Eagle Eye
The Liberal Democrat outlook is not so bleak
If our commentariat were not so pickled in two-party thinking they would have given Clegg some credit formaking the right strategic choice for his party.
Evil and its returns
Of the many confidences broken by Peter Mandelson in his The Third Man, perhaps the most striking (not that I have finished reading it yet) is this quotation from a note from Cherie Blair after his first resignation, in which “the engine of my destruction was Gordon Brown”, from the Cabinet in December 1998:
I have [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 27 July 2010 at 11:38 am
Now we will take no lessons
Hear ye, hear ye. Two more additions to the Banned List.
35. Headlines beginning “Now”, as in “Now You Pay for Prison Parties.”
36. “We will take no lessons on x from y.” Tedious bit of parliamentary polyfilla. Jeremy Hunt’s first answer at Culture, Media and Sport questions today began, “I can confirm that we have no [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 26 July 2010 at 10:17 pm
Can Labour afford to back the Ed Milibandwagon?
Notwithstanding the previous post, Max Atkinson, the rhetoric guru, asks number 376 in my series of Questions to Which the Answer is No, in a thoughtful analysis of the Labour leadership contest, in which he rephrases his headline question thus:
Now that Ed Miliband has won the backing of the big unions, whose support Ed Balls [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 26 July 2010 at 6:50 pm
Ed Miliband’s public email
Earlier today I wondered what was in Ed Miliband’s “private email” to members of the Unite political committee, which decided on Saturday that the union should nominate him for the Labour leadership. Well, I have now obtained a copy of the said document.
According to the Mail on Sunday, but since taken down, Ed Balls’s “backers [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 26 July 2010 at 6:32 pm
Iraq, land of opportunity
There is an excellent article in The Times today (pay wall) about the revival of Iraq. “Reconstruction is visible right across the country,” its says.
Today [Baghdad] is a boom town, rather than a bomb site. If I were a young man, looking to make my fortune, I would be off to Iraq like a shot. [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 26 July 2010 at 5:53 pm
The Labour Party: not dead yet
Best news all day: Rushanara Ali, my excellent MP, has decided to vote for David Miliband for the leadership, although she nominated Diane Abbott and her constituency party, Bethnal Green and Bow, nominated Ed Miliband.
Ten other MPs have also said that they will be giving David M their first preference votes: David Winnick, Jim Dowd, Chris Bryant, Meg Hillier, Denis MacShane, Fiona [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 26 July 2010 at 5:39 pm
The Richard Nixon Litmus Test
Why don’t we cut to the chase and simply ask politicians what are their feelings about Richard Nixon before they run for high office? It could save us all a lot of time in the long run.
By Larry Ryan | Eagle Eye | Monday, 26 July 2010 at 4:35 pm
Ed Miliband’s “private email”
Something odd going on here. Labour Uncut refers to a report in the Mail on Sunday that seems to have been replaced.
Ed Balls had hoped to win the support of Unite’s political committee but was defeated 24 votes to four. Mr Balls’s backers claimed Ed Miliband had promised Unite ‘pro-union legislation’. They also criticised a [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 26 July 2010 at 4:28 pm
How long?
Colleagues are interested in a post by Mark Field, the Conservative MP, at Conservative Home, suggesting that the Tories and Liberal Democrats might agree not to fight each other’s seats at the 2015 election.
I, however, am interested in the article because it breaches one of the injunctions of the Banned List. Albeit in an original [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 26 July 2010 at 4:02 pm
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