Category Archives: Labour Party

Too many Welsh

Posted on October 8, 2010 | 2 Comments
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The shadow cabinet election results, declared yesterday evening, have attracted much comment in Wales.  Eight Welsh MPs, all of them former ministers, three of them Privy Councillors and two of them  former cabinet members, stood for election, yet none was successful.

Asked to explain this on BBC Wales news, David Hanson, the MP for Delyn, opined that “there were far too many Welsh MPs standing for election, and that split the Welsh vote.”

He was echoed, almost word for word, on Newsnight by the former Welsh Secretary, Peter Hain.

To an outsider, this is a perplexing point of view, but one that gives an interesting insight into the tribal nature of Labour politics.

Precisely what would have been the right number of Welsh candidates?  Do Welsh Labour MPs have to vote for at least one Welsh candidate?  How many Welsh candidates would a Scottish or English Member feel comfortable supporting? 

And why, if they were of sufficient calibre, should not all the Welsh candidates have been elected?  It’s all very baffling to an outsider.

However, there is some cause for hope in Welsh Labour ranks.  In an announcement redolent of Carroll’s caucus race, Ed Miliband has confirmed that his shadow cabinet will indeed contain a Welsh member, despite none having been elected. 

Cause also for optimism, surely, on the part of Peter Hain, who was one of the first to declare his support for Miliband Minor’s candidacy.

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Posted in Labour Party

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In praise of Gillian Duffy

Posted on August 12, 2010 | 2 Comments

My sincere admiration goes to Gillian Duffy, the lifelong Labour supporter from Rochdale, whose trip to the shops last April to buy a loaf of bread turned into the defining moment of the 2010 general election campaign.

Given her very public humiliation at the hands of the leader of her party, who churlishly denounced her as a “bigoted woman”, she might have felt tempted, were she a lesser person, to tell Labour where to stick it.

Mrs Duffy, however, is made of sterner stuff, and yesterday was guest of honour at the opening of the offices of Simon Danczuk, Rochdale’s new Member of Parliament.

Gillian Duffy is a trooper who is clearly devoted to her party and prepared to put the past behind her to advance its cause.

One might be inclined to contrast her conduct with that of Gordon Brown, of whom little has been seen since May.

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Posted in general election, Gordon Brown, Labour Party

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Not Jack’s style

Posted on August 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

Less than three months after announcing his resignation from the Opposition front bench, Jack Straw has announced it again.

This time, however, he has also announced his intention to publish his memoirs, which he says he hopes will be “readable” and not “tedious or self-serving”.  I have no doubt that, being the sort of chap he is, he will succeed on both counts.

Jack has also made clear his distaste for the recently-published memoirs of Lord Mandelson (which I am presently reading with great interest):

“I don’t approve of people breaking confidences. It may sound very old-fashioned, but I don’t approve, for example, of the way Peter Mandelson has behaved and neither do quite a number of my colleagues.”

No, I shouldn’t have thought you would approve, Jack.  Not your style at all.

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Posted in Jack Straw, Labour Party, Peter Mandelson

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Typical

Posted on May 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

Typical; you wait years for a Miliband leadership challenge and then two turn up at the same time.

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Posted in David Miliband, Ed Miliband, Labour Party

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All change

Posted on May 10, 2010 | 1 Comment

A long first day back at Westminster, the most dramatic event of which was the announcement by Gordon Brown of his intended resignation as Labour leader.  I wish I could find some suitable words of praise for him, or of regret at his departure, but I can’t.  Let’s leave it at that.

This evening, there was a meeting of the Parliamentary Conservative party in committee room 14, the biggest in the House.  It was so full that it could scarcely accommodate all the Members who turned up.  We are now a very big party indeed.

After the meeting, some of us adjourned to the smoking room (where smoking isn’t allowed, by the way).  That, too, was full of Tories.  It was particularly satisfying  to sit at an all-Welsh Conservative table.

This Parliament is going to be very different from the last.  The negotiations continuing among the three principal parties will determine its shape, if not necessarily its duration.

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Posted in Conservative Party, Gordon Brown, Labour Party, Parliament

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Better move on

Posted on May 8, 2010 | 2 Comments

The Sun’s front page this morning is a classic typical of that newspaper.

Next to a picture of Gordon Brown emerging from the famous black front door, it screams:

SQUATTER HOLED UP IN No 10

Man, 59, refuses to leave house in Downing Street.

