Whistle-blowers are worth their weight in gold, though governments certainly don’t think so. Some of the most important things we’ve learnt about the nature of the societies we live in have come exclusively from whistle-blowers, without whose help the democratic holding of governments to account in critical areas of policy would have been impossible. The […]
Posts under ‘Westminster’
Whistleblowers do more to hold governments to account than parliaments
Feb 26th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.
MPs and second-jobbing
Feb 24th, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Didn’t they do well? Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw have done a blinder dragging Parliament’s reputation through the muck yet again. Fair play to The Telegraph too, who teamed up with C4 Dispatches to complete the sting. Fortuitous timing too, this has helped push the paper’s recent difficulties down the memory hole. Yet Rifkind and […]
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Jack Straw is “mortified” to have been caught but completely lacking in remorse
Feb 23rd, 2015 by Jon Lansman.A couple of terms in student politics after Uni, local councillor before that was even over, another couple of years doing something outside politics, candidate in an unwinnable seat, few years as a SpAd, couple of years in the media and then into parliament. He was a model for so many New Labour wannabes to come. […]
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So how did a left-winger get to be chair of the parliamentary Labour party?
Feb 10th, 2015 by Jon Lansman.John Cryer, left-wing MP for Leyton & Wanstead, was last might declared elected as the new Chair of the parliamentary Labour party. Unanimously. Well, unopposed really. In spite of the fact that he is a member of the Campaign Group of MPs – indeed the son of two former Campaign Group MPs (Bob Cryer, MP for Keighley […]
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Four austerity parties, what is to be done?
Jan 15th, 2015 by Trevor Fisher.The Election in May will be the first since 1929 when there will be no clear two party choice. While the rise of UKIP and the SNP affect the Labour Party in different ways, there is an underlying consensus in England and Wales, that the four main parties likely to get seats will be pro-austerity […]
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A Con-Lab coalition would be the nuclear option – mutually assured destruction
Jan 7th, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.With the polls bouncing all over the place and only a few daft enough to make predictions about the general election, there’s a lot of coalition talk doing the rounds. The SNP and Greens – wisely – have ruled out any arrangement with the Conservatives. And Farage has ruled out a deal with Labour (thanks […]
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Seven predictions for British politics in 2015
Jan 1st, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Seems like an opportune time to channel my inner Nostradamus. “Serious” political commentators as a rule fight shy of making hard and fast predictions because one’s liable to get shown up, especially as the 2015 election will be a close-run affair with all kinds of political insurgents set to skew the result this way that […]
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Tories buy election
Dec 17th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Democracy is a great system, except that those in power do their uttermost to subvert it, circumvent it, and twist it to their own ends, and quite often succeed. Take the current state of play between the parties in Britain. In March this year the Electoral Commission recommended there should be no increase in spending […]
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The real chill in the Autumn statement
Dec 7th, 2014 by Dave Watson.A budget package in December may not be Autumn, but it certainly had a real chill for those least able to afford its consequences. This was a classic Osborne budget statement. Massive real cuts, sugar coated by handing back a few pennies in the form of announcements on the NHS and infrastructure. Yes, Scotland will […]
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Osborne checkmated by his own austerity
Dec 3rd, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Politics has a curious way of coming back to haunt politicians in a way they never intended or expected. Osborne is a case in point. The whole thrust of his austerity strategy, as he repeatedly told us, was to eliminate the structural deficit in this Parliament. On that basis he predicted in 2010 that the […]
