Tag Archives: ed miliband

The weekend debate: Should Stephen Hester accept his bonus?

By Carl Quilliam | Sat 28th January 2012 - 9:25 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

Since the £963, 000 shares bonus for RBS Chief Executive Stephen Hester has been revealed there have been opinions pouring out from across the political spectrum.

When Ed Miliband accused David Cameron of a “failure of leadership” over it, Cameron promptly distanced himself from the process altogether, with George Osborne claiming it was due to rules put in place by Labour.

Boris Johnson seems to be against it, as is our usually economically …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged boris johnson, george osborne, jeremy browne, nick clegg, stephen hester and weekend debate | 28 Comments

PMQs: The importance of Doncaster, almost to the exclusion of everything else

By Paul Walter | Thu 26th January 2012 - 12:56 pm

At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, David Cameron and Ed Miliband first clashed on the subject of economic growth (or, indeed, contraction). That entanglement was, more or less, a score draw. But Ed Miliband was much stronger during a later exchange on the NHS reform bill, culminating with this belter:

I shall tell the Prime Minister what is happening in the NHS: waiting lists up, morale down. What does the majority-Conservative Select Committee on Health say about his reorganisation? It says that it will be a “disruption and distraction that hinders the ability of organisations to” release savings.

Let us be frank: this

…

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged david cameron, economy, eleanor laing, malcolm bruce, NHS and sir robert smith | 3 Comments

Opinion: The Coalition are winning the economic argument

By David Thorpe | Fri 20th January 2012 - 12:30 pm

It’s a dark winter night in Westminster but the building from which a group of men emerge is still wreathed in light. The men clamber into a sleek car, which streaks away through the emptying streets. Their journey is short in physical distance, but it’s long on significance for all of them. They are serious of face and purpose as the vehicle stops by one of the quieter spots on the riverbank.

The heaviest of the men is the first to get out, he flashes a look along the river bank, and seeing it deserted, nods quickly to his companions, all of whom …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged coalition, deficit reduction, ed balls and labour party | 30 Comments

The trade unions could be doing Ed Miliband – and all of us – a favour

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th January 2012 - 3:56 pm

No doubt, both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, joined by a select band of Blairite survivors, would be rather chipper if the trade union chiefs currently making threatening noises about cutting Labour Party funding turn out to really mean it.

But the real benefit could be much wider: if Labour loses a large chunk of its funding from trade unions bosses then it could unlock the long-running saga that political party funding reform.

Back in December I wrote:

The strong historical links between trade unions and the Labour Party means that any proposals which would curb the amount unions can give to Labour are

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged party funding and trade unions | 1 Comment

PMQs: Miliband hoist by his Balls’ petard

By Paul Walter | Thu 19th January 2012 - 8:24 am

Let’s start with what Ed Balls, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor said in the Guardian on January 14th:

My starting point is, I am afraid, we are going to have keep all these cuts. There is a big squeeze happening on budgets across the piece. The squeeze on defence spending, for instance, is £15bn by 2015. We are going to have to start from that being the baseline. At this stage, we can make no commitments to reverse any of that, on spending or on tax. So I am being absolutely clear about that.

So, it was something of a surprise when Ed …

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged andrew george, david cameron, david hamilton, economy, ed balls, tessa munt and unemployment | 15 Comments

Tim Farron MP writes… Are two Eds better than one?

By Tim Farron MP | Wed 18th January 2012 - 12:54 pm

Are 2 Eds better than one? I’m not sure – but the two Eds said something very interesting over the weekend: apparently they don’t have a ‘Plan B’ for the economy after all!

As I drove into the village of Haverthwaite on Saturday morning to do some residents’ surveying, I was preparing to turn the radio off and then Ed Balls popped up. I listened with amazement. In his interview he admitted not only that the programme of cuts being carried out by the Coalition government were right, but that Labour would not over turn them if they were in Government. Unfortunately however he didn’t go as far as to admit that the cause behind all the cuts – the dire economic situation – was in fact largely his fault.

You’ll have heard Simon Hughes and me over the weekend rightly calling on the two Eds to apologise. We want them to apologise to the British public for deceiving them for 18 months before finally admitting that what the Liberal Democrats have been doing in Government is broadly the right approach. However, there is one apology we didn’t call for publicly, but which they still should make – that’s an apology to you!

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ed balls, nick clegg and simon hughes | 21 Comments

Comeback Clegg – the Times’ reasons to be cheerful about the Lib Dems

By Helen Duffett | Tue 17th January 2012 - 4:49 pm

There’s a great article in today’s Times praising the Liberal Democrats and fancying the party’s prospects between now and 2015.

