National Express East Coast is to be renationalised after the parent company refused to honour a pledge to pay the Department for Transport £1.4 billion in the years to 2015.
The DfT will have to accept a much lower sum when it puts the franchise back out to tender and is likely to be …
Brown unveiled a manifesto entitled Building Britain’s Future and a draft Queen’s speech containing 12 bills. The overall aim was to downgrade Whitehall public service targets in favour of individual rights, with some enforceable by
Gordon Brown plans to spend his way back into Number 10
From the Telegraph:
Mr Brown’s determination to boost spending on frontline services will be underlined with the launch of his much vaunted national plan for public services on Monday.
His Building Britain’s Future document includes a number of proposals which will require significant Government spending.
Peter Mandelson, however, has emphasised that the money will come from a “reprioritising of expenditure both within and between departments”:
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It may be a disappointment to you that we are not going to hold a spending review now
A survey has uncovered the outside interests of dozens of MPs who hold down paid positions, ranging from legal and media work to crofting, and even grave digging. One earns £750 an hour for helping to organise an awards ceremony for the drinks industry, while another is paid more than £1,300 a day to provide business advice.
Among the highest earners is Nick Raynsford, the former housing minister, who collected £148,000 from six private-sector jobs last year, mostly connected to housing, and John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP, who receives more than £200,000 a year from his computer software company.
John Hemming pre-empted the story about himself by a week with a detailed post on his blog:
I am a full time politician, but I remain a director of two companies that I founded and also other businesses that run through as John Hemming Trading. My working week is around 70 hours a week. I spend about 4 hours a month chairing John Hemming & Co LLP. This means that over 98% of my time is spent on political issues.
We don’t do an LDV Daily View 2 x 2 round-up on Saturdays, so instead here’s an open thread. What stories have caught your eye? What issues are on your mind? Are you more in mourning for Michael Jackson or Farrah Fawcett? Is the issue of MPs’ expenses receding? Exactly how pissed with David Cameron are Tory MPs? Discuss away in the comments below…
Even to suggest today there are 2 Big Stories other than The One Big Story seems a trifle daft – the news that spread late yesterday evening of the death of Michael Jackson has dominated, and will continue to dominate, news coverage this weekend. RIP the ‘King of Pop’, of course, but spare a thought, too, for Farrah Fawcett, whose death was also announced yesterday, and has been rather overshadowed. If Michael’s death can be likened to that of Princess Diana’s in August ‘97, I guess that makes Farrah the Mother Teresa of June ’09. Anyway…
How fitting that while Ricky Gervais and Phil Jupitus share a birthday with Michel Tremblay, a Canadian writer I studied as part of my degree, the US should be celebrating National Catfish Day.
Two big stories
Another climbdown for Brown as the Government backs off plans to bolster MPs’ pensions. Just hours after Clegg took Brown to task at PMQs for being wrong about Gurkhas, wrong about expenses and the Iraq enquiry. Now he’s admitted to being wrong about MPs’ pensions too. A planned increase had been accepted by all parties in March but the government now …
As any fule kno, the chair of the Iraq enquiry Sir John Chilcot has ruled that as a default all evidence should be given to the enquiry in public. He has also indicated that he will be calling Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to give evidence. From the Guardian:
The move to open up his hearings, which came on the eve of a Commons debate tomorrow on the inquiry, shows that a wholesale change of the terms has been carried out since the inquiry was established by the prime minister last week. The decision to summon Brown and Blair for public hearings was disclosed by Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, who met Chilcot today on privy council terms. Chilcott held a separate meeting with David Cameron on the same terms.
Events continue to unfold afer Iran’s contested election results and surrounding protest. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has expressed dismay at events yesterday, when protestors were dispersed by the police with tear gas. The Revolutionary Guard have threatened to suppress any further protests in favour of presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi. As The Independent reports,
Mousavi, who was officially beaten into second place by Ahmadinejad in an election which he says was rigged, called late on Sunday for fresh protests by his supporters.
“Protesting against lies and fraud (in the election) is your right,” Mousavi said in a statement
Whips accused of fixing Speaker vote The Times reports:
The race to become the most powerful Commons Speaker in modern history is being undermined by party whips who are trying to install Margaret Beckett as their anti-reform candidate.
Senior Labour figures have been accused of colluding with Conservatives to ensure that Mrs Beckett is elected today. She was the only candidate not to endorse plans to remove the powers of patronage from the Whips’ Offices — so that MPs, rather than party whips, would choose the chairmen of select committees.
Welcome to the Sunday outing for The Voice’s Daily View series. As it’s a Sunday, today it comes with a special Obama in tights extravaganza.
