Gordon brown

I’d assumed the left was dead, but Mehdi Hasan says otherwise. The left is triumphant. Whilst Hasan defines left with abstractions like ‘progressive’ and ‘empowerment’, I prefer something more concrete. Unionism is triumphant. With New Labour in rigor mortis, the Unions slipped their moorings and struck out for old havens. Whelan, Crow, Simpson and Woodley are fixated on disruption. Crow will close the railways next Friday, the BA cabin crew suicide pact is now all but signed in blood, and thousands of civil servants will exchange the pen for the sword. Certainly, the members have grievances, but who doesn’t? Britain is emerging from the deepest recession since 1929 with a

Nick Clegg has a blue rose in his mouth in tomorrow’s Spectator, serenading readers – and showing his hidden Tory side. I have to say, he puts his heart into it. Not only does the Lib Dem leader say he’ll end the structural deficit with 100 percent spending cuts (not the 20 percent tax rises, 80 percent cuts combo that the Tories advocate), but he even heaps praise in Lady Thatcher. More, he describes her as something of an inspiration: just as she took on vested interests in the 1980s, so he will take on the banks now.   Personally, I can’t quite see the equivalence – and Clegg as

It seems there must be discussion about a potential European Monetary Fund, and an organisation to manage Europe’s economies that circumvents Maastricht, to avert future fiscal crises. So much for Lisbon, the treaty to end all treaties. Quite why no one, especially the treaty’s opponents, acknowledged the possibility of a member state’s financial collapse whilst Lisbon was being ratified during the recession is a mystery. However, all that is past. The question for the future is will there be a referendum this time round? Adrian Michaels, rightly, point out that the Tories’ eurowars are likely to be renewed at the most inopportune time for Cameron. But Cameron will offer a

So, the government is tying the taxpayer to £11bn of new IT contracts before the election, making the Tories’ planned immediate IT cuts very expensive. Is this latest example of a scorched earth policy? Or Labour ‘getting on with the job’? With the polls narrowing, I can’t see Labour setting a fiscal booby-trap that they could well have to de-fuse. But there’s the rub. Brown scorches the turf beneath his feet as he governs: he cannot stop spending money. An £11bn bender is irresponsible in this climate, plus Labour has a baleful record on IT contracts. It has bungled a staggering £26bn on flawed IT systems, many of which were

To be honest, the leg-flashing that the Lib Dems are doing in front of the Tories and Labour just doesn’t really grab my attention.  Their overtures and innuendo may, or may not, turn out to be significant in a few weeks time – but we need a general election before we can judge either way.  In the meantime, they’d be best off keeping their positioning to themselves, and getting on with an election campaign for which they actually have some fairly attractive policies. This story, though, is worth noting down.  Apparently, in the event of a hung Parliament, Nick Clegg just couldn’t bring himself to work with Gordon Brown.  Labour,

Yesterday, Gordon Brown argued that he curbed defence spending to prevent the public finances from spiralling out of control – but added that he had still given the MoD everything they had asked for.  So, when it’s anything but defence spending, he boasts of all that extra “investment”.  But when it comes to defence, he suddenly grows a fiscal conscience, of sorts.  If we weren’t talking about our country’s ability to fight two wars, there’d be something crudely hilarious about it all. Today, various defence figures have rounded on Brown; arguing, rightly, that his tractor statistics avoided the fundamental point – that, despite increases in the defence budget, the military

I just took a quick stroll around the block from Old Queen St, to check out the situation on the ground outside the Chilcot Inquiry.  The most striking thing is how few protestors there are – about ten at most, I’d say, and a fraction of the number that marched out against Blair a few weeks ago.  Brown doesn’t even make one placard’s list of – and I quote – “Lying R. Soles,” which includes Blair, Campbell, Straw and Goldsmith. It’s all rather suggestive of how Brown has managed, over the years, to separate himself from those who made the political and moral case for war.  But there lies the

One of the refrains made in response to the recent spate of opinion polls is that they don’t really capture what’s going on in the marginals – the real battlgrounds where the election will be fought.  Well, now we have a YouGov/Channel 4 poll which specifically covers 60 key marginal sets, and it provides more evidence that Labour are closing ground on the Tories.  Here are the headline figures, compared to the last marginals poll for Channel 4, a year ago: Conservatives — 39 (down 4) Labour — 37 (up 1) Lib Dems — 35 (up 2) And YouGov’s Peter Kellner provides a useful explanation of what they mean: “The

It’s worth noting Steve Richards’ point

The various parties involved in the televised leaders’ debate have finally come to an agreement on how they will work.  You can read full details here, courtesy of Sky.  But the main points are: i) Topics and locations. The first debate will be hosted by ITV’s Alastair Stewart, in Manchester, and will cover domestic affairs.  The second will be Sky’s Adam Boulton, in Bristol, and will cover foreign policy.  And the third will be the Beeb’s David Dimbleby, in Birmingham, on the economy. ii) Structure. The rather rigid structure of each programme will be as follows: “Each leader will make an opening statement on the theme of the debate lasting