Rachel Sylvester writes that although the received wisdom says coalition government has ruined the Lib Dems’ chances, it’s too early to write them off:

The Liberal Democrats could end up doing a lot better than most people currently think.

She cites encouraging signs in the polls:

A huge number of people still have no idea how they are going to vote and although only 12 per cent say that they would support Mr Clegg’s party if there were an election

…

Posted in News | Also tagged nick clegg, rachel sylvester and the times | 25 Comments

PMQs: Opposition leader asks: “Can I agree with the Prime Minister”?

By Paul Walter | Thu 12th January 2012 - 9:25 am

2012’s first Prime Minister’s Questions started with a bit of a score draw about rail fares. It got rather heated as Ed Miliband said the government had allowed fares to go up by 11%. He said:

The last Labour government saw that the train companies were taking advantage of consumers…we took away that power from them

David Cameron retorted that:

The power (to increase fares well above inflation) was given to them to do that by the last Labour government.

Channel 4 News FactCheck, as usual,has an excellent analysis of this spat, concluding that they couldn’t give either men a “Fact” or “Fiction” …

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged david cameron, greg mulholland, mike crockart, railways and sir bob russell | 1 Comment

Opinion: the problem of Welfare Reform

By Iain Roberts | Sun 1st January 2012 - 5:41 pm

Ed Miliband has stirred up some New Year’s controversy, not least amongst his own supporters, with the news that Labour is to speak out more strongly against the perils of so-called “benefit scroungers”. Labour are no doubt concerned at consistent polling evidence suggesting that opposition to benefit cuts are out of step with the views of the public.

In reality, there’s little difference between the positions of the different parties, nor much change in the position of any individual party over the last couple of decades.

Across the mainstream political spectrum, few disagree that handing out state benefits too freely causes …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged benefits and universal benefits | 44 Comments

Opinion: Lib Dems Must oppose Labour’s ideological cuts in 2012

By David Thorpe | Thu 22nd December 2011 - 2:56 pm

If I were a cleverer person than I am, I would try to create a joke with a punch line to fit the following set-up: What’s the difference between a cut in government spending and an ideological cut in government spending?

That I’m not clever enough to create a pithy punch line is of no consequence, as it is no laughing matter.

Labour have sometimes tried to trail the line that the coalition’s cuts are avoidable, that there are the product of ideology rather than necessity.

This line lacked some credence because even as they …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged alistair darling, deficit, ed balls, george osborne, haringey council and vince cable | 22 Comments

PMQs: Miliband 1 Barn Door 1

By Paul Walter | Wed 14th December 2011 - 12:53 pm

It was the last pre-Christmas Prime Minister’s Questions today and we saw the return of Nick Clegg loyally sitting at the PM’s right-hand side.

Ed Miliband started on the economy, and the news that unemployment is up again. He quoted David Cameron’s words when he came to office, saying that jobs would be “uppermost”. “What’s gone wrong?” asked the opposition leader.

Cameron’s main thrust during the 2010 election campaign was that new private sector jobs should lead the economic recovery and more than replace lost public sector jobs. Miliband did a good job of exposing that this bright idea has allegedly failed. …

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged adrian sanders, david cameron, european union, nick clegg, simon wright and unemployment | 10 Comments

Labour’s rapidly warming official attitude towards the Liberal Democrats

By Mark Pack | Wed 14th December 2011 - 7:50 am

Over on the Spectator website, Peter Hoskin neatly summarises the latest warming in the Labour Party’s official attitude towards the Liberal Democrats:

Remember when MiliE described them as a ‘disgrace to the traditions of liberalism’? Since then he has said that, actually, he’d work with the Lib Dems so long as they ditched Clegg; that he’d work with them even if they kept Clegg; that … oh, you get the picture. And now this : the closest that Labour have come, in spirit at least, to matching the ‘big, open, comprehensive offer’ that Cameron made at the end of

…

Posted in News | Also tagged douglas alexander, labour party, nick clegg and peter hoskin | 19 Comments

PMQs: Penguin in the menage à trois

By Paul Walter | Fri 9th December 2011 - 10:45 am

The first big subject at Prime Minister’s Questions this week was Europe. Tory MP Andrew Rosindell asked if David Cameron would show “bulldog spirit” at the forthcoming summit. Later, similar points came from various Tory Eurosceptic MPs, including the Father of the House, Sir Peter Tapsell. He is always heard with great respect, despite his long-winded, rather pompous and, in this case, halting mini-speeches which have barely inquisitive constructions stuck on the end of them.

