The politics of handbags and Thatcher
In the Sunday Times Style magazine (natch) this week there was an article on girls buying the ‘right’ handbags. The sub head read “If you want to belong in the playground, you got to have the right arm candy”.
Children as young as eight want to the right bag and each tribe has their own make. They copy their celebrity heroes of course. 14 year old Eliza Clarke says “It’s funny. I stand much more proudly; I feel older”. Longchamp reflects her ‘personality’ and makes here feel ‘confident’.
So what’s this got to do with progressive politics?
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The super-injunction Hemming was to break?
Today at 5pm, some Westminster reporters said John Hemming MP was about to reveal and break a super-injunction.
But John Hemming had barely got started when he was cut short by Speaker John Bercow and told they would discuss the issue in “private”.
Was this the case? (via @loveandgarbage):
Last week a heavily pregnant woman, whose name is known to millions but whom I am forbidden by law to identify, was summoned to the High Court at very short notice to show why she should not be imprisoned. The charges against her, brought by a local authority I cannot name, were that she might or might not have been in breach of a court order restraining her freedom to speak about a matter which, again, I am prohibited from identifying.
One of these charges was that she attended a meeting, held last month in Westminster Hall, of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on family protection issues, at the invitation of John Hemming MP. He has been campaigning for greater justice and transparency in our highly secretive family protection system, on behalf of families torn apart by social workers for what appear to be no good reasons.
Hemming was also told by lawyers not to raise the case in Parliament.
Mr Hemming replied to the lawyers saying they were “clearly seeking to influence what I say in Parliament. The case already has aspects which are in contempt of Parliament”.
Perhaps Mr Hemming will get another chance to raise the issue in Parliament.
Update: The Indy also has more on this story:
During the meeting, the woman, who was in the audience, spoke about her own experience, referring to a council and a social worker by name. Two weeks later, she received a summons to appear at the Royal Courts of Justice.
The message implied that she faced prison, though she learnt when she arrived in court that the council was not seeking to have her locked up. In the meantime, she had consulted a solicitor and engaged a barrister, leaving her with a legal bill of around £10,000
Update 2: John Hemming MP names the defendant and Doncaster council on his blog.
He has also left a comment below.
Lansley blames snow for NHS waiting times!
This is just staggering.
Last week we highlighted how the report from King’s Fund last week showed rising NHS waiting times.
Today Health Secretary Andrew Lansley was asked about those rising figures.
He said:
Waiting times in the NHS are stable. For patients who are admitted to the NHS, an average of nine weeks’ waiting time. For patients who are outpatients, three and a half weeks. I think people in the NHS might reasonably say that to choose February 2011, in the immediate wake of a severe winter, with the largest snow outbreak since 1999 – with critical care beds being occupied meaning that patients for elective operations could not be admitted – was not a fair comparison to be made.
Is there any other Tory front-bencher who is still left to blame the snow for their troubles?
The graph clearly shows that waiting times were rising before the month of February.
via the Guardian’s NHS Reforms blog.
How bad could it get for George Osborne tomorrow?
Tomorrow morning the first estimate of GDP growth for the first quarter of 2011 will be released. Given that this will doubtless be accompanied by a blizzard of claims and counter-claims, it makes sense to start thinking about this number now and considering what would be a good result and what would be a cause for concern.
The important thing to remember is that this number will only tell us how the economy performed in January, February and March, i.e. after the VAT rise but before the impact of most of the cuts, which began in April.
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Did Chris Grayling break code by awarding contract to Tory donor?
Labour MP John Robertson has today written to David Cameron and the Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office – Sir Gus O’Donnell – concerning potentially seven breaches of the Ministerial Code by minister Chris Grayling MP over awarding of new contracts.
There is concern over his connections with one of the companies that was awarded the largest amount of contracts at the expense of a local Glasgow charity.
Employment minister Chris Grayling MP announced this month which firms were to get contracts to help the unemployed to find work.