2 Big Stories
Iranian protests continue despite crackdown
The BBC reports:
Iranian police have used water cannon, batons, tear gas and live rounds to break up protests over the presidential election, witnesses in Tehran say.
A BBC reporter said he saw one man shot and others injured amid running fights
Defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi repeated calls for the election to be annulled on the grounds it was rigged.
Their round-up page for the latest Iranian news is well worth a visit, bringing together reports, analysis and background information all in one place, not to mention links through to where Iranian news is coming through on social media sites.
We don’t do an LDV Daily View 2 x 2 round-up on Saturdays, so instead here’s an open thread. What stories have caught your eye? What issues are on your mind? Have you been scrutinising Lib Dem MPs’ expenses? Who do you think should be the next Commons Speaker? Have you read the Government’s Digital Britain report yet? Do you have suggestions for the next LDV party members’ survey? Discuss away in the comments below…
Yesterday’s heavily-censoredredacted publication of expenses claims by Parliament has been widely criticised, not least by our own Vince Cable:
The publication of the expenses in this format has only made people even more frustrated. If people had had to rely on this information to find out about their MPs they would have been faced with swathes of black ink rather than information about the flipping of homes and the avoidance of capital gains tax.
“It took a huge amount of effort from campaigners, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and other independent-minded MPs to get even this
Welcome to Daily View. Happy birthday to Delia Smith CBE. Today is also Autistic Pride Day.
2 Big Stories
And it’s good news for Burnley Liberal Democrats as sub-editors across the spectrum studiously avoid the headline “The Fall of the House of Ussher”
Miss Ussher said that she was leaving the Government “with the greatest regret” but would remain as MP for Burnley until the coming election, when she will stand down from Parliament “for family reasons”.
Burnley PPC Gordon Birtwhistle, who has steered the party through taking outright control of the borough council last year, and gaining five of the six …
No prizes for guessing it’s Iran above the fold again today. After ruling out a votes recount, the ruling forces had this to say, which is of some interest to anyone who gets their political news online:
Following a crackdown on the foreign press, the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful military force, warned online media of similar treatment over their coverage of the country’s election crisis.
In its first statement since the crisis broke out, the guards – an elite force answering to the supreme leader – said Iranian websites and bloggers must remove any materials that “create tension”
Should we be pleased that Labour are finally granting the public an inquiry into the Iraq war? Not when it’s held in private, as Gordon Brown suggests in the case of the long-awaited review. The BBC has the response of Rose Gentle, mother of a British soldier who died in Iraq:
We have fought and fought for this but it will be no use and it could all be for nothing behind closed doors.
Further outbreaks of violence in Tehran last night as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed victory crushes reform hopes in Iran.
Hossein Mousavi, the opposition candidate, is appealing against the results and has called on the international community not to recognise the official outcome. Western governments have expressed reservations about the poll but so far stopped short of outright rejection.
“Mehdi Karoubi, another reformist candidate, said he refused to recognise the “illegitimate” President, but Mr Ahmadinejad compared the protests to those of football supporters whose team has lost. “They are not important,” he said, adding that Iran’s form of democracy
Welcome to the Sunday outing for The Voice’s Daily View series. As it’s a Sunday, today it comes with a bonus complaint and the easiest quiz question of the week.
2 Big Stories
Could Alan Johnson scrap ID cards?
Gordon Brown’s weakness means there is a set of senior Cabinet members who are now unsackable. If any of them were to take it upon themselves to indulge in a very un-Brownian desire to do something dramatic and decisive, it would be extremely hard for Gordon Brown to stop them.
Step forward then possibly, perhaps, just maybe Alan Johnson. (He is, after all, one of those who hasn’t acted dramatically or decisively to get Gordon Brown ousted.) The Sunday Times reports:
ALAN JOHNSON, the home secretary, has launched an urgent review of the £6 billion identity card (ID) scheme, paving the way for a possible U-turn on one of Labour’s flagship policies.
Johnson, who was promoted in Gordon Brown’s latest cabinet reshuffle, is understood to be “sympathetic” to critics who claim identity cards will undermine civil liberties.
The home secretary told officials that he wanted a “first principles” rethink of the plan, which was launched by Tony Blair following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and has since been championed by Brown as a way of fighting terrorism.
“Alan is more sympathetic to the civil liberties arguments than previous home secretaries,” said an insider.
The Iranian elections
Although Lebanon’s recent elections saw a decisive victory for moderates, the official results from Iran show a landslide for the hardliners. These results have been disputed, but as so often the mainstream media coverage amounts to little more than “X says the elections were rigged, Y says they weren’t”, with little evidence presented to let you make a decision about who you think is telling the truth.
Step forward the online world, where there is much detailed argument available, including this blog post which – combined with the comments posted to it – gives a good flavour of the cases for and against the election results having been rigged.
