So Charlie, Any Comment?

So Charlie, Any Comment?

Iain Dale 2:47 PM

From Nick Cohen's column on Standpoint Online...

"I was waiting with a crowd of guests at the Pillars of Hercules pub in Soho for the start of a party being thrown by Kevin Maguire, the Mirror's amiable political editor, to celebrate his wife's launch of a chick-lit novel. Political journalists and rom-com novelists are not the most promising mixture for a convivial evening, but we were all rubbing along until for no reason Charlie Whelan, Brown's point man in the unions, turned to the journalists and started laying into the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As he was speaking in a public place and did not ask to go off the record, the etiquette of journalism allows me to say that I was astonished. Darling had been a loyal friend of Brown's, but that did not stop Whelan from denigrating him."

So, Mr Whelan, was this done at your master's bidding? And if so, which master? Brown or Balls?

Time For Lobby Journos To Open Their Notebooks

Iain Dale 12:57 PM

From the BBC website... 

"Mr McBride also told BBC Radio 5 Live the allegations were untrue, saying: "The idea of Gordon instructing us to brief against Alistair Darling is totally wrong. The idea of me briefing against Alistair Darling is totally wrong." 

Amazing. What he has done I effectively call various lobby journalists liars. Is there any reason why journalists shouldn't now go on the record and open up their notebooks? If I were one of them I would want to defend my honour. 

Interesting that Charlie Whelan has been silent on the subject....

Quote of the Day

Iain Dale 12:19 PM

"I would never engage in divisive or partisan politics."

Gordon Brown on GMTV this morning

Breath. Taken. Away.

Courtesy of Dave H in the comments of a previous thread.

It Wasn't Brown, It Was Balls! (Probably)

Iain Dale 9:41 AM

So, Gordon Brown has gone on the record on GMTV to deny he authorised briefings against Alastair Darling. Let's, for once, take him at his word. So if it wasn't him who told Dastardly and Mutley - sorry, Whelan and McBride - to sully the Chancellor's name, who was it? 

Oh dear, there's only one other person it could have been. Step forward, Ed Balls, the man who was desperate to take on Darling's job. 

Someone should ask him the question directly. If he denies it, we will know that either he or the Prime Minister is telling a Brownie, as Fraser Nelson would put it. 

There is of course a third possibility - that Whelan and McBride did it off their own bats. 

Nah, I don't think so either.

Peter Kilfoyle Leaves a Parting Present

Iain Dale 8:56 AM

So, my old mate Peter Kilfoyle has announced that he is the 143rd MP to make an exit from the House of Commons at the next election. He has been MP for Liverpool Walton since 1991 and is perhaps most famous as the scourge of Militant on Merseyside.

As luck would have it, I am publishing Peter Kilfoyle's new book in a couple of weeks. Timing, eh?

In the book he charts the rise and fall of New Labour. It's laced with juicy anecdote and analysis. And the last chapter. Well, suffice to say it is worth reading.

Preorder the book HERE.

Darling Declares War on Downing Street Bullying

Iain Dale 10:12 PM

Here's a transcript of Alisatir Darling's interview with Jeff Randall on Sky News. Delicious stuff. He confirms everything Andrew Rawnsley has alleged about how Number 10 treated him. So if Rawnsley was right about that, then it begs the question...

JEFF RANDALL:

Now that you have faced him down and in some respects called his bluff, has the Prime Minister stopped bullying you?

ALISTAIR DARLING:

Well I don’t quite see it that way. I’ve always said that at the end of the day it is up to the Prime Minister who he wants as his Chancellor. Now all of us can have our good days and our bad days and of course Gordon and I have some very robust exchanges, as you’ve just said. I can’t imagine any healthy relationship between a Prime Minister and a Chancellor where they don’t have differences of opinion from time to time. What unites us though is we’re both committed to the same end goal, of getting ourselves through this recession, getting through to recovery and helping this country do the best it possibly can so of course people have their ups and downs and all of us can be guilty from time to time of saying things or doing things that perhaps in the cold light of day we shouldn’t. 

JEFF RANDALL:

I think we all understand robust dialogue and we would expect that but for instance, in the summer of 2008 when you gave that famous interview to a newspaper and you said this is going to be the worst recession for 60 years, weren’t you bullied by the Prime Minister to retract that? Didn’t he try to get you to go back and say it’s not going to be like that?

ALISTAIR DARLING:

No, I remember the conversation with him very well and I was a bit annoyed because the story had sort of spun away from what I originally said and both of us agreed that what had not been got across is that I had said we were certainly in for a very profound and deep recession …

JEFF RANDALL:

And you were right and he was wrong.

ALISTAIR DARLING:

Yes, but I also said that other countries would be there as well. But look, every relationship between politicians, especially between number Ten and Eleven, of course there are going to be differences from time to time but I always take this view, of course there’s been some bad days but actually there have been rather more good days than there have been bad days and I’d say the two of us, there’s more than unites us than will ever divide us I think.

JEFF RANDALL:

There are bad days and then there are dodgy days. After that famous interview the attack dogs were sent out against you, we all know who they are, Damien McBride, Charlie Wheelan and they had a right pop at you behind your back in the press. Are you saying that that wasn’t subtle bullying?

