Gordon Brown, if you are about to pick up today’s New Statesman, I advise you to put it down, return to the sofa and start re-watching those Raith Rovers tapes. In it, Frank Field writes that Harriet Harman offers Labour a sense of direction that Gordon Brown’s government, which is simply drifting towards ‘the most
Attentive readers of Flashman will know that General Elphinstone and William Macnaghten met a dire end because they didn’t bribe the Ameers. President Karzai’s use of corruption to ensure victory has copped flak because it is seen to further destabilise Afghanistan. Fellow Presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani adds his criticism in a piece in the Times:
Aside from the irony that ministers think they can nail General Dannatt over his Civil List expenses, I can’t see how the government can benefit from smearing Sir Richard, assuming they placed the FOI request. (Although to be honest, I can’t see why anyone other than these defence ministers would seek to damage Dannatt.) Friends
The day before A-level results are published, the Telegraph and the Independent report that traditional academic subjects, such as maths, physics and history are not being offered by a large minority of state schools. Here are the details: ‘Around one in seven schools – 264 in total – did not enter any pupils for A-level
Both the Standard’s original report and Bromley Council’s clarification suggested that giving assistance to fee-paying parents has been discussed because state schools in the area are becoming oversubscribed. Yet, Bromley Council informed me that state schools in the area were not oversubscribed and that the Council reviewed that issue frequently. So, if the Council were
Quiet day in Westminster, thought you might enjoy this:
To prolong the success of #welovethenhs, Andy Burnham wrote David Cameron a letter yesterday which was so absurd it read like a Private Eye spoof. And today, Burnham is still trying to keep the pressure on the Tories and missing his target. He writes in the Guardian that Tories intend to turn ‘Britain’s best loved
Perhaps it was the barnstorming success of #welovethenhs, or the opportunity to create another Tsar, but Douglas Alexander has appointed Kerry McCarthy MP as ‘Labour’s Twitter Tsar’ ahead of the next election. In an interview with Labour List, McCarthy says she wants to emphasise that, “Rather than being something completely new, campaigning using new media
This PoliticsHome poll about ‘progressiveness’ hasn’t been picked up much, but it makes dreadful reading for the government. The Tories and Lib Dems were tied first for the prize of being considered the most progressive party. A mere 12% thought that Labour was the most progressive party, and they finished fourth behind the Greens. It’s
One upshot of George Osborne’s and Alistair Darling’s attacks on city bonuses was that the FSA had not gone far enough in trying to curb excessive reward. This morning, the left leaning think-tank Compass and Vince Cable have joined the debate. They suggest that there be a ‘High Pay Commission’, to examine wage ratios within
Despite Cameron’s recent announcements on the issue, there’s still quite a few frustrating question marks over how they’ll go about demolishing the quangocracy. One attractive is turning quangos into angos – making them autonomous by introducing market principles and ensuring that organisations operate profitably and efficiently. To a certain, limited extent, this process is already
Daniel Hannan appeared on Fox News again, this time with Sean Hannity. I do not agree with Hannan’s assessment of the NHS, but I do think that this affair has been overblown. Hannan is not presenting a straight choice between the US and the UK models; that division has arisen through Fox News’ presentation of what Hannan
Poor old Alan Duncan might have to survive on emergency rations. The Guardian reports that David Cameron is planning to cut ministerial pay if the Tories win the next election. Here are the details: ‘David Cameron is planning to make his ministers take significant salary cuts if he forms the next government, senior sources have
Nadine Dorries has broken her holiday to argue that the fallout from the expenses scandal will alter the make-up of Parliament for the worse: ‘The new pernicious rule for MPs to declare hours spent on outside interests will prevent the multi-skilled, clever, articulate, learned individuals who are, by their own obvious track record of achievement,
‘Kindly pussycat’? ‘Minister for fun’? ‘A benign uncle?’ This was how Lord Mandelson described himself in that pantomime of an interview with the Guardian earlier this week. But this morning, the Prince of Darkness returned. Perhaps running the government for three days maligned the would-be Widow Twanky of Monday, but it is more likely that
Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4’s Helmand correspondent asked local Police Chief, Colonel Asadullah Shirzard, if the police were sufficiently free from corruption to manage the forthcoming election. The corpulent Colonel declaimed: “We have eradicated corruption in our police force!” This is a seminal moment. Rudy Giuliani couldn’t do it, Sir Ian Blair failed, though that’s no
Michael Ancram is standing down at the next election on grounds of ill-health, you can read his resignation statement here. Former leadership candidate Ancram was embroiled in the expenses scandal, claiming £98.58 on swimming pool repairs and more than £4,250 in one year on cleaning and maintaining his second home. According to the Telegraph, he
It seems Hillary Clinton is smarting from her husband’s Korean coup. Exhibit A: her Q&A session with Congolese students yesterday, where her translator relayed this question: “Mrs Clinton, we’ve all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the
Following Alan Johnson’s and David Miliband’s denial of British collusion in torture, Sir John Scarlett, the head of MI6, has inadvertently added a further denial. In a Radio 4 interview, recorded prior to the publication of Johnson’s and Miliband’s joint article, and which will be broadcast this morning, Sir John asserted that there has been
On Wednesday, the Downing Street press office confirmed with us that there was a timetable for ministers to stand-in for Gordon Brown. They said that Harriet Harman was in the job this week and last and that Lord Mandelson would begin “next week”. Today it’s emerged that Harman’s stint has ended prematurely, and that she’s