Ed Miliband started on Europe as well, asking if Cameron would fulfil his promise that treaty change might give the opportunity to “repatriate powers”. The Prime …

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged david cameron, ed balls, european union, ian swales, john thurso and spending cuts | 4 Comments

Ed Miliband’s wonky PMQs’ maths

By Stephen Tall | Thu 1st December 2011 - 11:35 am

Paul Walter’s LibDemVoice review of yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions mentioned the Ed Miliband soundbite which has been picked up by much of the media… but so far without the disbelief it’s due. Here’s what the Labour leader said:

The difference is that, unlike the Prime Minister, I am not going to demonise the dinner lady, the cleaner or the nurse, people who earn in a week what the Chancellor pays for his annual skiing holiday.

A quick reminder for those who don’t live in the Westminster bubble that, last January, it was revealed (by which I mean I read it …

Posted in Parliament and PMQs | Also tagged george osborne and paul walter | 33 Comments

PMQs: Jo Swinson on the role of women in Aghanistan

By Paul Walter | Thu 1st December 2011 - 10:23 am

Liberal Democrat questions first this week:

Jo Swinson asked:

Ten years on from the military intervention, more than 3 million girls in Afghanistan are now in school. With the Bonn conference on Monday, will the Prime Minister send a clear message that the rights of those girls should not be traded away in a false choice between women’s rights and security? The evidence shows that women’s involvement in post-conflict resolution is essential for stability.

The Prime Minister agreed:

All those of us who have been to Afghanistan and met women MPs and other leaders in that country who want to stand up for women’s

…

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged bob russell, david cameron, Jo Swinson, pensions bill, roger williams and tax credits | 1 Comment

Brown at 10: the authoritative account – which lays into Ed Balls

By Mark Pack | Wed 30th November 2011 - 3:54 pm

When it first came out Brown at 10 by Anthony Seldon and Guy Lodge was extremely well received for its authoritative detail and the revised paperback edition maintains that standard well. With Seldon being one of the founders of the modern school of contemporary history, it is no surprise that the book follows the thorough, heavily documented approach contemporary historians strive for – with over 1 million words of interviews recorded for posterity (even if many are, for the next 30 years, withheld from public view) and extensive access to private diaries.

The huge depth of research is accompanied by …

Posted in Books | Also tagged anthony seldon, ed balls, featured, gordon brown, guy lodge and harriet harman | 3 Comments

PMQs: Ding-dong over youth unemployment

By Paul Walter | Fri 25th November 2011 - 9:10 am

The focus of the Cameron v Miliband this week exchange was the new figure of one million unemployed young people. It started with a battle between the government’s Work Programme versus Labour’s Future Jobs Fund. Miliband blamed the Work Programme for increasing Youth Unemployment:

…in June, when the Work programme was introduced, 85,000 young people had been unemployed for more than six months; now, there are 133,000—a massive increase since he introduced the Work programme.

But Cameron countered with figures saying that:

The Work programme is helping 50% more people than the future jobs fund: it will help 120,000 young people this year,

…

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged david cameron and youth unemployment | 2 Comments

PMQs: Miliband misses a golden opportunity

By Paul Walter | Wed 9th November 2011 - 1:06 pm

LibDem Julian Huppert started Prime Minister’s Questions with a zinger today. He said that jobs and growth depend on consumer confidence, and asked if, therefore, the PM thinks that telling 25 million people that they have no job security and could be fired tomorrow will help consumer confidence (this refers to the proposal from Tory businessman Adrian Beecroft). David Cameron had no answer but instead, as always, threw his briefing notes at the questioner (metaphorically speaking).

I should also mention, en passant, that Julian asked for suggestions for his first question via Twitter. Good man.

After the MiliCam exchange, I was …

Posted in News and PMQs | Also tagged annette brooke, david cameron, julian huppert, tessa munt and uk border agency | 7 Comments

PMQs: Nadine Dorries asks question. No-one dies.

By Paul Walter | Wed 26th October 2011 - 6:54 pm

Today was the fiftieth anniversary of Prime Minister’s Questions. And it was a fairly typical session. As always, it was in two parts.

Part one: Lots of jeering, cheering, knockabout, winding-up and prepared lines exchanged between the PM and opposition leader.

Part Two: Generally hum-drum but important questions from various back-benchers, largely heard in earnest silence.

