Tag Archives: michael crick

Laws: Cameron was frightened of Boris

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 25th May 2016 - 10:24 pm

I just happened upon the tail end of Michael Crick’s Channel 4 programme about the relationship between Cameron and Boris. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of it. The programme contains an interview with David Laws in which he says that Cameron and Osborne were always very sensitive to what Boris was doing. Asked if he thought Cameron was frightened of Boris, David said “Yes.”

He also savaged the Prime Minister for putting the country through this referendum, taking such a huge gamble with the nation’s future, purely to try to deal with the age-old split in his party.

Michael Crick wrote about his programme for the Radio Times site:

Some see Johnson’s declaration in favour of Brexit as another calculated move, albeit a huge gamble – one that almost matches Cameron’s big risk in holding the referendum in the first place. The friends and allies of 2005 are now seemingly adversaries to the death, as Cameron increasingly came to fear Johnson as the only man who could really destroy his leadership.

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Posted in News | Also tagged boris johnson, channel 4, david cameron and david laws | 6 Comments

Nick Clegg: I’m not voting in this Thursday’s PCC by-election

By Stephen Tall | Tue 28th October 2014 - 7:45 pm

There’s a by-election taking place this Thursday. The good news is the Lib Dems won’t lose our deposit.

The reason is the party’s not standing a candidate in the Police and Crime Commissioner by-election triggered by the resignation of former PCC Shaun Wright over the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal.

Here’s how Nick Clegg explained the decision to the BBC earlier this month:

“Having looked at the experiment of police and crime commissioners, I’ve come to the conclusion it just doesn’t work. Look what happened in South Yorkshire and across the whole of the north of England; it’s all re-hashed, re-tread Labour politicians and, guess what, the public don’t like it and they don’t bother to vote for it at all.”

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Posted in News | Also tagged nick clegg, police and crime commissioner elections and south yorkshire | 31 Comments

Ukip’s Godfrey Bloom brands Michael Crick a racist and hits him with party’s ‘no black faces’ conference brochure

By Stephen Tall | Fri 20th September 2013 - 2:40 pm

This tweet from Mark Wallace was picked up Channel 4’s political editor Michael Crick…

"UKIP: Changing the face of politics"…to make it entirely white, apparently #UKIPConf pic.twitter.com/fNT5bjgX58

— Mark Wallace (@wallaceme) September 20, 2013

… who decided to quiz shy and retiring Ukip MEP Godfrey Bloom about the absence of black faces from his party’s conference brochure.

Here’s what happened next…

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Posted in YouTube | Also tagged godfrey bloom, mark wallace and ukip | 48 Comments

Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the latest campaign news (13 Feb)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 13th February 2013 - 9:00 pm

Here’s a round-up of news from the past 24 hours in the Eastleigh by-election…

Mike Thornton’s campaign in full swing

The Lib Dems’ Mike Thornton — pictured here (by Jon Aylwin) with 1994 by-election victor David Chidgey — has been focusing on how the pupil premium, the party’s flagship education policy, has been helping Eastleigh schools:

Lib Dems boost Pupil Premium (Southern Daily Echo)
The policy introduced by the Liberal Democrats has invested £1.7m in Eastleigh schools, and is aimed at ensuring every child has a fair start in life.

Just one of the reasons why volunteer help has been pouring in to help Mike retain the seats for the Lib Dems:

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Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Also tagged david chidgey, david laws, eastleigh by-election, isabel hardman, john o'farrell, Maria Hutchings, Mark Pack, mike thornton, robin brand and steve webb | 12 Comments

Your essential weekend reader — 12 must-read articles you may have missed

By Stephen Tall | Sat 22nd December 2012 - 5:45 pm

It’s Saturday evening, so here are twelve thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices culled from the 50+ I’ve linked to this last week. You can follow me on Delicious here.

