Archive: 12 July – 18 July 2010
-
Friday 16 July 2010
-
Andrew Sparrow: MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington stirs things up with jibe at her opponents Continue reading...
Labour Party leadership candidate Diane Abbott. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
-
Thursday 15 July 2010
-
David Cameron, pictured with Angela Merkel in Berlin, has embarked on a rapprochement with the EU. Photograph: Carsten Koall/Getty Images
Did Peter Mandelson play cupid for David and Angela?
It is well known that Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was deeply upset when David Cameron abandoned the main centre right grouping in the European Parliament.
Word went out that Merkel wanted to sever ties as a sign of her displeasure. That never quite happened, leading Tories to believe that Merkel realised she would always have to keep lines open to a future British prime minister.
But now we learn that there was an unsung hero who ensured that Angela and David hit it off the moment he entered No 10. Yes Peter Mandelson, patriot and pro-European, made sure that Angela never gave up on David.
-
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne plans big changes to housing benefit. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
Government cuts in housing benefits will mean accommodation priced out of the range of many across the country. See how the figures add up where you live
Continue reading... -
Michael White: Facebook group shows a lot of people can identify with the actions of a man labelled a 'callous murderer'
Tributes left outside the house where Raoul Moat lived in Fenham. Photograph: Rod Minchin/PA
Continue reading... -
Nick Clegg gives evidence to the political and constitutional reform committee. Photograph: PA
• Cable: graduate tax is 'one option' for student funding
Continue reading...
• Clegg rejects criticism of AV referendum timing
• Osborne gives MPs veto over watchdog chairman -
Wednesday 14 July 2010
-
George Bush and Tony Blair in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, a few months before Peter Mandelson raised concerns about Iraq. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP
It has been an open secret for years that virtually nobody in Downing Street thought Tony Blair was wise to align himself so closely with George Bush over the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Now we know quite how isolated the former prime minister was at the time: even his closest political ally voiced serious doubts in private.
In his memoirs Peter Mandelson reveals that he repeatedly challenged Blair on Iraq. His interventions prompted the former prime ministrer to accuse his friend of spending too much time with the anti-war MP George Galloway:
-
Ken Clarke: "The state has accrued more intrusive and more invasive powers. We disregard this at our peril.” Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
I see that genial rascal Ken Clarke has dusted off the late Lord Hailsham's famous phrase about the perils of "elective dictatorship" under Labour governments. It fits in nicely with the coalition's claims to be unpicking the more authoritarian flourishes of the Blair-Brown years.
They did not feel very tyrannical to me, but we must always allow for a subjective sense of oppression.
Theresa May yesterday unveiled a package of reviews of intrusive anti-terror legislation – "The end of Big Brother," said the Daily Mail which knows a thing or two about intrusion – including the naughty police habit of arresting people taking photos of Big Ben and other top secret locations. Continue reading...
-
David Cameron at prime minister's questions. Photograph: BBC
Coverage of all today's news from Westminster including prime minister's questions
Continue reading... -
Tuesday 13 July 2010
-
Tony Blair predicted in private that Gordon Brown would face a leadership challenge if he failed to improve. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The extensive coverage of Peter Mandelson's memoirs today has largely overlooked an intriguing element in the book. This is Tony Blair's role behind the scenes as Gordon Brown's position became weaker and weaker.
The extracts today raise an interesting question: did the former prime minister break his word to the Labour party? Blair gave two key informal undertakings over the years. These were that he would:
• Not hang around in office as long as Margaret Thatcher. He stayed longer than expected. But his ten years at No 10 meant he observed this undertaking, if not in spirit, because Thatcher remained as prime minister for eleven and a half years.
• Not repeat Thatcher's mistake of behaving like a backseat driver. Blair issued a strong signal on this front when he stood down as an MP on the day he resigned as prime minister in 2007 to concentrate on his new role as Middle East envoy for the "quartet".
-
Liam Fox has been placed on the Downing Street naughty step. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
When David Cameron moved into Downing Street he probably thought that he would only ever banish his children to the naughty step.
But a member of the cabinet has been placed on the Downing Street naughty step after weeks of bad behaviour which has tested the prime minister's patience to its limits.
Liam Fox, the defence secretary, has been told in no uncertain terms by No 10 that he has gone off piste on too many occasions since his appointment to the cabinet in May. The defence secretary, an important figure on the Tory right who is now known as "13th century Fox" after his unfortunate description of Afghanistan, will not be sacked or demoted.
-
Speaker John Bercow admitted failure over 'conduct, culture and content' of PMQs. Photograph: Pa
Did you read the other day that some MPs had enjoyed a few late night drinks before voting on the budget in the early hours of Wednesday morning? I can't vouch for it myself. I'd once have been in the thick of it, but nowadays I'm safely tucked up in bed at that hour.
But it seems a sad state of affairs when folk can't have a drink after work without it getting into the newspapers, though the story probably started life on Twitter. Why? Because, so I keep reading, there are a lot of gossipy anoraks in the building who tweet whenever an MP breaks wind or fails to hold a door open for a lady.
All I can observe is that it does not require much concentration to enter the voting lobbies and vote for your own side, far easier than driving a car. In the old days when the Commons routinely sat until past midnight some MPs drank quite a lot. Continue reading...
-
Peter Mandelson's The Third Man is published this week.
Join Andrew Sparrow for rolling coverage of the day's developments at Westminster including Sir Alan Budd's appearance before the Treasury committee.
Continue reading... -
Monday 12 July 2010
-
Carne Ross, a former British diplomat at the UN, who is appearing at the Iraq inquiry today. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Read what happened when Carne Ross, a Foreign Office 'whistleblower' who resigned after speaking out about the war, gave evidence to the Chilcot panel
Continue reading... -
Michael White: Lord Mandelson's memoirs remind us that the architects of New Labour were politically joined at the hip and brain, despite all the difficulties that existed between them Continue reading...
Lord Mandelson, whose book, The Third Man (HarperCollins £25), is being serialised in the Times this week. Photograph: Pedro Armestre
-
Lord Mandelson's high point in the election: dancing with Hannah Mackenzie in the Tower ballroom Blackpool. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Peter's many long suffering friends will be in despair. Once again he has shown that, left to his own devices, he does something silly which will haunt him for years.
Lord Mandelson of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the County of Durham has allowed himself to be dressed up as a ridiculous Dickensian character to publicise the serialisation of his memoirs in the Times.
Sitting in a large armchair by a fire – and with the noise of a storm in the background – Mandelson opens an old tome as he says:
-
The Houses of Parliament. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Join Andrew Sparrow for rolling coverage of all today's political developments
Continue reading...