What can be learned from the new Labour, Lib Dem and Green peerages?

By Mark Wallace
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Earlier this afternoon I wrote about the 14 new Conservative Life Peers who have been appointed to the Lords. In the same announcement, 16 other Peers were created for the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the Greens (the brief biographies are those from the Downing Street press release):

Green Party

• Jenny Jones AM – member of the London Assembly; former Chair of the Green Party of England and Wales and former Deputy Mayor of London

Labour Party

• Sir Charles Allen CBE - Non-Executive Director of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games; Chairman of Global Radio Group
• Sir William Haughey OBE - prominent Scottish businessman and CEO of City Refrigeration Holdings
• Alicia Kennedy - former Deputy General Secretary of the Labour Party
• Doreen Lawrence OBE - campaigner for justice, race equality and better policing
• Jonathan (Jon) Mendelsohn - business advisor and co-founder of LLM Communications

Liberal Democrat Party

• Catherine (Cathy) Mary Bakewell MBE - former leader of Somerset County Council
• Rosalind (Olly) Grender MBE - former Director of Communications for Shelter; former Director of Communications for the Liberal Democrats
• Christine Mary Humphreys - President of the Welsh Liberal Democrats; former Member of the National Assembly for Wales
• Zahida Manzoor CBE - former Legal Services Ombudsman; former Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality
• Brian Paddick - former Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Service
• James Palumbo - co-founder and chairman of Ministry of Sound Group, the international music and entertainment business
• Jeremy Purvis - former Member of the Scottish Parliament for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale
• Alison Suttie - former Press Secretary to the President of the European Parliament; former Deputy Chief of Staff to Nick Clegg and Election Manager for the 2010 General Election
• Rumi Verjee CBE - entrepreneur and philanthropist
• Sir Ian Wrigglesworth - Liberal Democrat Treasurer; former MP for Teeside Thornaby and for Stockton South

There are a few conclusions that can be drawn from this list:

1) The Government still has one eye on the Coalition Agreement - but only to a degree. The elevation of Jenny Jones as the first Green Peer is a nod towards the Coalition's pledge to make the House of Lords more representative of the level of support for smaller parties. Evidently the Greens were felt to be an acceptable route to do so - it's notable that UKIP, who received many more votes than them, did not receive any new Lords or Ladies. 

2) The Lib Dems aren't that bothered about the Rennard affair. As Guido notes, Alison Suttie has been caught up in various allegations about how the Lib Dems handled the scandal - but it hasn't prevented her donning the ermine. Not a great sign that they're ever going to take the issue seriously.

3) Londoners will be spared yet another Brian Paddick candidacy for Mayor. Some have cruelly suggested that the only reason he agreed to stand for the second time was because he would get a peerage for his efforts. It must be slightly awkward that Jenny Jones, who will arrive in the Lords at the same time, beat him into a poor 4th place in 2012.

4) Labour will always say one thing and do another. Reportedly, Labour have attacked today's announcement for "increasing the cost of politics". Will their new Peers therefore refuse to take their seats? Somehow, I doubt it...

5) People forget scandals if you wait long enough. Labour Peer Jon Mendelsohn is most recently recognisable from his work trying to nip the the David Abrahams Labour donor scandal in the bud - but he also hit the headlines early in the Blair years, as a character in the Lobbygate scandal. Time, it seems, heals all wounds.

Ed Miliband is now being undermined by both the Scottish and Welsh Labour parties

By Matthew Barrett
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Ed Miliband has often attacked the Government's policies on the NHS, accusing the current administration of either making cuts, or delivering a worse service than Mr Miliband implies Labour would have been delivering had they remained in government. 

His attacks have often been undermined by Labour's record on the NHS in Wales. In the devolved administration in Wales, Labour will cut the health budget by £534 million in real terms between 2011-12 and 2014-15, including a cut of £246 million in real terms between 2011-12 and 2012-13, the biggest year-on year cut to the Welsh health budget since devolution began.

As a result, waiting times are higher in Wales, cancer patients are being denied life-prolonging drugs which they would have access to if they lived in England, and spending on medicines has "decreased at a faster rate than elsewhere in the UK", according to the Office for Health Economics.

But now Ed Miliband is being undermined in Scotland. Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont has proven to be a more sensible and mature leader than one might have predicted. This morning, she has acknowledged that the current free tuition system for Scottish students is "not sustainable", and contributions must be made towards university education in future.

Lamont, a former teacher, also made some hard-hitting criticisms of Scottish school and higher education performance, saying schools had once led the world but have now "fallen behind". She said: "We are no longer top of the table and a smug regard for past glories is damaging and dangerous". 

The SNP attacks on Lamont were amusingly devoid of truth. Scottish "education secretary" Michael Russell said: 

"Johann Lamont has now shown her true colours and they are Tory blue. There is barely a scintilla of difference between her plan to abolish free education and the disastrous fees regime introduced by the Tories south of the Border."

In stark contrast to Lamont's approach, Ed Miliband has consistently dodged the opportunity to acknowledge that the challenges Britain faces mean that any government in power at the moment would have to take a very serious look at some of the obligations and services the state currently finds itself providing.

