Tories Hire Obama Campaign Chief

Labour MP George Mudie savages Ed:
“The bad side is, you know, the bunker mentality that gets round leaders, one of Ed’s problems really is that he’s young, and, of course, the way he came to power – the problem with his brother, the fact that the trade unions had a major say and I still think he’s trying to find himself. And the trouble with that is that sometimes he’s doing things that he thinks a leader should do, that he shouldn’t do. He should use his own judgment and his own belief on how he should act, etc. etc. and forget about how does a leader react.
I think one of the difficulties a Labour Party member would say to you, and I would say to you, I have difficulty knowing what we stand for now. We are 18 months away from an election thinking that we will put out a document on all these major items and the public will say, “oh great.” And I think, often, at the moment, the government are setting the agenda, making the weather and we’re responding to it. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown never did that.
Well, there has to be and there is some concern that the lead we have in the polls, first of all is not firm enough, big enough, but will it withstand a General Election discussion? But the real thing is, do you know, ‘cos I don’t, know our position on welfare, do you know our position on education, do you know our genuine position on how we’d run the health service? Now so if you’re not getting a clear enough message to me, and to some of my colleagues, what are you, what kind of message do you think you’re putting out there. I remember before we won, ‘92, the five years to ’97, this place was bubbling, we were energetic, we were at them, we thought we had all the answers. We’re not at them and we’re slightly hesitant and we’re slightly confused and I deeply worry about that.”

Indy’s Comic NUJ Email Sans Compromise | MediaGuido
Heroin Addict Caught in Guardian Toilets | Telegraph
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Zimbabwe’s Future Lies in China’s Hands | Fraser Nelson
Labour Sells Eid Cards on Website | Trending Central
Boris is Ulysses | Paul Goodman
Ed Miliband is Hesitant, Confused, Indecisive | Kevin Maguire
Thatcher Had Purpose and Planning | Norman Tebbit
EU Negotiator Should Sit in Cabinet | Douglas Carswell
Porn Block Will Block More Than Porn | Backbencher

FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2013

Tories Hire Obama Campaign Chief

Jim Messina, who ran Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, has been snapped up by the Tories as a strategy adviser to Lynton Crosby. Messina’sapproach to “winning the fight of the future”, will be key. Labour will love that…

Via BBC.

Harman’s Son Grasses Mean Media to His Mummy

Joe Dromey, a red prince of the Labour aristocracy, stands accused of using his mother’s position as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport to try to threaten a national newspaper. Crowing about a minor clarification that he had won on the back of reporting the Mail to the PCC, Harriet Harman’s son Joe insisted that the complaint was solely his and he “used the PCC, as anyone else can”. He later confessed that he had CC’d his mother in an email to the newspaper. Given her sensitive role around the implementation of the Leveson recommendations and the setting up of a new media regulator, Guido will let you draw your own conclusions on whether this was in anyway appropriate conduct for any politician’s child, let alone one that told comrades that he aspires to be an MP himself one day. Running to mummy is one thing, running to mummy the shadow media regulator is quite another…
Dromey Jr is claiming that he did not have his mother’s permission to CC her in his email to the newspaper, though he is asking us to take him at his word on that one. Once again we have politicians, albeit in this case a wannabe one, throwing their weight around in an attempt to bully the media. Joe is right when he says anyone can go to the PCC, only a red prince however can use his mother’s prominence in public life as a stick to try and beat away scrutiny. If Harriet Harman didn’t give permission for her son to use her name in his complaint, what action did she take when she saw that she had been CC’d in the email? 

Pickles Will See Pilgrims in Court

Militant PCS union fat cat Mark Serwotka is trying to legal Eric Pickles into submission over ending the automatic collection of union subs from civil servants’ salaries, the so-called check-off system.
With a straight face, Serwotka is spinning this as Pickles wasting taxpayers’ money. Despite the fact that the check-off reform aims to save taxpayers’ money. And the fact that it was PCS who served the DCLG. So Serwotka is blowing taxpayer cash twice over, then blaming Pickles for… blowing taxpayer cash. He was hardly going to back down was he…

Vote Unite in Euro Elections

With Unite buying Labour MEP candidates in the top spot in every region but one today, how helpful of them to illustrate exactly how it works. This graphic is from their website:

Click to enlarge.

