Bright's Blog
Politics uncovered by Martin Bright, New Statesman political editor
It's a New New Deal
- 1 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 08 January 2009
Gordon Brown invokes the spirit of FDR to promote his job creation programme. But is this the real thing, or classic political opportunism?
Everyone seems to be talking about the New Deal. The Prime Minister's Christmas book recommendation in the Guardian was FDR: the First Hundred Days, written by the Cambridge professor of American history Anthony J Badger. Gordon Brown let it be known, through an interview with the Observer, published on 4 January, that he was planning a job creation programme based on FDR's New Deal. Where Franklin Delano Roosevelt built roads [...]
A year of ups and downs
- 16 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 18 December 2008
What a difference a year made - and for no one more so than Gordon Brown, who earns five of my coveted parliamentary awards
The New Statesman doesn't do political awards. I've always thought it a shame to leave the field clear for Channel 4 and the Spectator, but I also recognise that parliamentarians are the last people on earth who need another boost to their egos. It is particularly difficult to pass judgement this year, as the political class (with a handful of exceptions) was miserably implicated in the failure to foresee the [...]
Mystic Mart
- 7 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 15 December 2008
I've just been re-reading my predications for 2008. How do you think I did?
I usually have a rule not to make political predictions but I made an exception for last year's Christmas issue:
The New Statesman does not employ an astrologer and the usual rule of thumb is that political predictions are as useful as a handful of homoeopathic sugar-pills. But this year we have been persuaded to indulge in journalistic crystal-ball gazing, because it looks set to be one heck [...]
The two-man show
- 9 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 11 December 2008
It can be hard to believe James Purnell and Ed Balls are in the same party. But they are hyperactive, talented and have their eye on a larger prize
As the recession nights of winter 2008 grow longer, thoughts in Westminster turn to parlour games to bring festive cheer in these dark times. The parts are already being cast, for example, in this year's political pantomime. Who'd have thought Speaker Martin would end up as the stage villain, booed and hissed from all sides of the stalls, or that Peter Mandelson would play Prince Charming, breathing life into the [...]
An abuse of power
- 8 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 04 December 2008
It is not the most important secrets that are leaked. But this government has a nasty habit of seeking the easy target - the whistleblower
Which breach of the public interest? AConservative Party image of the Met’s search of Damian Green’s Commons office
So why didn't the police go for David Davis? This is one of the questions hanging in the air after the arrests of the Tory immigration spokesman, Damian Green, and Christopher Galley, his Home Office source. After all, Davis was Green's boss when Galley first made contact in 2006. The former shadow home secretary and Tory leadership candidate has written: "Damian is among the most straightforward and honourable of people. [...]
The end of principle
- 34 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 01 December 2008
I was asked to speak at the conference of the New Labour evangelists Progress and found myself getting furious about the arrest of Damian Green
Green was arrested by police and then subject to several hours of interrogation
I had the pleasure of speaking at the final plenary session of the Progress conference yesterday. The subject of the discussion was “The End of Ideology: What’s the Left For?” and it was a lively debate. The other panellists were Charles Clarke, Hazel Blears, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber and writer and broadcaster Tristram Hunt, who were all very engaged and passionate about the future.
Here is my [...]
Darling holds his nerve
- 5 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 27 November 2008
The Chancellor's refusal to panic has won him respect, but his biggest test still lies ahead
As seen on TV: Darling is watched delivering his pre-Budget report to parliament on Monday
So the government has ripped up the new Labour rule-book with a return to redistributive taxation, nationalisation and work-creation schemes. The same spinners who once laid burnt offerings at the feet of the gods of the free market now sing the praises of state intervention.
In this world turned upside down, one government figure has been consistent in his reading of the situation. From the early summer, Alistair Darling has [...]
Speculation about speculation
- 0 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 25 November 2008
Rumours of a June election just won't go away. But who is talking up a 2009 poll?
Some interesting speculation from the Spectator's boy wonder, James Forsyth, about the Brownites pushing for a 2009 election.