Kings, queens and the political chess match – Sue Cameron ponders what the invitation to HM The Queen to attend cabinet this week could portend: ‘Charles III might point to that precedent and say he would like to follow it. Moreover, he would like to attend more regularly and speak at it …

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Posted in News | Also tagged bryony gordon, carl bernstein, featured, jeffrey toobin, nate silver, rafael behr, roy greenslade, ruchir sharma, samuel brittan, stephen tall, sue cameron, tim black, timothy garton-ash and weekend reader | 2 Comments

Andrew Mitchell – victim of a police stitch-up?

By Stephen Tall | Wed 19th December 2012 - 9:55 am

That’s the heavy implication of Michael Crick’s revelations on Channel 4 News last night.

The bare facts appear to be that, when told the police wouldn’t open the gates at Downing Street to allow him to ride his bike through, then Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell swore at them, saying “I thought you guys were supposed to f****** help us”, a sentence he admits uttering in exasperation. He then cycled off and thought no more of it, until contacted by Downing Street and told The Sun was about to run

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Posted in News | Also tagged andrew mitchell, channel 4 news, jeremy heywood and metropolitan police | 18 Comments

Michael Mates faces “electoral poll fraud probe” by the police

By Mark Pack | Fri 9th November 2012 - 8:50 am

The Mirror reports:

Former Tory Minister Michael Mates is being probed for alleged electoral fraud over his attempt to become one of David Cameron’s new police commissioners.

The crony of crooked tycoon and Tory donor Asil Nadir, will be grilled by police over claims he broke election laws by giving a false address to win the lucrative post…

It was sparked by a complaint from rival Don Jerrard, an independent “justice and anti-corruption” candidate fighting Mr Mates for the £85,000-a-year role running the Hampshire force.

The former lawyer wrote to the county’s Chief Constable claiming Mr Mates breached the 2006 Fraud Act by

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Also tagged elected police commissioners and Michael Mates | 5 Comments

How not to do an interview: Grant Shapps demonstrates

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th October 2012 - 8:09 pm

1. Running away from Michael Crick rarely works.

2. Running away from Michael Crick whilst he has a camera crew in tow even more rarely works.

3. Running away from Michael Crick into the wrong room and then having to turn around and walk back past the camera even more rarely works.

4. Running away from Michael Crick into a wrong room for the second time takes the odds of success into the realms of the never never.

5. But if you are going to do that, remember not to turn round at the end and give a short answer sounding out of breath and without looking at camera or questioner. Because that always looks so convincing.

All of which means of course no-one would ever do 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Oh, hang on:

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Posted in News | Also tagged grant shapps and media | 5 Comments

Opinion: I’d rather be boring than bonkers

By Tom Papworth | Tue 20th September 2011 - 9:35 am

Monday night’s Channel 4’s coverage of the Liberal Democrat conference ended with Michael Crick interviewing Ann Treneman and Michael White about the general feel amongst Lib Dems.

Among the usual sniping from a reactionary sketch-writer and the doyen of the urban intellectual elite came a lament that the Liberal Democrat conference did not feel like a Liberal Democrat conference. People were too on message, they moaned; there was not enough rebellion; nor enough eccentricity. Michael White in particular bemoaned the absence of beards and sandals. Lib Dem conference, they felt, had become boring.

Too right.

We are not in the 1970s, when …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged ann treneman, birmingham 2011 conference and michael white | 23 Comments

Government scraps plan to fund primaries for Westminster candidate selections

By Mark Pack | Wed 22nd December 2010 - 8:55 am

Michael Crick has the scoop about the ending of plans to fund open primaries:

A very senior Cabinet minister has told me that the Coalition has now scrapped its radical plans to pay for primary elections to choose party candidates in 200 safe seats.

The full Coalition Agreement last May said: “We will fund 200 all-postal primaries over this Parliament, targetted at seats which have not changed hands for many years.”

The money would have been allocated to parties which now have seats in Parliament, according to their shares of the vote in May 2010.

