By Tim Montgomerie Last Friday Paul Goodman wrote about Conservative HQ's "summer of scrutiny into Labour's legacy" that never was. He accused CCHQ of "disarming unilaterally". One man who cannot be accused of disarming is welfare minister, Chris Grayling. Throughout the summer he has been exposing Labour's failure on jobs and benefits. In today's Sun […]
By Tim Montgomerie A poll by YouGov for The Sunday Times (£) produces the surprise result that Ed Miliband might be nosing ahead of his older brother in the race to be Labour leader. Once second preference votes are taken into account Ed beats David Miliband by 51% to 49%. The Shadow Energy and Climate […]
By Jonathan Isaby On Wednesday night Paul wrote about Channel Four's Labour leadership hustings and concisely concluded what each of the candidates was about. This morning Adam Boulton of Sky News hosted a full hour and a half's debate between the quintet. None of them said anything particularly surprising or unexpected – lots of soundbites […]
By Jonathan Isaby Last week we had the GMB General Secretary Paul Kenny threatening to withdraw funding from Labour if David Miliband is elected leader, over his younger brother, who his union has endorsed. Today it is the turn of Unison boss Dave Prentis to set out how his union intends holding the Labour Party […]
By Paul Goodman Brown looks set to stay in the Commons. He'll apparently contribute to the debate on the AV referendum bill when the Commons resumes business on Monday. Rather than holding back to await an uncontentious slot – an adjournment debate, say, on international development, during which he'd be heard with respect – he's […]
By Jonathan Isaby Today's Scotsman reports that Gordon Brown will make a "full parliamentary comeback" when the Commons returns from it summer recess next Monday. The paper explains: "The return comes after the Labour whips office made it clear that there "should be no exceptions" on Monday and all Labour MPs should be present for […]
By Jonathan Isaby The Guardian website carries news this afternoon of Gordon Brown's intentions for the immediate future. He has set up an "Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown" to co-ordinate his work, signed up with Washington Speeches Bureau "in order to fund the salaries of his staff" and acquired three new roles: Convenor of […]
By Paul Goodman When I heard Tony Blair make the following remark in his Marr interview, I felt as though a glass of cold water had been thrown over my face – "It is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. I think we've got to be prepared to confront them … if necessarily, […]
By Jonathan Isaby Tim noted on Sunday that it will not be easy for Boris Johnson to win a second term as London Mayor, not least because the election will come in May 2012 at a time when the Coalition Government's cuts are biting and anyone donning a blue rosette is liable to suffer the […]
By Paul Goodman There've been very many Labour leadership debates over this long summer. Few have followed them in detail. This evening's one, hosted by Channel 4, may have been different: after all, Labour members' ballot papers are currently arriving in the post. I watched it with three questions in mind. What was each candidate […]
By Jonathan Isaby BBC2 has just aired Andrew Marr's full one-hour interview with Tony Blair to coincide with the publication of his memoirs. Here are the highlights of the interview, as excised from a BBC transcription of the programme: On the alleged deal with Brown in 1994 over the Labour leadership BLAIR: Ah, well, it […]
By Paul Goodman It's Blairmania out there this morning. As I wrote earlier, his memoirs, "A Journey" are being probed and pored over – or rather, gutted like a mackerel by hordes of hacks. The ever-toiling Andy Sparrow is running a live blog at the Guardian. In the meanwhile, Ed Howker has pulled some interesting […]
By Paul Goodman Tony Blair's memoirs, "A Journey", will today be probed and pored over by people looking for stories. Blair has trailed them by giving an interview to this morning's Guardian, which has also provided a summary of the book's main contents, itself described earlier today by Jonathan. However, there's a story that the […]
Tony Blair's memoirs were only published at 8am this morning and whilst most of the papers carry stories based on excerpts which have apparently been circulating, there is no serialisation and only the Guardian appears to have secured an interview with the former Prime Minster himself (Andrew Marr's interview recorded in the last few days […]
By Tim Montgomerie The future of universal benefits may become one of the defining battles of this Parliament. I haven't established David Miliband's position on the future of the £53bn of welfare payments that go to all people, regardless of income, but I should imagine that it will be similar to the one set out […]