Labour say it's too soon to hold a referendum, and say Cameron is wrong to say it's too soon to hold a referendum

By Matthew Barrett
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The present political situation has created a wonderful example of opportunistic politics: Labour's attempt at condemning David Cameron for his referendum stance. 

Douglas Alexander, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, wrote for the Guardian today:

"Of course, there are also those within the Labour party who have speculated about the possibility of a referendum. But the luxury of speculation is different from the responsibility of decision. And Labour is clear that this is not a decision we could or should sensibly make now."

This is in stark contrast (not) to David Cameron, who wrote in the Sunday Telegraph:

"Yet the fact is the British people are not happy with what they have, and neither am I. That’s why I said on Friday that the problem with an in/out referendum is that it offers a single choice, whereas what I want — and what I believe the vast majority of the British people want — is to make changes to our relationship."

Cameron and Alexander - and their party leaderships - occupy the same, perfectly defensible position: we may have a referendum in future, should our relationship with Europe change, but we should wait and see if that change comes about before holding any such referendum. Despite not being able to get a cigarette paper between the two positions, Alexander launches attacks on Cameron's motives:

"When David Cameron is in trouble, he always throws his right flank a bone. But as prime minister, he can no longer afford to make deals with his backbenchers at the expense of making decisions in the national interest."

It is certainly true that part of the Conservative backbench is pro-referendum, but so is part of the Labour backbench. That is why neither the Tories nor Labour are taking a clear line on this. Alexander's desire to attack Cameron for the sake of it has led him to argue that it's too soon to say if we should have a referendum, but also that Cameron shouldn't be saying that it's too soon to say. 

Now pandering Miliband poses as a Euro-sceptic

By Matthew Barrett
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Ed Miliband and his supporters boast of his willingness to stand up to the big, vested interests, the corporate behemoths who delight in victimising hard-working people. However, his attacks on rail companies for increasing fares, on energy companies for high fuel prices, or on Fred Goodwin's knighthood don't quite feel right. They suggest carefully-researched focus-grouped lines of attack rather than real outrage.

Miliband's appearance on ITV's Daybreak this morning may be the worst example of this pandering yet. He tried to pass himself off as some sort of Euro-sceptic:

“I’m very concerned about what David Cameron has done because he trumpeted last December that he got a great deal for Britain, he’d protected us and everything and the way that Europe was going to go about this treaty, what they were going to do wasn’t going to affect Britain. Now he seems to have sold us down the river on a lot of things [my emphasis] so I’m going to be asking him in the House of Commons today what exactly has he agreed to, what protections has he got for Britain. I take a simple view – he would have been better off staying at the table and negotiating for Britain, rather than actually pretending that he had made great progress and then failing to do so.”

Ed Miliband is a conventional Europhile, and it's hard to see how any serious person could view this "sold us down the river" attack with anything other than amusement. Last month, Miliband was condemning the Prime Minister's "catastrophic mistake" in exercising Britain's veto. Now he's suggesting that he would have gone further in demanding powers back for Britain. Miliband is plumbing the depths of opportunistic politics. He transparently does not believe what he is saying about Europe (or perhaps he hasn't decided what he believes). He should resist the urge to attack the Government on every issue. It would save him a lot of trouble, since he's set himself up today as an easy target for "flip-flopper" assaults.

Labour sides with the energy industry and Conservatives side with the energy consumer in hopeful shift of policy

By Matthew Barrett
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On Monday, Minister of State for Climate Change, Greg Barker announced that the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) level for solar installations would be reduced as a result of soaring take-up of FITs. FITs are subsidies for small-scale renewable electricity generation, paid for by ordinary households through their energy bills. The government has allocated an £867 million budget for FITs over the next four years. Without this limit, the cost of FITs to consumers would soar. 

Greg Barker has written to Labour's Caroline Flint, the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy, after she opposed the new measures to protect consumers from escalating subsidies for solar power.

Speaking in the House, Caroline Flint described the government's plan as "yet another example of a government which is out of touch", she called the move one that "threatens to strangle at birth the solar industry", and "a kick in the teeth for all those families who want to do the right thing by investing in solar". 

Labour Shadow Education Minister argues for the abolition of private schools

By Matthew Barrett
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Stephen Twigg, a Blairite reformer, was appointed to the Shadow Education brief in Ed Miliband's last reshuffle. As a former Education Minister who helped the drive for academy schools in the New Labour years, it was hoped his appointment might signal Ed Miliband's support for the Coalition's Free Schools programme. 

Indeed, Twigg said earlier this month:

"On free schools, I am saying that we need to apply a set of tests, that we are not going to take an absolute policy of opposing them. The tests should be: will the school raise standards for pupils and parents, will it contribute to a narrowing of the achievement gap between rich and poor and what is the wider impact of that school?"

Unfortunately, any credibility that Twigg may have in his brief will be undermined by the class war, anti-rich sentiments of his deputy, Kevin Brennan (pictured above), who last night spoke in favour of abolishing private schools - a proposal last seen in Labour's 1983 manifesto, aka the "longest suicide note in history".