The point is well made.  I know that, constitutionally, Brown is still Prime Minister.  I know, too, that he still harbours a legitimate, if rather desperate-looking, ambition to try to stay on and do a deal with the Lib Dems.

However, the fact remains that the Labour Party emphatically lost the general election.  For Brown to stay on in Downing Street and continue to enjoy the trappings of Prime Ministerial office is simply to rub the electorate’s nose in it.

Best for him to move out and await the outcome of negotiations.

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Posted in general election, Gordon Brown, Labour Party

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Thirteen years of Labour

Posted on May 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

In case you should need a reminder on polling day, this is the record of thirteen years of Labour:

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Posted in general election, Labour Party

Labour candidate tries honesty

Posted on May 5, 2010 | 5 Comments

Having spent the last four weeks fighting against the most dishonest Labour campaign I can remember (the Clwyd West Labour party brought out yet another disgracefully untruthful leaflet yesterday), I am encouraged to see that at least one Labour candidate has decided to try honesty this election.

This is what Manish Sood, candidate for Norfolk North West, has to say about the state of our country after thirteen years of Labour government:

“The loss of social values is the basic problem and this is not what the Labour party is about.

“I believe Gordon Brown has been the worst prime minister we have had in this country. It is a disgrace and he owes an apology to the people and the Queen…

“We really have to come down hard on the Labour party … and the prime minister really does have to wake up…

“We have to get back to basics where people can leave their money outside for the milkman without it being stolen.”

Douglas Alexander, Labour’s election coordinator, told the BBC that he understood Mr Sood’s constituency party “had been considering deselecting him for some time”.  A wee bit too late for that now, Dougie. 

I have no doubt that my friend Henry Bellingham, who is defending the seat for the Conservatives, will romp home tomorrow with a huge and increased majority.  But Mr Sood may retain the loyalty of a few diehard Labour voters relieved to have a local candidate who is possessed of sufficient backbone to stick two fingers up at his party’s rotten and deceitful election campaign machine. 

Labour will need more Manish Soods in the months and years to come.

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Posted in general election, Labour Party

Blast from the past

Posted on May 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Yesterday, I attended the last hustings of the campaign, this time an all-North Wales event hosted by the CBI at Bethesda.

The Liberal Democrats were represented by Bill Brereton, the former deputy chief constable of North Wales.   My friend and fellow Welsh select committee member, Hywel Williams, appeared for Plaid Cymru.

Labour were represented by Alun Pugh, the former Welsh Assembly member, who is, like Hywel, attempting to win the new Arfon seat.  I had not seen Mr Pugh since he lost his Assembly seat three years ago.  I was struck by how little he had changed, notwithstanding the changes that had taken place all about him.  Asked a question about whether we had too much government and too big a public sector in the UK, he replied that it was not possible to say what the optimum size of government was and that, all in all, there was a lot to be said for nationalisation. 

Furthermore, he didn’t seem to think that the scale of public sector pension liabilities was something to be over-worried about.  Needless to say, this went down like a lead balloon with the businesspeople present.

Mr Pugh seemed very out of sync with the Blairite, freeish-market third way vision and very much old, not to say prehistoric, Labour.  I have no doubt that if and when in-fighting breaks out within the Labour party after the election, Mr Pugh will be manning the barricades alongside the likes of Jon Cruddas.  A Miliband type he isn’t.

At the end of the meeting I sped off back to Clwyd West, bidding farewell to Hywel and assuring him that I would be delighted if he came second to the excellent Arfon Conservative candidate, Robin Millar.  A true gentleman, Hywel responded in similar terms.

Friendship is friendship; politics is politics.

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Posted in general election, Hywel Williams, Labour Party

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Say a prayer for Sue

Posted on April 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

From the back seat of a Jaguar, somewhere in Rochdale:

PM: That was a disaster. Should never have put me with that woman … whose idea was that?

Second voice: I don’t know, I didn’t see her.

PM: It’s Sue, I think. It’s just ridiculous. (Muffled sounds)

SV: What did she say?

PM: Ugh, everything – she’s just a sort of bigoted woman, said she used to be Labour. It’s just ridiculous.

Say a prayer for Sue tonight.

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Posted in Gordon Brown, Labour Party

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Labour: bile from the gutter

Posted on April 28, 2010 | 5 Comments

Attended the Colwyn Bay hustings last night, which was extremely well attended and very lively.

