Tag Archives: james macintyre

Mark Pack

Who is Ed Miliband?

By Mark Pack | Thu 21st July 2011 - 12:26 pm

Authors of the best accounts of the New Labour years delved deeply into the rival Brownite and Blairite versions of events before coming to their own conclusions. Those who did not frequently ended up with embarrassingly lopsided and inaccurate accounts.

Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre, the authors of Ed: The Milibands and the making of a Labour leader, have avoided making the next generation’s version of the same mistake by talking to both sides of the Miliband family, even returning more than once to the conundrum of when Ed told David he was going to run against him for leader. …

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Posted in Books and Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

Labour – Lib Dem coalition talks: where James Macintyre gets it wrong

By Mark Pack | Thu 20th May 2010 - 1:59 pm

Having seen trailed in advance the research being done for today’s piece on why Labour/Lib Dem talks broke down, I was intrigued as to what James Macintyre would dig up.

But reading his piece, it’s a big disappointment – because it makes a trio of misjudgements, all of which burnish Labour’s reputation.

Let’s take them one by one.

First, he claims that the vetoing of a private meeting between Vince Cable and Alistair Darling someone shows the Lib Dems weren’t serious about talking to Labour. Actually, no. What it shows is that the party remembers how Gordon Brown went for a series …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 23 Comments
Stephen Tall

PMQs: Nick tackles Gordon on Labour’s “suffocating and shameful culture of secrecy”

By Stephen Tall | Wed 25th November 2009 - 9:05 pm

Ah, the joy of PMQs – Nick asks Gordon a question, Gordon fails to answer a totally different question to the one Nick asks. It’s a regular pattern, but today it was clear to everyone that the Lib Dem leader had floored the Prime Minister over the issue of Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

Nick laid the trap neatly, asking the simple and straightforward question:

It is vital that the Iraq inquiry, which started its work this week, is able to reveal the full truth about the decisions leading up to the

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Posted in PMQs | Also tagged , , , and | 1 Comment
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Recent Comments

  • John B Grout
    Excellent piece, Josh. As for seeking others' thoughts on the pitch, here are mine: Labour and the Greens want to do things for you, the Conservatives and R...
  • David Evans
    It's an interesting article, which gives us more to think about, but when it ends with "Government and politics can strive toward this platform ... giving ind...
  • Neil Sandison
    This one of a series of articles recently published in the Liberal Democrat Voice that defines our social liberal values . Frequently the hot house of Westminst...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    This is the right problem to be working on, and I think the answer may be less about the words than about the moments. In my experience people learn what we sta...
  • Simon Robinson
    It's good to have an MP putting herself forward for this. The manifesto seems a bit vague though. All good thoughts and nothing you can really disagree with, b...