Brennan was speaking at the Oxford Union, where he proposed the motion "This House Would Abolish Private Schools". Brennan had previously spoken in favour of the same motion in his debut speech to the Oxford Union - as a student.

Every Coalition spending cut is now opposed by Labour

By Matthew Barrett
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Labour politicians have long pointed to their "Plan B", and their deficit reduction strategy that would, apparently, be carried out slower than the Coalition plan, and be less "painful". Ed Balls, Labour's Shadow Chancellor, told the House on Thursday - in a debate on the Global Economy, during the recalled Parliament's sitting - that Labour's plan for the country was "a tough, medium-term plan to get our deficit down". (Read Ed Balls' contribution to the debate in Hansard here.)

Ed Miliband's contradictory views on competition

By Matthew Barrett
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Earlier this week, after a speech Ed Miliband gave about News International, he was asked:

Would you count the BBC as part of the establishment - do they have too much power?

Miliband replied:

I think the BBC is in a different category and I think we, you know, obviously as part of all of the media reviews that there'll be - the Communications Act and so on, the issue of the BBC will be looked at. The BBC though is very tightly bound by a charter of the public interest by what they can say and all of that. Now there have been issues, which I am sort of sympathetic to, about the scale of BBC power over parts of the media market and those always need to be kept under review, but I think the BBC is very, very tightly bound in a way that some of the concentrations of private power in this country, including the media, are not. 

Simon Hughes holds his fire over Cameron's Coulson meeting at Chequers, and attacks Blair instead

By Matthew Barrett
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Simon Hughes, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, and a distinguished fellow of the Yellow B**tards League, made an interesting appearance on Sky News this morning - interesting because Hughes refused to blame Cameron for meeting Andy Coulson at Chequers: 

"I have to say, I think if you have a loyalty and an obligation to somebody who worked for you and did a good job, then whatever the implication might be, you might want honourably to support them and say "thank you", so I'm not going to be critical of the fact that David Cameron invited Coulson back once Coulson had resigned."

Hughes, in fact, did not just decide not to bash Cameron, he took a shot at Tony Blair:

"I'm much more critical of the fact that under the Blair era we knew, and this will all come out in the pubic inquiry, we knew that Blair flew just before the 1997 election to the other side of the world to meet Murdoch, we know that Tony Blair, three times in the ten days before the Iraq war was declared, was in touch with Rupert Murdoch"

Ten Questions to Ed Miliband about phone hacking and Tom Baldwin

By Tim Montgomerie
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(1) Why did Ed Miliband’s office send out an email to his top team in February 2011 (written by Tom Baldwin himself) saying “BSkyB bid and phone-tapping . . . these issues should not be linked”, yet today he is doing precisely that?

(More at the New Statesman).

(2) Having decided to attend Rupert Murdoch’s summer party only a few weeks ago, did Ed Miliband ask him or senior News International executives about phone hacking?

(More at The Guardian)

(3) When Ed Miliband hired Tom Baldwin to be his Director of Communications, did he ask him about his past journalistic practices, including whether he authorised or was part of efforts to break into Conservative Party bank accounts, as alleged by Lord Ashcroft?

(Lord Ashcroft on ConHome yesterday)

(4) There are no allegations that Tom Baldwin has been involved in phone hacking, but did Ed Miliband ask him when he hired him if he had been involved in the media practice of ‘blagging’? (i.e. using subterfuge and pretence to gain access to private or confidential information).

(Again, see Lord Ashcroft's Comment piece from yesterday)

(5) When Ed Miliband hired Tom Baldwin to be his head of media, did he ask him about allegations of his past misuse of Class A drugs?

(More from last December's Daily Mail)

(6) After the two reports from the Information Commissioner exposing the scale of the trade in personal and confidential data, why did the Labour Government of which Ed Miliband was a senior member fail to take any action?

(See this September 2009 report)

(7) In 2003 the DCMS Select Committee warned of a ‘catalogue of deplorable practices’ in the media and called for an investigation into journalists making payments to the police, what action did the Labour Government take at that time or since?

(DCMS Select Committee 2002-03 Fifth Report, “Privacy and Media Intrusion”)

(8) Does Ed Miliband think that John Prescott is right to be concerned by the appointment of Tom Baldwin as his director of communications?

(See Lord Prescott quoted in today's Daily Mail)

(9) Ben Bradshaw says that the Labour Cabinet – including Ed Miliband -discussed holding a public inquiry before the general election. Did Ed Miliband’s speak out on holding a public inquiry then, and if not, why not?

(From Thursday's LeftWatch)

(10)  Did Ed Miliband ask Tom Baldwin about his alleged role in efforts to illegally secure confidential information from the US Drug Enforcement Agency? In 1999 The Times paid a US DEA official, Jonathan Randel, £6,000 plus expenses for leaked information. Randel subsequently pleaded guilty to stealing confidential files and was sentenced to 12 months in jail. Tom Baldwin was one of the Times staff who first interviewed Toby Follett, who brought the leaked documents to the attention of The Times.

(See Lord Ashcroft's “Dirty Politics, Dirty Times”, and here in The Telegraph from 2003).