Bright's Blog
Politics uncovered by Martin Bright, New Statesman political editor
The end of principle
- 15 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
- 7 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?
- 6 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
- 16 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 [...]
Why I'm on the outside
- 8 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 30 October 2008
Membership of the Labour Party is, improbably, once more increasing. But the party must change if it is to win back most of its lost members
Tony and Cherie Blair on holiday with the Italian prime minister and member of Europe's ultra-rich Silvio Berlusconi (far left), 2004.
Something very odd is happening. People have started joining the Labour Party again. It's a trickle rather than a torrent, but around 1,000 people a month are now being recruited. Although the trend in membership is still down, party officials are delighted that the rate of decline appears to be slowing. Many are lapsed members returning to the faith. There has been a decided upturn since the Labour party conference [...]
George and Mandy Go Wild on Corfu
- 5 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 23 October 2008
Sometimes its the incidental details of a scandal that are most revealing
John Stuart Mill once famously dubbed the Conservatives "The Stupid Party", but surely few Tories have ever been as stupid as George Osborne. Why on earth did he take on Mandelson while knowing what he did about his activities on and offshore in Corfu? It's almost as if he knew what he had done looked bad and, like a little boy who has done something naughty, was unconsciously desperate for [...]
Here we go again
- 26 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 22 October 2008
The Tories will face prolonged embarrassment and questioning about their funders following the Deripaska affair. Yet despite Brown's new-found vigour, Labour's fortunes are yet to see any genuine revival.
Can it really be the case that Peter Mandelson has finally turned his love of the high life to the political advantage of the Labour Party? As the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, struggles to extricate himself from the swirling allegations made by the scion of an international banking dynasty, involving party fundraising and a Russian aluminium oligarch, it is tempting to think so.
Lord Mandelson is like a political cluster [...]
We were warned
- 27 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 16 October 2008
It's turning into a golden autumn for Gordon Brown - but it would have been a better one for the country if he had listened to the fears voiced by the International Monetary Fund more than a year ago
Credit where credit is due - and you have to say that a £37bn injection of cash into high-street banks is one shedload of credit - Gordon Brown has had a good autumn. There is a year between Brown's darkest night as Prime Minister when he called off "the election that never was" (Friday 5 October 2007) and the announcement of the government's part-nationalisation of the banking system (Wednesday 8 [...]
Let's Celebrate the Demise of 42 Days
- 4 comments
- Posted by Martin Bright
- 14 October 2008
Gordon has saved the world for the time being, but let's reserve some cheers for the government's failure to extended detention without charge.
It couldn't have been a better day to bury bad news. Gordon Brown's rescue package for the world's crumbling financial system has blown his defeat on 42 days off the front pages. Let's hope his judgement on the bank bail out is better than it was on the war on terror.
To be fair, the justice system was never his strong point. One wag once suggested that there were only [...]
