Labour

Robert Hayward は Reform が Labour と Conservatives の双方から議席を奪い、大きな勝者になると予測しています。 おはようございます。Scottish parliament、Welsh Senedd、および English local elections の選挙運動は現在、最終週に入っています。Keir Starmer は本日、大規模な演説を予定していましたが、彼や他の政治指導者たちは今日、Golders Green での刺傷事件への対応と、イギリスの Jewish community が直面している antisemitism の脅威（政府のテロ立法に関する独立審査官 Jonathan Hall KC によって「national security emergency」と表現されています）に焦点を当てています。こちらが一晩明けての overnight story です。そして、こちらが Taz Ali による live blog です。Taz がそのニュースに対する政治的反応の大部分をカバーするため、私がここでそれを取り上げることはありません。（また、刑事手続きが進行中であるため、残念ながらこの攻撃に関するコメントは許可されません。）Continue reading...

首相は、2024-26年議会会期の最後となるPMQs（首相質疑）で、Kemi Badenoch氏をはじめとする国会議員らと対峙します。

‘Critical debate’ about party’s identity and direction looms if it loses control of Senedd next month after 27 years in powerWelsh Labour is the democratic world’s most successful election-winning machine, coming first in Wales in every general election since 1922 and every devolved election since 1999. Come next month’s Senedd election, however, this history-making run is expected to end.Labour’s collapse has left a vacuum, and former Labour voters are going to opposite ends of the political spectrum. Plaid Cymru and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK are neck and neck in the latest poll, although coalition maths make it highly unlikely Reform would be able to form a government. Continue reading...

Former chief of staff who helped bring Mandelson out of Labour shadows for Washington post to be questioned by MPs on vetting processLike many Labour stories, Peter Mandelson’s and Morgan McSweeney’s both start at Lambeth council.Mandelson was in his mid-20s. It was 1979, and he was a new councillor under the leadership of “Red” Ted Knight. He came to despise the local party, describing the Lambeth Labour party’s leadership as “contributing very little to the economic development of south London, instead politicising everything, attacking the police and the Tory government, and making the council go broke.” Continue reading...

Alan Johnson and David Blunkett say Tory proposal for a privileges committee inquiry is a ‘nakedly political stunt’Good morning. Kemi Badenoch is trying to get Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, to give MPs a vote on a proposal to get the Commons privileges committee to investigate allegations that Keir Starmer lied to MPs in statements he made to them about the vetting of Peter Mandelson. Other opposition parties may be backing her, but we don’t know for sure because the process is relatively secret; MPs have to write a private letter to the speaker, who then decides whether this is a serious request that should be decided by the Commons as a whole, or a frivolous complaint that should be ignored. (We do know that Karl Turner has written to the speaker about this too, but only because he was daft enough to post his letter on social media last week.) Today we are likely to find out whether or not Hoyle is agreeing to a Commons vote.Boris Johnson was referred to the privileges committee over allegations that he lied to MPs about Partygate (allegations the committee concluded were justified). Badenoch wants to make the case that Starmer is just as dishonest as Johnson. He isn’t, by any stretch, and the claims that Starmer lied to MPs about Mandelson are spurious; they relate to contest intepretations of political language of the kind that are commonplace in parliamentary debate. But the fact that this has even become a live consideration for the speaker is a big win for the Tories.The fact that Kemi Badenoch has changed the accusations she is levelling against the PM on an almost daily basis as her claims have failed to stand up to scrutiny shows what this is really about. This is a nakedly political stunt with no substance ahead of the May elections.Any comparison with Boris Johnson is absurd. When parliament referred that matter to the privileges committee, a police investigation had directly disproved his categoric statements that he knew nothing about the breach of lockdown rules.I suppose our constituents might ask [if a privileges committee goes ahead], have we got the balance right between holding the government to account and seemingly squabbling amongst ourselves when there is so much else going on that perhaps parliament ought to be focusing on as well.I have to say, a really truthful position is, why the rush at the moment? Has it got anything to do with local elections? Continue reading...

Conservatives expected to push for privileges committee involvement in a Commons vote on MondayA series of senior Labour figures have dismissed calls for a new investigation into what Keir Starmer told MPs about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as political point scoring, before a possible Commons vote on the issue.The Conservatives have called for the cross-party privileges committee, the remit of which includes examining whether MPs broke rules, to look at whether the prime minister misled parliament when he said normal procedures were followed with Mandelson’s appointment. Continue reading...