Tag Archives: david lammy

What caused the riots? It’s more than just the economy, stupid.

By Stephen Tall | Published 11th August 2011 - 8:57 am

Aditya Chakrabortty has a pretty compelling article in today’s Guardian scrutinising the political responses to the past few days’ rioting under the concise headline, UK riots: political classes see what they want to see. He summarises the binary analysis that has dominated:

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , | 55 Comments

Simon Hughes writes… Why I’ve taken up a government post

By Simon Hughes MP | Published 9th January 2011 - 10:25 am

There are many good and legitimate arguments to be had about tuition fees and whether they are the best way to fund our higher education system. These include the big concerns about intergenerational inequality, and whether the market system is the best way to drive forward excellence in our higher education institutions. Liberal Democrats have long opposed tuition fees for these and other reasons, including of course the additional concern that fees are a barrier to access into higher education.

But the one criticism that cannot be levelled at the government’s proposals is that it will make university unaffordable for future students. The system of financing for the teaching of higher education which …

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Opinion: In pursuit of excellence

By Merlene Emerson | Published 26th December 2010 - 12:45 pm

Earlier this month David Lammy MP highlighted the problem of the low number of black students admitted to Oxford and Cambridge Universities and called it the ‘Oxbridge Whitewash’. He wrote in the Guardian (6 Dec):

“Just one British black Caribbean student was admitted to Oxford last year. That is not a misprint: one student. Merton College, Oxford, has not admitted a single black student for five years. At Robinson College, Cambridge, a white applicant is four times more likely to be successful than a black applicant. Last year, 292 black students achieved three A grades at A-level and 475 black

…

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A tale of two MPs

By Mark Pack | Published 21st April 2010 - 3:20 pm

This story comes to us from the London Borough of Haringey.

David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, told a hustings meeting that he has done 10,000 pieces of casework in ten years.

Lynne Featherstone, Lib Dem MP for Hornsey & Wood Green, meanwhile has helped over 28,000 people in less than ten years.

(As many people have made more than one piece of casework done for them, that means the rate of work is more than three times David Lammy’s – and in less time and including a period before Lynne became an MP, i.e. before she got an office and Parliamentary …

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Posted in General Election | Also tagged , , | 2 Comments

David Lammy and Quentin Davies provoke warning from Treasury over ministerial behaviour

By Mark Pack | Published 26th October 2009 - 11:50 am

Rapid criticism of Public Accounts Committee reports from Quentin Davies (defence minister) and David Lammy (higher education minister) have resulted in the Treasury issuing a memo warning that such behaviour can result in ministers being censured.

As the November edition of Public Servant reports:

An attack by two ministers on parliamentary reports revealing waste and incompetence in their departments has provoked the Treasury to warn that ministers will face public censure if they make immediate statements to the media on future reports.

Statements by defence minister Quentin Davies and higher education minister David Lammy have led to a new Whitehall member to accounting

…

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The one who got away: David Lammy and his expenses

By Mark Pack | Published 28th September 2009 - 11:45 am

David Lammy's second home claimsLondon MP, with a constituency only 28 minutes away by Tube from Parliament, claims £12,041 for a second home. Sounds a straight-forward case in the long line of London MPs who had their expense claims widely publicised and heavily criticised during earlier this year? Except this time, there’s one difference.

The expense claim was published back in October 2004, got a bit of local media coverage and that was that.

Lucky man, that David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham.

From the …

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Posted in Opposition watch | Also tagged | 10 Comments

David Lammy accused of misleading Parliament

By Mark Pack | Published 3rd June 2009 - 6:03 pm

Being meaning to blog about this for a little while, but elections  keeping on getting in the way … so here’s the story from The Times Higher Education Supplement from a couple of weeks ago:

MPs demand apology from Lammy as they learn there will be no new scrutiny of London Met crisis

The “independent inquiry” announced by David Lammy into the crisis at London Metropolitan University is nothing more than an ongoing exercise commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England,

…

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Baby P’s death “could and should” have been stopped

By Mark Pack | Published 2nd May 2009 - 12:33 am

The awful news about the second case of child abuse involving someone Haringey Council was meant to be protecting – with the conviction of the boyfriend of Baby P’s mother for raping a two-year old – has rather pushed to one side the publication of the second Serious Case Review into Baby P’s death.

