Tag Archives: peter mandelson

Opinion: We need a proper inquiry into Patrick Finucane’s murder

By David Thorpe | Published 17th October 2011 - 4:50 pm

In the midst of an economic crisis, a climate crisis and a Secretary of State for Defence who seems determined to turn his life from an uplifting drama into a crisis, it’s easy to forget the sins of governments past.

But some issues shouldn’t be left to lie as footnotes in the pages of history. One of those is the case of the solicitor Patrick Finucane, and Liberal Democrats should return to their campaigning roots, within and outside Parliament, to press for a full inquiry into the case.

Finucane was a Catholic solicitor in Northern Ireland, where among his most famous clients was the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged amnesty international, john stevens, northern ireland, owen paterson, Patrick Finucane | 4 Comments

Opinion: Time to publish the magical ratio

By David Boyle | Published 12th July 2011 - 10:21 am

A week is a long time in politics, but it also sometimes seems to move at a glacial pace.

It is now two decades since Bill Clinton won the presidency on the slogan that ‘trickle down economics’ doesn’t work. Yet even a couple of years ago, there was Labour’s Peter Mandelson being ‘relaxed’ about people getting ‘filthy rich’.

Well, finally things seem to be shifting. Even Max Hastings, of all people, writes in the Financial Times that “gross disparities seems likely sooner or later to promote an upheaval, perhaps graver now than most western societies can now envisage.”

It certainly seems to …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged andrew simms, bill clinton, new economics foundation, pay gap | 18 Comments

Learning the lessons from last week #2: Lib Dem voters don’t want out of the coalition

By Mark Pack | Published 10th May 2011 - 6:54 am

Even after last Thursday, I’ve come across very few Liberal Democrats saying, “we should have made a deal with Labour last May”. That’s not a surprise, given the Parliamentary arithmetic and also all that has come out since about just how split Labour’s negotiating team was, not to mention the almost farcical lack of preparation from Labour for talks. Peter Mandelson grabbing a quick cup of tea with Ed Balls to sort out Labour’s negotiating line before walking into the first meeting may be very English, but competent or prepared it wasn’t.

That does, of course, leave the question of whether …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ed balls, featured, yougov | 55 Comments

22 Days in May by David Laws – book review

By Mark Pack | Published 29th November 2010 - 10:27 am

Many insider accounts have already appeared of the events retold in David Laws’s book 22 Days in May: The Birth of the Lib Dem-Conservative Coalition. It is therefore one of the book’s strengths that not only is it written in a lively style which gives some freshness to the now familiar sequence of events but it also adds many new insights.

Although only briefly mentioned by Laws himself, perhaps the most important is how much the Liberal Democrats owe to Chris Huhne. In April, just before the second TV debate, I wrote,

It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on

…

Posted in Books | Also tagged chris huhne, david laws, featured, gordon brown, nick clegg, paddy ashdown | 15 Comments

Book review: Peter Mandelson’s The Third Man – Life at the heart of New Labour

By Mark Pack | Published 21st August 2010 - 2:20 pm

At the book’s title suggests, Peter Mandelson’s memoirs The Third Man do not hold back from placing himself not only at the heart of New Labour but also at its top, variously using the phrases the three musketeers or the triumvirate to describe himself and the two Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Mandelson is also, alongside Peter Watt and Deborah Mattinson, part of another trio – Labour insiders who have recently published their account of life in New Labour. They all scatter some compliments about Brown through their books, but the overall picture painted of Gordon Brown is a deeply unflattering one. It’s a picture of a once talented politician and strategic thinker who spent over a decade in a sulk at not becoming Labour leader, frequently indulging in highly partisan infighting and repeatedly pushing to one side policy priorities as so many at the top of Labour were consumed with trying to keep the Blair-Brown show from completely imploding. As Mandelson records it, even Gordon Brown (speaking to him in 2008) admitted,

Posted in Books | Also tagged deborah mattinson, gordon brown, peter watt, tony blair | 2 Comments