2 Must-Read Blog Posts
If David Cameron believes in first past the post, he should quit his job
From Mark Reckons:
David Cameron has spent a lot of time in the last few weeks talking about how great the First Past the Post electoral system is. He will not countenance any change from this even though MPs can end up elected with often much less than 50% of the vote in their own constituency.
What I find fascinating about this is that if you follow his line of reasoning to its logical conclusion then David Cameron should not be leader of the Conservative party at all. Instead it should be David Davis … if this had been a First Past the Post election then David Davis would have been elected leader.
Twitter and politics
Euro-candidate and journalist Jonathan Fryer muses over the impact of Twitter:
Though a comparatively late convert to the practice (despite the proselytising of my friend, Stephen Fry), I’ve been finding it hugely useful in recent weeks and have noted how one can enter into dialogue with politicians of other parties as well as with journalists and bloggers of all persuasions, who are quite happy to ‘follow’ one on Twitter, but who might not wish to ask or accept to be one’s Facebook ‘friend’, in case that were seen to be some kind of endorsement.
Sunday Bonus
Don’t these US movie moguls have any respect for our heritage?
We don’t do an LDV Daily View 2 x 2 round-up on Saturdays, so instead here’s an open thread. What stories have caught your eye? What issues are on your mind? Do you think Lib Dems are obsessing too much about electoral reform? Are you relieved Gordon Brown is secure (for the moment) as Labour leader? Do you have suggestions for the next LDV party members’ survey? Discuss away in the comments below…
After the intensity of the last few weeks – MPs’ expenses, the Speaker resigning, local and Euro elections, the failed putsch against Gordon Brown, a hurried cabinet reshuffle – there’s a slight sense of anti-climax to political news at the end of the week. So much has happened, but nothing much seems to have changed.
2 Big Stories
Each of the so-called quality newspapers has a different lead story today, but both the Guardian and Financial Times focus on the economy, and specifically the perceived threat of rising inflation:
Homebuyers are facing their first rise in mortgage rates for a year in a move by banks and building societies that could extinguish the nascent recovery in the housing market. Nationwide was one of several leading mortgage lenders that today hiked the cost of its most popular deals, with others likely to follow suit in the coming days. … The news that mortgage costs are rising came as the Bank of England announced that up to 1.1 million households have been plunged into negative equity by the property crash. With prices down by 20% from their peak in autumn 2007, research by the Bank published tomorrow suggests that between 700,000 and 1.1 million homeowners now owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth.
Forecasters have said that Britain’s economy may be growing again, although Mr Darling said he was sticking to his Budget forecast and expected the recession to finish towards the end of 2009. But Mr Darling warned that a high and volatile oil price “has the potential to be a huge problem as far as the recovery is concerned”.
Amidst all the sound and fury of the pointless Labour/Tory row over which party intends to cut public spending more, it’s especially worth noting the article’s conclusion:
If a spending review was published on the basis of already announced spending totals, it would show big cuts for most government departments after adjusting for inflation. Robert Chote, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “The real choice is between Labour cuts and Tory cuts.”
Labour remakes Get Carter
The Times reports there may be another ministerial resignation in the offing, with communications minister Lord (Stephen) Carter looking to move back into the private sector having been progressively sidelined by Gordon Brown since his high-profile move 18 months ago – Lord Carter was elbowed out by Damian McBride, the prime minister’s media pitbull, who was forced to quit in April in the wake of the so-called ‘Smeargate’ emails. Speaking of which, Paul Staines’ Guido Fawkes blog reports that Carter may be considering defecting from Labour to the Tories.
Ah, another day, another daily view. Suddenly in the blink of an eye, polling day is a whole week behind us. Lives are being lived, new councillors swearing the oath of office and new groups working out how to work with each other in future.
Two big stories
And unlike m’colleague Alix who could trumpet an end to expenses stories, sadly today they’re back with a vengeance, as the Telegraph digs into Shahid Malik.
But never fear – “the recession has ended” ! The Independent is so confident of its analysis that it feels the need to put …
This is, I think, the first time I have compiled the Daily View (Wednesdays being Mortimer days) when the headlines in every paper haven’t been dominated by expenses. Hooray, real news!
The big news at Westminster is that Gordon Brown is doing his usual thing of arriving at a political moment (in this case electoral reform) several weeks late and trailing faux consultation in his wake.
BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the prime minister’s statement will not endorse a change of voting system nor any particular system but it will call for a debate on whether
A chastened Gordon Brown yesterday promised his backbench critics that he would learn from his mistakes, as he survived Labour’s worst national election results since 1918 and some of the most personal attacks ever mounted on his governing style.
At a private inquest staged only hours after the party came third in the European parliamentary elections, with less than 16% of the vote, a rebel attempt to call for a secret ballot on his leadership was seen off by party loyalists.
