen either.
Still, it is worth addressing some of the comments raised by the original post, and give the reasons why this is a cause liberals should care about.
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How the BBC manufactures ignorance on climate change
contribution by Hengist McStone
In ”Manufacturing Consent” Noam Chomsky laments that the attention span of television news reporting is so short that only conventional thoughts can be expressed. He calls it ‘concision’.
Global warming advocates are particularly susceptible to concision because of all the uncertainties and unravelling decades of misinformation.
The narrative goes that the scientists present a dire prediction then the skeptical mass media ask how bleak? When the scientists express uncertainty the media move on. The effect is one of uncertain scientists rather than the bleak outlook.
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Local councillors deserve more power and resources
contribution by Jason Kitcat
The UK, in my experience, is unique in how little resources, freedom and profile our municipal government receives. Control is notoriously centralised in London, though now with some devolution for the nations other than England.
All the parties talk of ‘localism’, ‘decentralisation’ or ‘subsidiarity’, but will the coalition government deliver any of that?
In reality UK local authorities have scant ability to make any major changes in direction. The vast majority of their funds are hand-outs from national government, over which they have no control. The incomes they can control are charges such as for parking and council tax.
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Daily Mail has fun with George Osborne
Are Daily Mail journalists getting a bit annoyed with our Chancellor?
Perhaps it’s just the picture desk.
Here’s a picture yesterday of Osborne from one Daily Mail article. (which hasn’t been corrected yet).
That’s not an optical illusion is it?
Hat-tip James Bloodworth
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