The original Serious Case Review concluded that essentially nothing too significant was done wrong by those involved in protecting Baby P, but was rapidly discredited once its finding were publicised. This new review paints a very different picture, including the key conclusion that the death of Baby

…

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The curious comparison of the seven North London MPs

By Hywel Morgan | Published 25th March 2009 - 10:51 am

In exposing the actions Tony McNulty the Mail on Sunday produced an interesting table of the claims of Additional Cost Allowances made by MPs in outer London and the South East.

It makes interesting comparision when you compare the claims of MPs in neighbouring seats. The following MPs all represent seats that are a broadly comparable distance from Westminster. Yet the amounts they claim are vastly different.

MP Constituency ACA claim in the last 5  years+ Claims London Supplement?
Sarah Teather* (LD) Brent East £0 Yes
Dawn Butler** (LAB) Brent South £37,245
Rudi Vis (LAB) Finchley and Golders Green £32,211

…

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Posted in Op-eds, Parliament | Also tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

David Lammy demonstrates how not to carry out a public consultation

By Mark Pack | Published 20th March 2009 - 7:50 am

The Open Rights Group blog has the story, pointing out how the deadline for comments on the Digital Britain Report was followed so swiftly by a press release that it’s hard to believe that the views submitted by people to the consultation were really considered:

Last Thursday the Open Rights Group along with many others made a submission in response to the Digital Britain Report. In that submission, we said:

This action has the potential for much harm. We call on the final Digital Britain report to
reject the idea of a ʻrights agencyʼ.

Less than 12 hours later,

…

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How David Lammy has exaggerated the BNP’s popularity

By Mark Pack | Published 27th February 2009 - 2:59 pm

In a posting today on LabourList, David Lammy has talked up the popularity of the BNP by misquoting and misinterpreting evidence about how many people visit their website.

The MP for Tottenham wrote:

[The BNP] it attracts more than half of all internet traffic to political party sites, according to the online monitoring firm Hitwise.

But that’s not true.

I think what has happened here is that the popularity of the bnp.org.uk domain compared with conservatives.com, labour.org.uk, libdems.org.uk and so on has been confused with “all internet traffic to political party sites”. (Thanks to Hitwise for confirming to me that looking at just …

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Posted in News, Online politics | Also tagged , , | 17 Comments

David Lammy’s record under the spotlight

By Mark Pack | Published 3rd December 2008 - 3:55 pm

The attitude of David Lammy (MP for Tottenham, one of the two constituency in Haringey) towards evidence of problems with Haringey’s children’s services has been coming under increasing scrutiny and it doesn’t look good.

David Lammy was warned by a whistle blower of severe problems in Haringey six months before Baby P’s death. Yet as Paul Waugh pointed out in the Evening Standard, David Lammy was happy to defend Sharon Shoesmith and Haringey Council even after this warning and after Baby P’s death (a defence that was prominent on both his website and in the links on his

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David Lammy: then and now

By Mark Pack | Published 2nd December 2008 - 10:30 pm

Paul Waugh’s blog has a post contrasting what David Lammy used to say about Baby P’s death with what he’s now saying:

November 19, BBC Radio 4′s World At One programme:

“Over the course of the weekend, 61 headteachers that have more experience than you or I, or Lynne Featherstone, have offered their reassurance that they feel Haringey has been protecting children.“

December 1, BBC News 24:

“Clearly lessons have not been learned.  I think it is right that there is new leadership in Haringey.  This is a very dark and sad day for the people

…

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Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #92

By Stephen Tall | Published 23rd November 2008 - 8:10 pm

Welcome to the 92nd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (16th-22nd November), together with a hand-picked quintet, mostly courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

How about starting with the most popular blog-posting, and we work our way down? Here goes…

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Posted in Best of the blogs | Also tagged | 1 Comment

The Independent View: the Lib/Lab relationship past, present, future

By Alasdair Murray | Published 23rd September 2008 - 6:13 pm

Few in a Labour party currently riven by civil war and threatened with electoral wipe-out will be giving much thought to the relationship with the Liberal Democrats.

For their part, the Lib Dems are busy putting as much distance as possible from the government as they seek to take advantage of Labour’s current political weakness. Yet, as I argued recently in an issue of Progress magazine the very same factors currently driving them apart – Nick Clegg’s redirection of the Lib Dems and the resurgence of the Tories – may in fact end up moving them closer together in …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , , | 13 Comments