Tag Archives: Labour Party

A hard task — spreading gloom in the sunshine

Tom Baldwin

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The dispiriting job of the Opposition spokesman — to spread alarm and despondency at all times

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Sunday blessed the people of London with a lovely Spring morning :  bright sunshine, beautiful blossom, more daffodils that you could count, a gentle breeze and everywhere in a certain park the sounds of Spring … and “the gasping sobs of middle-aged men as they tried to retrieve the high-speed cross-court passing shots of their younger, fitter wives”.

Continue reading A hard task — spreading gloom in the sunshine

Now, about this ‘alternative’ …

London's burning

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If this hypocritical silence is the best ‘alternative’ The Labour Party can come up with, it will be in opposition for years.

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In his article this week
, Boris derides Labour’s ‘alternative’ to bringing the British economy back to a state of fiscal sanity :  attacks on Fortnum’s and the Ritz and the setting of bonfires, all to be controlled — as best they can — by 4,500 policemen at tax-payers’ expense.  Having paid close attention to Ed Miliband’s speech, he concludes that the ‘alternative’ amounts to “two-thirds of diddly-squat”.

Continue reading Now, about this ‘alternative’ …

The BBC Trust

“The extent to which the audience feels its trust betrayed … bodes ill for the BBC.  In the long term the loser will be public-service broad­casting itself ;  the winners the revengists of ‘old’ New Labour.”

Photo of Dr. Robert Frew

Dr Robert Frew reflects on the role of the BBC Trust

BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons has recently revealed he will not seek to be re-appointed in the role when his four-year term ends next May.

A few weeks ago, in a letter to Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Sir Michael said the Trust was robust, workable and effective … with much remaining to be done.  So what of the background that led to the formation of the BBC Trust and its future ?

Birth of the Trust

The BBC Trust replaced the BBC’s Board of Governors in January 2007.  The Government said it was intended to ensure an “unprecedented obligation to openness and transparency”.  But one of its first announcements was that the BBC Trust would review the corporation’s UK news coverage, which, whilst seeming even-handed to some, was seen by others as an insidious first step to totalitarianism :  more like a politburo’s flexing its muscles.

Back in the time of Sir John Birt, BBC Director-General (DG) from 1992 to 2000 (now Lord Birt and blue-sky thinker), decisions were made to shift ultimate editorial control from managing editors to the DG.  In retrospect one can only conjecture whether there was pressure from the Government at that time.  Yet, despite a bitter strike by journalists, the transfer of editorial control went ahead.

Continue reading The BBC Trust

Ski helmets have a lesson for us … on ‘localism’

schilaufer

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Boris Johnson rails against the centralization of power that has caused the cost of government to rise like a rocket, saying the sensible way forward is to simplify and devolve.

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In an article in The Daily Telegraph Boris Johnson admits — despite the economic rigours the population generally is suffering — to going ski-ing.  He does claim in mitigation that it was a cut-price affair with, as he puts it, “home-made sandwiches for lunch, washed down with eau de robinet”.

It is not, he says, just that he loves ski-ing and is addicted to hurling himself down the slopes and that his children are quite keen.  A collateral purpose drove him to take this vacation :  journalistic research.

Continue reading Ski helmets have a lesson for us … on ‘localism’

Ed Miliband : same school ; different road

Ed (left) and David Miliband

Labour’s new leader looks like being under the thumb of the unions — harking back to the bad old days of the 1970s, says Boris Johnson.

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It is an unsettling fact that I went to the same school as the party leader.  Indeed, there are some people who have taken to complaining about this coincidence.  They say it is unacceptable in the 21st century that so much political power should be concentrated in the old boys of one educational establishment.  It is a sign, they say, that the country has failed to move on.

Both of us went to the same institution of ancient rituals and gorgeous brickwork, ideally situated by one of the nation’s most famous waterways and blessed with lush green spaces nearby.  It is a forcing-house of talent, where the offspring of privilege acquire that patina of good manners, the ever so slightly infuriating habit of putting people at their ease, together with that sense of entitlement that propels them to the top and marks them out ever after as Old Primroseans.

Continue reading Ed Miliband : same school ; different road

Quotes of the week …

… ending 25th. September 2010

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As he accepted the leadership of the British Labour Party at its annual conference Ed Miliband said —

“I get it and I understand the need to change.  I need to unify the party and I will.”

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Continue reading Quotes of the week …

Leadership of the New Labour Project

“I think you guys are going to get a majority of 40,” one veteran Labour adviser told me, and I did not disagree

There are all sorts of reasons for voting Tory this week. It is a chance to strike a blow against over-regulation and over-taxation and political correctness, and a chance to enact beautiful new ideas like National Citizens Service for 16-year-olds.

After the disastrous stewardship of Gordon Brown, the man best placed to rescue the New Labour project from Cleggmania and reassure the middle classes is Lord Mandelson

I’ll tell you what was going through the mind of the average Labour MP when Gordon Brown managed to stage one of the most spectacular political pratfalls since Neil Kinnock invited the world’s media to picture him walking along a beach with his wife and contrived to be knocked over by a wave. It was worse than Walter Mondale crying on television. It was as suicidal as Cicero being rude about Octavian.

When Gordon Brown went to Rochdale, and ended up making a direct personal attack on the character and motives of Labour’s core vote, Labour MPs weren’t thinking how to rescue the situation. They were thinking it was the end.

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The Prime Minister’s Behaviour

With apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford, let’s have another little song thanks to Dungeekin[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIfu2A0ezq0[/youtube]

New Labour’s legacy is money and blood,
Under them this country has been dragged through the mud,
The damage began with Grinning Tone,
Now the PM’s weak and it’s all gone wrong,

Continue reading The Prime Minister’s Behaviour

Post-Avatar Gloom

I prophesy that in 10 years’ time the UK census will show more adherents of Eywa than there are of Jedi

Dear oh dear – as if there weren’t enough reasons for feeling low. Here we are in the middle of January with the Labour Party still in power, taxes about to go through the roof, the weather still miserable – and across the world people have apparently discovered a new and bizarre reason for being down in the dumps. It’s this film called Avatar, which I went to see at the weekend and which I would say delivers virtually everything a film-goer could possibly desire.

Just as the 3D, sci-fi epic teeters on the brink of becoming the biggest-grossing film of all time, some people are complaining of a terrible side-effect. It’s making them depressed, they say. It’s turning them as blue as the funny, helmet-nosed aliens that have enchanted us all.

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