Forsyth quotes from Anne McElvoy's front page story from Friday's Evening Standard. McElvoy reports a source from the Brown camp telling her: "He would be mad not to think about it."
Forsyth's theory is that the source is Geoffrey Robinson, the co-owner of this magazine, who is interviewed by [...]
Darling's Big Mini-Budget
- 8 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 24 November 2008
The quiet man gets the tone right for the statement of his political career
Prime Minister's Questions has been increasing in volume recently, making me think that parliament is already in election mode.
But even the most hostile recent Brown-Cameron exchanges were as nothing compared to the atmosphere surrounding this afternoon's pre-Budget report.
Alistair Darling began very low-key, almost sotto voce to early chortles about his claims that the government was "living within our means".
But the jeers began in earnest [...]
The travelling man
- 6 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 20 November 2008
Gordon Brown likes to portray himself as a chancellor for the world. But he cannot keep leaving these shores with an election looming
New best friends: Brown and Sarkozy at one of their many meetings, this time in Versailles in October.
During the Labour party conference in September, one big beast was doing the rounds of the parties with a plan for Gordon Brown. First, the Prime Minister should fall on his sword for the greater good of the party. It was then necessary, according to this former cabinet minister, for the party to find a role for Brown travelling the world, talking to international economic experts. "There is no one [...]
Who's after George?
- 7 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright and James Macintyre
- 20 November 2008
Is George Osborne "nerdy", "nasty" and "overpromoted", as his Conservative critics would have it, or the potential saviour of his party and a future leader? Special report
It is a mark of Osborne’s vulnerability that he is under attack from both wings of his party
Last December, when it looked as if Boris Johnson's mayoral campaign was in trouble, senior Tories were in despair. The media were accusing their candidate of laziness and lacking an appetite for the fight. Unable to take advantage of the obvious weaknesses in the Labour camp, the Tories were sleepwalking towards defeat. Enter George Osborne. Aides to the shadow chancellor and Conservative election supremo are said to have been astonished [...]
Sunday comment round-up -- 16 November 2008
- 1 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 16 November 2008
A good week for Gordon Brown but why is the commentariat still unconvinced?
With a colossus-like Gordon Brown still striding around the globe, tributes being paid by world leaders and nobel prize winners alike, it would only seem right that the Sunday political commentators hail the great unelected one.
But for some reason it isn't working out like that. The scale of the the Brown bounce depends on whether you believe the Independent on Sunday's ComeRes poll, which has the Tories 11 [...]
Recession blues
- 18 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 13 November 2008
Both Labour and Tories have yet to confront the realities of the downturn - least of the full horror of the return of mass unemployment. Martin Bright reports
Anyone who has ever experienced the misery of unemployment will have felt a chill on hearing this week's labour market statistics. It is a truth universally acknowledged that rates of alcoholism, drug abuse and depression rocket in times of recession. Joblessness has a devastating effect on people's health, physically and mentally, and the full social consequences of an economic crisis are felt in the criminal justice and education systems for [...]
Two elections a world apart
- 1 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 08 November 2008
The world was gripped by the election of Barack Obama, while the Glenrothes by-election demonstrated how parochial our own politics has become.
The comments of Trevor Phillips in this morning's Times about the difficulty Barack Obama would have encountered in the British political system are timely. His words chime with Hazel Blears's views on the UK political class earlier in the week.
There is no doubt that the British political system remains dominated by white middle class men (as indeed does the US system). There was the usual sense of righteous [...]
Leaders-in-waiting
- 6 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 06 November 2008
Whether they like it or not, Labour's senior figures still need to think about Gordon Brown's successor
Chuka Ummuna, the 30-year-old prospective Labour candidate for Streatham, is being talked up as Labour’s Barack Obama and the party’s next leader but one.
Future Labour leaders are like buses, sometimes you wait for ages without seeing one and all of a sudden three come at once.
This was the experience for the audience gathered in London on 3 November for a debate about the future of the Labour Party. Its doom-laden title was "After New Labour". The speakers included Harriet Harman, who won the party's deputy leadership election last year. Close friends [...]
