James purnell

While we’re on the subject of the Labour leadership, it’s worth reading James Purnell’s article in the Times today.  I know, I know – he’s left Parliament now.  But Purnell is close to Team Miliband (the Elder), so I imagine some of his thinking might show up in the campaign.  In which case… One thing that jumped out at me was Purnell’s attitude to the coalition government.  Sure, he attacks it as “only symbolically progressive,” but he doesn’t dismiss it out of hand.  Indeed, he even suggests that coalition might be a good thing: “Gently, too — we should give credit to Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg for the way

The Tories Unite strategy has been so effective, even Peter Mandelson is peddling it. Led by Mandelson, Labour’s isolated right has questioned Unite’s influence over candidate selection. James Purnell’s preferred successor, Jonny Reynolds, was omitted from the Stalybridge and Hyde shortlist, compiled by the NEC, which has two Unite members on its board. Mandelson and Purnell have urged Downing Street to reopen the race. For its part, Unite responded. One of its preferred candidates for the seat, Glyn Ford, who failed to make the cut, demanded a right to appeal also. The Tories’ must be ecstatic. Their strategy, initially conceived to nullify the Ashcroft scandal, is paying unimagined dividends. Brigades

What is it about the Blairite passion for abstract nouns? I ask, not out of facetiousness, but because I want to know what they mean by loose terms such as ‘empowerment’. David Miliband joins James Purnell among the progressive left’s thinkers who are reimagining the relationship between state and citizen, and he gave a concept heavy, substance light speech to Demos this afternoon. I’ve read it a couple of times and can’t get my head round it. Peering through the glass darkly, the central concept is attractive: Miliband wants to give more power to the people. Some valid policies season his argument. For instance, the 1 week cancer pledge would

The news that James Purnell is to stand down is a shock. It is clear that Purnell was disenchanted with Brown’s continued leadership and with the direction in which the Labour party was heading. Purnell was marginalised in parliament and his much vaunted alliance with John Cruddas came to nothing. Plainly, he believes that he can exert more influence outside the parliamentary Labour party than within it. The Tories stole the limelight this week with their commitment to public sector co-operatives; Purnell’s response fell flat, caught in the contradictory statist language that even the most uber-Blairites cannot escape. Purnell’s journey into the wilderness is the firmest evidence that the Conservatives

What intrigues me most about the Cruddas/Purnell axis is their commitment to faith in public life. Many politicians discuss faith carefully and define its role in society as essentially passive – remember David Cameron’s recent interview with the Evening Standard. Cruddas and Purnell envisage faith and the civic mutualism it engenders as an active ingredient to renew both party and country. Writing in the Guardian earlier this week, Purnell wrote: ‘The Labour movement was built upon organisation, the practices of reciprocity and mutuality that, if successful, led to a shared responsibility for one another’s fate… There are deep conservative elements in the Labour tradition, and we should honour them –

Ok, ok, I get the message: you CoffeeHousers don’t much care for James Purnell.  But this exchange between him and Nick Robinson, to be aired on Radio 4 later, is still worth a read: “I asked James Purnell how you could get radical policies past a reluctant prime minister. Here’s his reply: James Purnell: The other thing that you could do is outflank and No 10, by trying to be more radical…you could just unilaterally go out and commission someone to review the system for you, and then the prime minister would be left with the choice of either firing you or pretending that they were into that idea all