Alistair Darling wanted to raise VAT

By Mark Pack | Published 14th July 2010 - 8:50 am

Throws a bit of a spanner in the works of the Labour rhetoric about how awful anyone who contemplates raising VAT is:

Amid reported wrangling between No 10 and the Treasury, Lord Mandelson suggested in his memoir that Mr Brown rejected a proposal from the chancellor to raise VAT while Mr Darling quashed calls for any future VAT rises to be ruled out. (BBC)

Mandelson writes that Brown and Darling rowed over economic strategy. He “vetoed point-blank” a proposal from Darling to raise VAT up to 18% or 19%. The then chancellor then blocked a proposal from Brown to rule out

…

Posted in Opposition watch | Also tagged alistair darling, gordon brown, vat | 21 Comments

What Nick told Gordon (according to Peter) when asking him to quit: “Please understand I have no personal animosity whatsoever.”

By Stephen Tall | Published 12th July 2010 - 1:20 pm

The first of the post-New Labour memoirs, Lord (Peter) Mandelson’s The Third Man, begins its serialisation in The Times today.

Those who pay for the paper, in print or online, will have the joy of relishing its every detail. If like me you’re reliant on the Press Association’s fillet, it seems the big splash is what we knew already: that Nick Clegg told Gordon Brown he would have no option but to resign if there were to be any chance of Labour and the Liberal Democrats cutting a deal.

Unlike every other Labour MP except James Purnell, however, Nick did …

Posted in News | Also tagged danny alexander, gordon brown, james purnell, nick clegg | 23 Comments

If you ram through a law about illegal copying online…

By Mark Pack | Published 9th April 2010 - 12:07 am

… the last you thing you want is to be caught red-handed indulging in a bit of, er…, illegal copying online.

Step forward and take a bow: the Labour Party (front bench voted for the Digital Economy Bill)

Followed by a bow please from the Conservative Party (front bench voted for the Digital Economy Bill)

For as The Frontline reports:

Despite months promoting the rights of copyright holders with its Digital Economy Bill, the government has caused something of a furore after revelations that its recently crowdsourced campaign poster has breached copyright laws.

The poster is intended to parody Tory leader David Cameron by

…

Posted in News | Also tagged david cameron, digital economy bill | 3 Comments

Brown cracks a good joke whilst Cameron flounders on gay rights

By Mark Pack | Published 23rd March 2010 - 11:11 pm

Yikes. Not quite sure what’s the most surprising from the interview I’ve just watched. The good joke from Gordon Brown about Peter Mandelson or the collapse of David Cameron, who asks for the interview to stop, turns to his minder off camera and asks for a different style of questioning.

Watch the interview here.

And no sniggering at the back when the Prime Minister pauses during his first answer.

(More also on this interview in a Channel 4 News report.)

Posted in News | Also tagged david cameron, gordon brown | 3 Comments

Public poll says Cable for Chancellor – how to bank this in real votes?

By Helen Duffett | Published 22nd March 2010 - 1:45 pm

Vince Cable is the public’s preferred choice for Chancellor, according to a poll by PoliticsHome.

Of the general public polled, 31% chose Vince Cable above George Osborne, Alistair Darling, Ken Clarke, Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls.

The poll also found that 79% of Liberal Democrat voters supported Vince Cable for the job, while Osborne and Darling received much lower levels of support from their own parties’ voters. (Find the full results at PoliticsHome.)

As Iain pointed out yesterday, Vince’s recent recce to the Treasury does raise questions about how he could land the job.

Of course, national polls like this …

Posted in News | Also tagged alistair darling, ed balls, george osborne, ken clarke, politicshome.com, vince cable | 6 Comments

Lib Dems and the #debill

By Alex Foster | Published 14th March 2010 - 11:58 am

I don’t want to be excessively partisan, but for the second time this weekend at conference, I’m getting a really good feeling about the Liberal Democrats.