Speaking to a packed meeting of Labour MPs and peers,
This morning’s two big stories are being combined by most of the newspapers: the European election results and what they mean for Gordon Brown’s leadership of the Labour party.
From the Guardian: European elections: Brown faces leadership battle amid Labour meltdown and BNP success
Gordon Brown today faces a make-or-break challenge to his leadership after Labour looked set to slump to just 16% of the national vote in the European elections and the far-right British National party won two new seats.
In a devastating result for the prime minister, Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, was elected to the
Welcome to the Sunday outing for our Daily View. As it’s a Sunday, today it comes with a moving, talking, full colour Hugo Chavez.
2 Big Stories
Gordon Brown – too popular for Labour’s own good
Yes, you read that right. In amongst all the speculation and rumour, the one substantive piece of news is the YouGov poll for Channel 4 of Labour Party members. Although the reporting has hyped up how unpopular Gordon Brown is with party members, the real problem for Labour is actually how much popularity he still retains:
Gordon Brown should step down immediately 21%
Gordon Brown should stay for the time being but step down before the general election 26%
Gordon Brown should lead Labour into the next general election 46%
So 46% want him to stay and fight the next general election, and 47% want him to go before the next general election. It’d have been better for Labour if Brown was less popular with members, as that might have given the dithering rebels the prod to dither less and rebel more. But with that split, it’s just a recipe for more dithering.
D-Day anniversay
The other big story in the news is the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings. It’s already been covered extensively elsewhere, so here instead is Vera Lynn singing at the 50th anniversary:
We don’t do an LDV Daily View 2 x 2 round-up on Saturdays, so instead here’s an open thread. What stories have caught your eye? What issues are on your mind? What did you think of the Lib Dems’ local elections performance? How do you think we’ll do in tomorrow’s Euro elections? What suggestions do you have for the new Lib Dem Voice poll? Discuss away in the comments below…
Coming later today: the LDV verdict on the 4th June local election results; plus this week’s Golden Dozen.
Let me let you into the hidden secret of the LDV Daily View – it’s usually written very late the night before, ready to go live at the crack of dawn for your breakfast pleasure. This poses a problem when, as I am now, you’re writing at gone midnight not knowing whether Gordon Brown will have anyone left in his cabinet by the time you, dear gentle reader, are pouring milk over your cereal. But here goes…
Today is polling day, which means scores of Lib Dems across the country will be having an exhausting day from Good Morning leaflets before dawn right through to election count verifications beyond midnight.
We’ll be reminding people of the all important facts about the electoral process:
You do not need your polling card to vote (but it might speed things up a bit if you have it)
Polls are open from 7am to 10pm
If you had a postal vote, but haven’t returned it yet, don’t put it in the post, but take
With these (deliberate?) words on Radio 4’s PM yesterday afternoon, Harriet Harman defined today’s big story. No, the PM’s reshuffle plans have in no way leaked throughout a thoroughly angry and demoralised cabinet, and they are not at all about to resign en masse. The government is not in the slightest on a course to imminent implosion and Gordon Brown is not reduced to kissing babies on the news and saying nice things about Susan Boyle in a farcically doomed attempt to court popularity. Honest.
Expenses ‘mistake’ hangs over Darling The Financial Times reports that not even the Chancellor himself is blameless in the MPs’ expenses controversy:
Alistair Darling’s future as chancellor was looking precarious on Monday after he admitted making “a mistake” over his expenses and Gordon Brown refused to say whether he would be in his job in 10 days’ time.
Mr Darling yesterday paid back £668 he wrongly claimed and apologised “unreservedly” but speculation was growing at Westminster that he could become the first chancellor in postwar Britain to be demoted in the middle of a recession.
Peter Hirst You might get more volunteers if it was clearer that they have influence over who is approved and selected for Westminster seats compared with the Westminster o...
Peter Hirst You don't mention our so called independent nuclear deterrent. There is no reason why we can't merge it with France's. Why on earth do you need two nuclear dete...
David Evans The one thing that this article shows is that it is impossible to establish a strategy that makes us clearly different from the other parties if we stick to our...
Peter Hirst To underpin and solidify a federal devolved structure there must also be the accompanying infrastructure. To prepare for this larger regional governance our edu...
Peter Hirst While a fan of local devolution it does not necessarily result in treating minorities any better than a more centralised one. Accountability is key and not just...
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The shame of Liverpool Labour councillors taking their allowances but not turning up to do the work
Should Labour reconsider the Brexit red lines?
Raising a flap about letterboxes
Arriving at one of East Finchley's ghost platforms
Restrained
Chase Park fair photos
Peter Hirst 
David Evans 