Returned home to see the Labour party’s latest election broadcast.  This informed us that the Conservatives will remove the right of cancer sufferers to see their specialist.

Labour’s election campaign, both nationally and locally, has been an utter disgrace.  But, with this broadcast, they have surpassed even themselves in the art of gutter politics. 

Presumably Gordon Brown didn’t authorise this, either.

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Posted in Gordon Brown, Labour Party

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Rural ride

Posted on April 28, 2010 | 1 Comment

As I have previously blogged, this election campaign’s weather has been almost unbelievably pleasant, making it a joy for us to journey through the notably beautiful Clwyd West landscape.

Yesterday was probably the finest we have had so far, with the Land Rover’s thermometer hovering just below 20°C.  We campaigned in Ruthin, followed by the villages of Llanbedr, Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr, Cerrigydrudion, Glasfryn and Pentrefoelas.  We then tracked back to Colwyn Bay across the Denbigh moors, stopping in Gwytherin en route.  It was a grand tour of matchless beauty.

There was, however, a touch of bleakness beneath the surface.  In Cerrigydrudion, the butcher’s shop had closed.  Petrol was retailing at 129.9p per litre.  There was a sign on the facade of the famous White Lion announcing that its tenancy was available.  The pub – the only one left in the village – had briefly closed, but was now apparently operated by a manager.

A man came up to me and asked if I could help revive the daily bus service, which had not operated for several months.  He couldn’t afford to run a car and was unable to find work because he was  now unable to travel out of the village.  He was, he said, very demoralised.

The rural areas of this country have been arguably even more severely affected than our towns and cities during this long, deep and bitter recession.  For many, life in the countryside is becoming progressively more difficult.  This has to change; but change is unlikely under a Labour government whose history, outlook and mindset are firmly and immutably urban.

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Posted in Clwyd West, economy, general election, Labour Party

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Way down

Posted on April 25, 2010 | 1 Comment

Seemingly, the entire blogosphere is bemused as to why Labour thought it a good idea to set up a photo-op for Gordon Brown with an Elvis impersonator yesterday.  The tweeted comment of the normally ultra-loyal  Kevin Maguire sums up the despair breaking out within Labour-supporting ranks:

Lab’s lucky to be 3rd after viewing film of Brown-Elvis horror show. Comical Ali’s lost it. As bad as backfiring Gene Hunt ad.

Maguire’s exasperation is given extra poignancy when one realises that the ersatz Elvis is singing The Wonder of You, the first stanza of which goes:

When no-one else can understand me
When everything I do is wrong
You give me love and consolation
You give me hope to carry on.

Not, I suspect, the sort of upbeat message the Labour spin machine was hoping to convey.

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Posted in general election, Gordon Brown, Labour Party

1 minute of Labour

Posted on April 25, 2010 | 3 Comments

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Posted in general election, Labour Party

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A good reason to get rid of Gordon

Posted on April 23, 2010 | 4 Comments

Ruthin hustings last night; very well attended, despite the competing political attraction in Bristol and the sporting one in Madrid.

The first question from the audience was about my Labour opponent’s election address and its allegation that the Conservatives will scrap free bus passes for pensioners: why, asked the questioner, was the candidate publishing something that was not true?

The candidate appeared very uncomfortable and mumbled something which amounted to considerably less than a denial that the document was a lie.  I said, for the umpteenth time during this campaign, that the leaflet was indeed untrue and that we will not only keep free bus passes, but also the winter fuel allowance and free TV licences for the over 75s.  I did not, I said, blame the Labour candidate particularly, but I did blame her party’s spin machine for peddling lies because it had nothing positive to say.

Meanwhile, in Bristol, something similar was happening.  In the Leaders’ debate, David Cameron took Gordon Brown to task over the lies, which have been published by Labour candidates up and down the country.  Cameron told Brown the he should not be resorting to frightening people in an election campaign and that he should be ashamed of himself.  Disgracefully, Brown’s only reply was  that he had not personally authorised the leaflets.

The exchange illustrates what a spineless, odious man Gordon Brown is.  He should have admitted immediately that the leaflets are lies and apologised unreservedly for them.  Instead, as ever, he sought to dodge personal responsibility and was happy to hang his candidates, including my hapless opponent in Clwyd West, out to dry.

The sooner our country ceases to be governed by this appalling individual, the better.

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Posted in Clwyd West, general election, Gordon Brown, Labour Party, Ruthin