The first was when we heard that a senior, experienced MEP thought our party was the best way forward.

But the second has been our response to the Digital Economy Bill and a huge online campaign from internet activists within the party and of no party.

Yes, it’s true that our team in the Lords invited the anger of the online activist fraternity. A lot of resentment has been brewing about the Digital Economy Bill as a …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bridget fox, cory doctorow, danny alexander, digital economy bill | 6 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 14 March – featuring exciting bollards and Mandelson saying “Vote Lib Dem”

By Mark Pack | Published 14th March 2010 - 9:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for photographs of bollards, but first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

The Mood at Lib Dem Conference: Nick Thornsby takes the pulse
The Saturday List: Lib Dem Constituency Songs: Will Howells does politics. Will Howells does music. This time he does politics and music at the same time.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Sarkozy faces heavy loss in French regional poll

Posted in Daily View | Also tagged france, nicolas sarkozy | 2 Comments

The Independent View: Liberal Democrats should oppose the Digital Economy Bill

By Jim Killock | Published 10th February 2010 - 8:12 pm

Last week we reported that, following the concessions forced on the government, Don Foster MP is broadly happy with the Digital Economy Bill’s proposals on illicit downloads. Jim Killock of the The Open Rights Group has a different take on the situation:

The Digital Economy Bill should be opposed by Liberal Democrats. Mandelson’s Bill seeks to reduce illicit downloads by punishing innocent people, removing any chance of a reasonable defence, and by disconnecting people.

Let’s start with this first idea, of disconnecting ‘infringers’.

Let’s say you pay BT, for broadband and somebody else downloads a number of copyright music tracks. You, your family, and …

Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Also tagged digital economy bill, don foster | 25 Comments

When should the state intervene? RBS, Kraft & Cadbury and the Eternal Liberal Dilemma

By Stephen Tall | Published 21st January 2010 - 7:00 pm

US firm Kraft’s proposed takeover of Cadbury’s has made headlines in recent days. First, because it’s a major, historic British brand being snapped-up by a non-UK business (or ‘foreign predator’, as Vince Cable labels them). Secondly, because of the fear that job losses will result. And, thirdly, because of the role of the Royal Bank of Scotland – in which the British government has a majority stake-holding – in lending the money to Kraft which will fund its acquisition of Cadbury’s.

The Lib Dems – in the shape of Nick Clegg and Vince – have sharply questioned the role of the Government in the takeover. At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Nick asked Gordon Brown:

… there is a simple principle at stake. Tens of thousands of British companies are crying out for that money to protect jobs, and instead RBS wants to lend it to a multinational with a record of cutting jobs. When British taxpayers bailed out the banks, they would never have believed that their money would be used to put British people out of work. Is that not just plain wrong?

Posted in Op-eds, PMQs | Also tagged banking, cadbury's, economic liberalism, gordon brown, kraft, nick clegg, PMQs, protectionism, rbs, recession, vince cable | 11 Comments

What the papers say…

By Robert Dobson | Published 16th January 2010 - 5:22 pm

Tories claim Labour is using taxpayers’ money to fund election advertising campaign – Telegraph, 15.1.10

“The Conservatives accused Labour of “raiding” taxpayers’ money to fund their election campaign. New figures uncovered by the Conservatives show that spending on advertising has increased to £232 million, which is a 39 per cent increase on the previous year.”

A tenth of schools fail to meet GCSE targets – The Guardian, 14.1.10

“One in 10 secondary schools in England failed to meet basic targets for GCSEs last summer and academies were disproportionately represented among the failing institutions, government statistics published today reveal.

“David Laws, the Liberal Democrats’ education …

Posted in General Election, News | Also tagged alistair darling, chris bryant, david cameron, david laws, david miliband, demos, ed balls, ed miliband, frank field, gordon brown, matthew oakeshott, nick clegg, peter watt, zac goldsmith | 2 Comments

Tag Archives: peter mandelson

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

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