The bit that most people will see will be the short bit on the telly, which will be a few seconds of ya-boo politics. In itself, that is a good piece of democracy in that it highlights the weaknesses of the government and the opposition. The longer …

Posted in Europe / International and PMQs | Also tagged david cameron, duncan hames, economy, european union, stephen lloyd and tom brake | 5 Comments

PMQs: You can’t gesticulate your way out of a Balls-up

By Paul Walter | Fri 21st October 2011 - 6:53 pm

He still looks like a clever sixth former to me, but it is fair to say that Ed Miliband has cracked Prime Minister’s Questions. His performance this week was excellent.

“Just a bit late” was David Cameron’s description of Miliband’s raising of the Fox affair. It is easy to understand why Miliband did not raise the subject last week. Labour played a canny game with Dr Fox. They did not call for his resignation and at the last PMQs, Miliband did not ask directly about the issue. This allowed Dr Fox to swing in the media wind, without obvious Labour encouragement. …

Posted in News, Parliament and PMQs | Also tagged adrian sanders, david cameron, ed balls, inflation, john pugh, liam fox and martin horwood | 2 Comments

Ed Miliband: against lobbying reform before he was for it

By The Voice | Mon 17th October 2011 - 5:51 pm

Via Paul Wild and Jason Hunter:

It should be noted that 100% of Conservative MPs who took part in the lobbying reform vote also opposed lobbying reform, though that was only one MP.

Posted in News | Also tagged lobbying | 14 Comments

Opinion: Labour’s problem

By George Kendall | Thu 13th October 2011 - 2:25 pm

There’s been nothing dramatic about this conference season apart from a few gaffes, but under the surface, I think the Labour conference was significant.

While I enjoyed the Lib Dem conference, I don’t think the journalists did. Whenever I passed a well-known TV presenter, they had a face like thunder. They were looking for factionalism and controversy, but all they found was Lib Dems facing up to a difficult situation with determination and loyalty. That makes dull TV, so they must have been tearing their hair out.

The Tory conference was more entertaining.

Theresa May’s remark about cats, and the more recent

Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged ed balls, gordon brown, ken clarke, liam fox, theresa may and tony blair | 35 Comments

PMQs: Ed Miliband just about hits the barn door

By Paul Walter | Wed 12th October 2011 - 1:53 pm

From memory, this was the first time the Cameron/Miliband exchange centred wholly on the economy.

There was plenty of ammo for Miliband to fire at Cameron. Unemployment up to its highest for 15 years. Women’s unemployment at its highest since 1988. Youth unemployment at its highest since 1992. He started with a quote from David Cameron himself saying that “Unemployment will fall this year, next year and the year after”. (Bit of daft hostage to fortune that was.)

Cameron was well armed with all the programmes the government is starting: Welfare to Work programme, Welfare reform, Apprenticeships etc etc. And we have …

Posted in News, Parliament and PMQs | Also tagged david cameron, economy and Sir Alan Beith | 14 Comments

Ed Miliband certainly got one thing right in his reshuffle

By Mark Pack | Tue 11th October 2011 - 8:25 am

Though others are viewing the demotion of Angela Eagle from Shadow Chief Secretary as a move by Ed Miliband to clip the wings of Ed Balls, it does mean Miliband has sacked from his Treasury team one of the Labour MPs with the most dramatically wrong track-records when it comes to economic predictions.

Keeping her well away from future economic policy it would seem is no bad move at all on Ed Miliband’s part.

Posted in News | Also tagged angela eagle and ed balls | 12 Comments

Opinion: Theresa May’s cat – why we should be proud of our conference

By Nick Tyrone | Sat 8th October 2011 - 2:50 pm

The vast majority of Lib Dems who attended autumn conference would agree with me in saying that it was a success. The mood surrounding the ICC Birmingham was unmistakably positive. The feared factionalism that had been predicted by some never materialised. But what really makes our conference seem amazing, in retrospect, is just how badly the respective Labour and Conservative gatherings have played out.

Labour conference was up first. As the only major party of opposition this should have been a conference to remember for them. A year of riots, phone hacking and a poor economy gave them more ammunition than …

Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged andrew neil, polly toynbee and theresa may | 11 Comments

Opinion: Accessing the Leader’s speech – incomprehensible and exclusive

By Greg Judge | Tue 4th October 2011 - 2:56 pm

What do the Fukushima Earthquake, Christchurch Earthquake, Queensland Floods, Libyan Revolution, Egyptian Jasmine Revolution and the ongoing struggle in Syria all have in common? If your answer was death then unfortunately you would be correct, however, a more inspirational and uplifting answer would be Sign Language!