Primaries have been very controversial, so the need …

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Posted in Election law | Also tagged open primaries | 3 Comments

Lib Dem ministers follow advice for councillors and give 10% to the party

By Mark Pack | Wed 8th December 2010 - 5:48 pm

Over the last few years there has been an increasingly common pattern in the party of asking or expecting councillors to contribute sums to their local party or council group to help pay for the campaigning that got them elected and for other support. The standard request is for the equivalent of 10% of what they receive in allowances (often with adjustments for less well off councillors).

As Michael Crick reports, Liberal Democrat ministers are taking a similar approach:

Nick Clegg and his 19 fellow Liberal Democrat ministers are giving around 10% of their ministerial salaries to the party.

“We are asked

…

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Posted in News | 29 Comments

So, how did Michael Crick do?

By Mark Pack | Sat 20th November 2010 - 1:26 pm

Exhibit A:

“I hear from a well-placed source that the list of peers, with about 55 names from across the party spectrum, will be published on Wednesday 1 December.”

The list was published on Friday 19 November with 54 names from across the party spectrum, so not bad at all.

Exhibit B:

“A normally astute and well-informed Lib Dem observer reckons the following people are in line to be among the expected 15 new Liberal Democrat peers:

* Brian Paddick (2008 London Mayoral candidate and former senior Metropolitan Police officer)
* Sal Brinton (Parliamentary candidate in Watford in 2005 and 2010)
* Dee Doocey (member …

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Posted in News | Also tagged journalism | 10 Comments

BBC: Coalition faces Lib Dem revolt on free schools

By The Voice | Sat 31st July 2010 - 11:15 am

Michael Crick reported for BBC2’s Newsnight on a potentially controversial debate at this September’s Lib Dem conference:

September’s Lib Dem conference in Liverpool will be a pretty tame affair, I predict, since most Liberal Democrats are still on cloud nine over the fact they are now in government for the first time in 65 years.

The biggest controversy, I reckon, could well be over a motion denouncing Michael Gove’s radical policies on free schools and academies. The resolution has been specifically picked by Lib Dem conference organisers for a substantial debate.

First, it calls for local councils to keep their role in the “oversight” of the provision of state schools. This is quite contrary to Gove’s strategy of greatly reducing local authority involvement in education. And second, the resolution urges Liberal Democrats not to get involved in Michael Gove’s cherished new policy of free schools.

Given how important local councillors are in the structure of the Liberal Democrat Party and the prevalence of teachers in the party, there must be a pretty good chance that the motion will be passed.

You can watch the 5-minute report here:

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Posted in Conference | Also tagged bbc newsnight and peter downes | 31 Comments

If a party’s leader visits a constituency it doesn’t hold three times…

By Mark Pack | Tue 13th April 2010 - 8:26 pm

… in the space of a few months, it’s a pretty big clue that the party believes it has a strong chance of winning – and almost certainly has polling or canvass data analysis to back it up.

I’m thinking of Nick Clegg and Luton South.

And why am I thinking of Luton South? Because of today’s Times which, apart from a most excellent page 16, made rather a misjudgement in reporting on Luton South and not mentioning Liberal Democrat candidate Qurban Hussain even once.

PS Michael Crick has been wondering why “in four leaflets the Lib Dem Qurban …

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Posted in News | Also tagged luton south, nick clegg and qurban hussain | 3 Comments

Tory candidates put on watch

By The Voice | Tue 6th January 2009 - 7:25 pm

Via James Graham:

This is probably little more than pre-election nerves, but Michael Crick has been having fun with it:

The Conservative Party high command is so worried about some of David Cameron’s Parliamentary candidates that they’ve started holding meetings every two weeks to monitor what they call a “watch-list” of those “have the potential to embarrass the Party”.

The interesting thing about this is a) what does it say about CCHQ morale that the minutes got leaked in the first place and b) what do they mean by “potentially embarrassing”? Based purely on anecdote (and admittedly I am hardly unbiased), they do

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged conservative party | 3 Comments