They could at least try to hide it…

Sion Simon Makes Labour MEP Candidate List

No surprise that Sion Simon has come second in Labour’s MEP candidate selection for West Midlands. Always worth taking another look at his finest hour:
If he makes it to Brussels they better be quiet while he speaks…
See also the famous New Statesman article where he predicts, in the grandest terms possible, the certain victory of Gordon Brown at the general election.  Yet more evidence of his good judgement…

Full Labour MEP Candidate Rankings

East Midlands
1.    WILLMOTT, Glenis
2.    PALMER, Rory
3.    WOODINGS, Linda
4.    HADADI, Khalid
5.    BROOKS, Nicki
Eastern
1.    HOWITT, Richard
2.    MAYER, Alex
3.    MARTIN, Sandy
4.    JOSHI, Bhavna
5.    BISHOP, Paul
6.    AYUB, Naseem
7.    OSTROWSKI, Chris
London
1.    MORAES, Claude
2.    HONEYBALL, Mary
3.    ANDERSON, Lucy
4.    DANCE, Seb
5.    BARTOLETTI, Ivana
6.    JANDU, Kamaljeet
7.    ALASIA, Sanchia
8.    BIONDI, Andrea
North
1.    KIRTON-DARLING, Judith
2.    BRANNEN, Paul
3.    SHOTTON, Jayne
North West
1.    MCCARTHY, Arlene
2.    GRIFFIN, Theresa
3.    KHAN, Afzal
4.    WARD, Julie
5.    KHAN, Wajid
6.    STOGIA, Angeliki
7.    CARTER, Steve
8.    LAMB, Pascale
South East
1.    DODDS, Anneliese
2.    HOWARTH, John
3.    WESTLEY, Emily
4.    SINGH, Del
5.    NAZEER, Farah
6.    SWINDLEHURST, James
7.    HUGHES, Maggie
8.    WATKINS, James
9.    LANDLES, Karen
10.  To be confirmed
South West
1.    MOODY, Clare
2.    FORD, Glyn
3.    REEDER, Ann
4.    ROBERTS, Hadleigh
5.    ROBINSON, Jude
6.    ALI, Junab
West Midlands
1.    GILL, Neena
2.    SIMON, Siôn
3.    WALTHO, Lynda
4.    KHAN, Ansar Ali
5.    HAMER, Olwen
6.    ETHAPEMI, Tony
7.    EDWARDS, Claire
Yorkshire and The Humber
1.    MCAVAN, Linda
2.    CORBETT, Richard
3.    TUNNICLIFFE , Eleanor
4.    KHAN, Asghar
5.    MIRFIN-BOUKOURIS, Helen
6.    HUGHES , Darren
Scotland
1.    MARTIN, David
2.    STIHLER, Catherine
3.    MUNN, Derek
4.    MURRAY, Katrina
5.    KHAN, Asim
6.    O’BRIEN, Kirsty
Wales
1.    VAUGHAN, Derek
2.    BRYANT, Jayne
3.    THOMAS, Alex
4.    REES, Christina

Via LabourList.

LibDems Will Not Automatically Reinstate Whip to David Ward

The agreement made between Clegg, LibDem chief whip Alistair Carmichael and David Ward that said the controversial MP would automatically have the LibDem whip reinstated on September 13 is in tatters. Carmichael is out of the country, though a LibDem source says “it would be difficult” to accept Ward back into the party after he openly defied Clegg yesterday by repeating his belief that the future of the state of Israel is not guaranteed. Spare a thought for Carmichael, who had his birthday ruined by Ward and is now having his holiday disrupted. A spokesman tells Guido:

“This situation will be revisited when all parties return to Westminster. Bearing in mind these comments, they will play a very important part in any decision about his reinstatement to the parliamentary party.”

When Guido put it to them that Clegg would look ridiculous reinstating Ward after yesterday’s comments, there was hardly disagreement… 

Save Ed: Now Mirror Goes For Miliband

Looks like George Mudie was saying what everyone in the Labour Party is thinking yesterday. The Staggers, LabourList, even Owen Jones, have all broken ranks and given Miliband a kicking this week. Now it is the turn of Kevin Maguire to twist the knife in the Mirror:

“The truth is the Labour leader isn’t the decisive, dominant political figure he needs to become if he is to stroll into Downing Street. David Cameron and the Conservatives are there for the taking yet too often Miliband fails to land the killer punches. Labour MP George Mudie’s “hesitant and confused” outburst stings because it rings true. The Tories are regularly allowed to call the shots because Miliband doesn’t know whether he is coming or going…
Maurice Glasman, a Labour peer and Miliband’s onetime guru, famously concluded his former pupil “flickered rather than shone”. That verdict was in January 2012. This is August 2013. Election day is now only 20 months away on 7 May 2015. And Glasman’s assessment remains disturbingly accurate for Labour.”

Guido hopes this won’t become a recurring theme in the run up to conference season. Save Ed…