The biggest winner of contracts was Deloitte Ingeus, who received a maximum seven of the 40 contracts on offer in 18 regions of the UK. One of these regions was Glasgow, where Deloitte Ingeus was awarded at the expense of a local charity: the Wise Group.
Deloitte, which owns 50% of the Deloitte Ingeus company, donated in kind over £27,000 to the office of Christopher Graylings in October 2009, whilst he was Shadow Secretary of State for DWP.
At the time, Deloitte was calling for prime contracts to go to large companies instead of voluntary groups due to their ability to borrow more money.
In June last year The Wise Group was short-listed for a national award by thwe DWP that recognised the quality of service it employs to help get people into work.
Last week, Care UK landed a £53million NHS contract in the North East, the same company who’s senior executive John Nash donated £21,000 to Andrew Lansley’s office before the election.
Update: the statement from John Robertson MP says:
It does seem odd that the same year that Mr Grayling received these payment the company that went onto win the largest contract was calling for these very contracts to go to large companies like themselves. This could just be coincidence but Mr Grayling should have taken himself out of the whole process to avoid any chance that this could be a breach of Ministerial Code.
To be honest, this whole process stinks. If we were talking about another country where a private company was bidding for a government contract after making such large donations to the Minister responsible for making the decision we would be questioning the veracity of the outcome. I don’t see why Mr Grayling simply didn’t refer this part of his brief to another minister.
…
Unless there is an inquiry into why he didn’t defer this to another Ministerial colleague, and into the whole decision making process of how and who awarded these contracts and the level at which Mr Grayling’s office played in the formulation and development of this policy when he was in opposition, then the general public will believe that the Big Society really stands for the Big Stitch up.It is clear that at some stage the ability of bidders to be judged on their ability shifted to not just price but also size of the bidding company, and I am concerned about the effect that the awarding of contracts for such an important scheme could have on my constituents and other colleagues in Glasgow if the prime contractor was not picked on its ability alone.
The letter of complaint has now been published on Labour List.
The hole at the heart of Blue Labour and Red Toryism
Red Tory Philip Blond is an acknowledged influence on David Cameron while Ed Miliband, The Guardian revealed on Friday, will soon make a speech responding to the ideas of Blue Labour guru Maurice Glasman.
Beyond this shared influence on their respective party leaders, there is also considerable overlap in their outlooks. But they also share one glaring problem.
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What is Nick Clegg trying to say about Cameron?
I tend to agree with Sunny and others that the Clegg’s attack on the top Tories is synthetic. It’ll be kiss and make up on May 6th; there isn’t anywhere else for the LibDems to go now, and I’m doubtful that the Tories will want to jettison them just yet.
What’s more interesting is the way Clegg chooses to describe Cameron and co, synthetically or not. In calling them a ‘right wing clique’, I think he may giving away more than he knows about his experience of dealing with the Cameronian inner circle.
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Libdems realise what happens when you lie down with Tories
Nick Clegg is a bit angry with the Tories over social mobility. Chris Huhne is a bit angry with them over AV referendum lies.
This has led Jackie Ashley at the Guardian and Tim Montgomerie at ConHome to speculate there may be an early election. This is highly unlikely but it could have other consequences.
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One of Labour’s thousands of grassroots warriors
I have had a gloriously chilled Easter. I haven’t written a blog post, haven’t answered any last minute calls for radio interviews or freelance articles.
I have done no less than frolic. I have taken my children to make beautiful, magical, childhood dreams. Splashing in swimming pools and running through fountains that sparkle in the rare Easter sunshine. I only had one job that was too urgent to leave.
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Libdems could have no women MPs at election
A General Election in 2011 is no longer unthinkable, argues Jackie Ashley in The Guardian. Few LibDems would relish the prospect.
But how many realise that, if such an election took place, they would face a serious risk of ending up with no women MPs at all?
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