In all of these cases, the elected officials of Public Office have been broadcasted with a Sign Language Interpreter at the side of them as they make statements on life and death events. This breakthrough in accessible information is crucial for Deaf people who need to know what to do in an emergency and how …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bsl and nick clegg | 5 Comments

In case you missed it: Ed Miliband, interview masterclass part 2

By Mark Pack | Thu 29th September 2011 - 9:17 pm

Ouch, ouch, ouch:

Posted in News | 9 Comments

Labour’s odd messaging: how the party was for reversing Coalition cuts before it was against them

By Stephen Tall | Tue 27th September 2011 - 9:15 am

Mark Pack has already highlighted the pitfalls of political opponents commentating on other parties’ conferences. And he’s right of course. But it didn’t stop him, so I won’t let it stop me…

I am genuinely puzzled by Labour’s key messages based on the first two days of their conference. Day 1 kicked off with the Big Announcment by Ed Miliband that Labour is now committed to doubling tuition fees (dressed up as only The Observer could as Labour committing to ‘slashing’ fees).

Regardless of what you think about the policy, and I think I’ve made my views clear …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ed balls, higher education, labour party, tuition fees and universities | Leave a comment

Ed Balls has a new take on having your cake and eating it

By Mark Pack | Mon 26th September 2011 - 9:19 pm

There are two problems with a Liberal Democrat like myself blogging about Labour Party conference. First, as I’ve so often seen from the other side of the fence, an outside blogging about another party’s conference frequently misreads what is really happening. And second, no blogger can compete with Hopi Sen and his cat.

So caveats deployed and on to the confusion that Ed Balls’s speech today left me in. For he had two messages: first, that Labour can’t promise to undo the government’s cuts and, second, that many of the cuts are wrong. Either on its own would be a …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged centreforum, ed balls, higher education, hopi sen, tuition fees and universities | 2 Comments

Opinion: Ed Miliband’s tuition fees announcement – more a headline than a policy

By David Parkes | Mon 26th September 2011 - 5:35 pm

On the eve of the Labour Party conference, Ed Milliband announced in an interview with The Observer, that he plans ‘to slash university tuition fees by a third’, by reducing the cap on tuition fees to £6,000. It’s a headline that appears to have been mistaken for a policy.

These past 15 months Labour has being decidedly light on policy. This surprised no-one. It was said of the previous Brown Government that Labour had run out of ideas; no-one seriously expected the ‘backroom boys’ who picked up Gordon Brown’s mantel to come up with new thoughts any time soon.

However, what …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged higher education, tuition fees and universities | 8 Comments

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Tag Archives: ed miliband

The weekend debate: Should Stephen Hester accept his bonus?

PMQs: The importance of Doncaster, almost to the exclusion of everything else

Opinion: The Coalition are winning the economic argument

The trade unions could be doing Ed Miliband – and all of us – a favour

PMQs: Miliband hoist by his Balls’ petard

Tim Farron MP writes… Are two Eds better than one?

Comeback Clegg – the Times’ reasons to be cheerful about the Lib Dems

PMQs: Opposition leader asks: “Can I agree with the Prime Minister”?

Opinion: the problem of Welfare Reform

Opinion: Lib Dems Must oppose Labour’s ideological cuts in 2012

PMQs: Miliband 1 Barn Door 1

Labour’s rapidly warming official attitude towards the Liberal Democrats

PMQs: Penguin in the menage à trois

Ed Miliband’s wonky PMQs’ maths

PMQs: Jo Swinson on the role of women in Aghanistan

Brown at 10: the authoritative account – which lays into Ed Balls

PMQs: Ding-dong over youth unemployment

PMQs: Miliband misses a golden opportunity

PMQs: Nadine Dorries asks question. No-one dies.

PMQs: You can’t gesticulate your way out of a Balls-up

Ed Miliband: against lobbying reform before he was for it

Opinion: Labour’s problem

PMQs: Ed Miliband just about hits the barn door

Ed Miliband certainly got one thing right in his reshuffle

Opinion: Theresa May’s cat – why we should be proud of our conference

Opinion: Accessing the Leader’s speech – incomprehensible and exclusive

In case you missed it: Ed Miliband, interview masterclass part 2

Labour’s odd messaging: how the party was for reversing Coalition cuts before it was against them

Ed Balls has a new take on having your cake and eating it

Opinion: Ed Miliband’s tuition fees announcement – more a headline than a policy

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Alison Suttie writes: Thank you to our volunteers

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