ALISTAIR DARLING:

Look, nobody likes that sort of briefing that goes on but I’ve been around long enough, you pick these things out very quickly and the one thing you learn about briefing is that at least one other person knows you’ve done it so it soon enough gets out but frankly …

JEFF RANDALL:

But you were being briefed against weren’t you? You admit that?

ALISTAIR DARLING:

Of course there were people saying things but frankly my best answer for them is the fact that I’m still here, one of them is not. 

JEFF RANDALL:

Ain’t that the truth. Now just on a personal note really, that fruity comment attributed to the delightful Mrs Darling when she realised that you were being stitched up, true or false?

ALISTAIR DARLING:

Well I haven’t heard Margaret using that sort of language but when you go through a thing like that, I remember the weekend after we came back and I’d done this interview and the forces of hell were unleashed …

JEFF RANDALL:

By Number Ten?

ALISTAIR DARLING:

Not just them, the Tories as well. The Tories jumped on to the bandwagon as ever and they all tried to join in and of course it’s difficult, especially for the Chancellor. If you’re in politics you have to be thick skinned I think to an extent. Of course you are not immune from the fact that you wish people hadn’t said things or you hadn’t done things but frankly, when I look back at the three years I’ve been Chancellor, okay it was a weekend you could have done without but there was far more important things …

JEFF RANDALL:

But what a lot of people will not understand is this. Why would the Prime Minister and his henchmen brief against you, one, for telling the truth and two, for being right?

ALISTAIR DARLING:

I do not know why the briefers if you like did what they did, one day maybe they’ll explain. What I do know is that yes, unfortunately, and it’s not a great source of pleasure, what I said did turn out to be true as we well know but what is important is yes, you have your ups and downs, yes you have your differences of opinion and a lot of people had different views right at the start of the recession as to exactly what we were going into. The important thing is did we get it right in sorting it out, are we getting it right now and making sure we have got through to recovery and are we making it clear that there is a choice that faces people – but we are going to come on to that no doubt in the rest of the interview – as to which of the two major political parties have got a clear view of what will be in the future.

Darling Signs His Political Death Warrant

Iain Dale 9:07 PM

One thing is for sure. Whatever the result of the election, Alistair Darling won't be Chancellor of the Exchequer after it. No one says things like THIS against Gordon Brown and lives (politically) to tell the tale.

A Labour MP Who Should Be Listened To

Iain Dale 7:30 PM

A reader points me towards a truly excellent article in today's Times by ... wait for it ... a Labour MP. Natascha Engel has written about the role of Parliament and the rather tepid reforms suggested by the Parliamentary Reform Committee on which she sat. Here's an extract...

Most government agencies, such as the CSA for child support and HMRC for tax credits, have dedicated MPs’ hotlines. For those who know the system, going to see your MP has become a way of fast-tracking your case. As a result, a whole bureaucracy has emerged to service MPs servicing constituents.

And MPs encourage this. They know that the more direct the contact with constituents, the higher the chances of electoral success. This is good — it makes MPs work hard all year round; but the downside is having a huge, negative impact on our parliamentary democracy.

While our focus remains so resolutely in the constituency, we are spending less and less time in Westminster doing the scrutiny and the holding to account. Even when we are in London, we tend to be organising constituency campaigns and finding ways to raise parochial concerns.

We are leaving ourselves no time for ideas and thoughts. We are hollowing out our politics. Where is the ideology in getting the CSA to chase a non-resident parent for payments? We need to show people how to use agencies that are there to serve them. Not do it all for them.

But we are moving in totally the wrong direction. I don’t know how many times I hear people demanding a more consensual style of politics, asking us to put aside political affiliations and work for the good of the people that elected them. This is only making it worse.

After the expenses scandal, this view has become even more dominant. Yet the vast majority of us were elected only because we stood for a political party. In fact, Parliament is predicated on the very existence of political parties. It’s how we organise ourselves.

But our system breaks down when our political parties are not ideologically distinct. Today, we define our differences by dividing lines. We ask a small group of people — a focus group — what they care about, and then ask them what they want us to do about it. That’s not politics. That’s marketing. It’s turning us into admen and PR agents.

The politics of focus groups makes politicians reactive. We should lead, persuade and inspire. We should argue for what we think is right, even if popular opinion is against us. Leadership is about taking risks, even if that means losing our positions as a result.

Politics and politicians need to encourage big ideas and promote different ways of organising our society. Parliament should be a forum for clashing ideas again. And politicians need to rediscover that being an MP is about more than doing a job. It’s about being in a privileged position to put into practice deeply held beliefs and ideas.

When we debate parliamentary reform this week, we need to talk about getting back to first principles. Papering over the cracks won’t do any more. We need to tear down the flock wallpaper and fix the plasterwork underneath.

Great stuff. But I wonder how many other MPs will be brave enough to speak out in the same way. Engel has a fairly healthy majority so she feels she can speak out like this. MPs in more marginal constituencies feel constrained from saying some of the things in this article. The status quo is the safer option. But it is not an option for the long term if we want Parliament to prosper.