Fresh doubts about Gordon Brown’s authority surfaced last night as rebel Labour MPs claimed that most of his Cabinet came close to backing the attempted coup against him.
One ringleader of the revolt told The Independent: “My understanding was that only three or four Cabinet ministers were absolutely determined to die in the ditch for Gordon.” Suggesting that Cabinet members were fomenting the revolt, the rebel MP said that: “We were asked to do something and we did it.”
By Stephen Tall
| Fri 11th December 2009 - 10:30 am
If you could choose up to three items for your Christmas stocking, what would they be? That was the question LDV posed to a group of Lib Dem bloggers. All this week we’re revealing what they told us, with all their choices added to the Amazon carousel widget featured on our home-page, referral fees from which will help support Lib Dem Voice: so get clicking and ordering. You can read Part I here and Part II here. In the final part, three more bloggers – Mark Thompson, Mark Valladares, Linda Jack and, erm, me – give …
By Stephen Tall
| Sun 13th September 2009 - 10:05 am
Welcome to the Sunday edition of LDV’s Daily View. And as Mark Pack of this e-parish is (apparently) forraging for chocolate in Bristol, it falls to me to bring you today’s supplement with extra multimedia entertainment.
2 Big Stories
NSPCC and Nick criticise new Government regulations for parent helpers
Ministers are under intense pressure to scale back plans for a “big brother” child protection database which will force millions of parents to undergo paedophile and criminal checks. In a major blow for the Government, Britain’s largest children’s charity, the NSPCC, criticised the regulations for parent helpers which it said threatened “perfectly safe and normal activities” and risked alienating the public.
The paper also quotes Nick Clegg’s condemnation of Labour’s proposals:
This scheme is wildly over the top. How are we supposed to create a country fit for our children if we regard every adult looking after children as a potential threat?”
Independent broadcasters will be allowed to take payments for displaying commercial products during shows. The change is intended to bring in extra funds for commercial broadcasters. Experts believe it could raise up to £100m a year.
There are currently strict rules against product placement and this ban would remain in place on BBC shows. Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw is expected to announce a three-month consultation on the changes in a speech to the Royal Television Society next week.
The move will not apply to the BBC, and children’s programmes will remain product-placement free. A long-overdue acceptance of commercial reality? Or a retrogade intrusion into public broadcasting space?
After about an hour or so of having my knuckles scraped by ridiculously snappy letterboxes, and falling over on uneven paths, and generally feeling pretty battered and bruised and grumpy, I got to a house where a skinhead with no shirt on and a BNP tattoo set his dog on me. … I suspect that this is a big part of the reason political parties are haemorrhaging membership. The expectation that people risk their own personal safety for nothing on a regular basis is not a rewarding experience for the activist.
… the whole point of blogging is that it is interactive, or it is nothing. If most committee members don’t blog, don’t engage with the blogosphere, in short, have lives, and do not respond immediately, or even at all, will they be criticised? You bet they will and, like I did, would probably withdraw back into their collective shells.
Sunday Bonus track
You may have noticed a chap called Derren on the telly this week attracting a lot of attention. Here’s a reminder of him at his best:
EDINBURGH West Liberal Democrat MP John Barrett is to quit at the next general election. After eight years in the Commons he said he wanted a change and to spend more time in Edinburgh. He was due to tell local party members of his decision at a special meeting this afternoon.
He said: “I’m now 55 and if I do the rest of this term and another one, I’m going to be 60. My health is good and I’m definitely not planning on retiring – but I would like to do something else.” Mr Barrett said it was the right time for himself and for the local party for him to move on. He said: “The constituency is in fine fettle. I had a majority of 13,600 at the last general election, the second largest Lib Dem majority in the whole of the UK after Charles Kennedy – and I always think in politics it’s good to go out at the top.”
Mr Barrett has two grandchildren living in Edinburgh, one of whom is disabled, and he said he wanted to have more time for them. But he pledged there would be no let-up in his efforts between now and the general election. “I will be working flat out for the next year doing everything I have done for the last eight years,” he said.
Lib Dem bloggers have already paid their tributes to John’s work:
Labour backbench revolt over abolition of 10p tax rate is defeated
Big shock this one, I know… Labour MPs realise too late that their party’s tax changes are hitting the poorest hard in the pocket, threaten to mount a rebellion, and then – as per bloody usual – are bought off by the whips with a mixture of coercion and cheap promises. We’ve seen this story played out so many times before. Here’s The Times account:
Gordon Brown saw his Government’s majority cut to 43 in its defeat of an amendment to the Finance Bill that many thought would
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 …
Jenny Barnes I'd be interested to know if Daisy Cooper thinks that just cutting taxes will create economic growth. Would that growth increase activity enough to compensate...
Nigel Jones Likewise the many passages in both Old and New Testaments that show God's strong care for the poor. Then there are the prophets' attacks on leaders who don't ca...
Nigel Jones We read in Luke's gospel that a group of Jewish people attempted to kill Jesus because he preached a message about occasions when prophets working under God aid...
Peter Davies @Roland Absolute poverty in India has dramatically declined since 1993. A new rich and a large middle class has emerged but the poor are better off too....
Roland >” witness India’s miserable economic progress from 1947 until the Manmohan Singh reforms of 1993.”
Shame the economic benefits seem to have benefited...
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Jenny Barnes 
Nigel Jones 
Peter Davies 
Roland 