Gafferama...

The image of the new generation?

Labour problems...

Oddly enough Labour and the BNP have a common problem in Stoke Central.

Both parties’ candidates are facing challenges from former members who became disgruntled with the leadership.

Former BNP city councillor Alby Walker is standing against the BNP’s Deputy Leader Simon Darby (see post below).

Meanwhile the former chair of Stoke Central Constituency Labour Party is standing as an independent after quitting in protest at the “fix” which saw TV historian Tristram Hunt take the candidacy.

Gary Elsby (above) said quitting Labour and standing against it after decades of membership was a hugely difficult decision.

He said it was one he felt bound to take when he saw the lives of people in Stoke become pawns in the chess game being played between various figures at the top of the party.

He believes Stoke Central was given to the Blairite faction of the party in return for other safe seats being handed to Balls’ union boys and Harman’s all women shortlist brigade.

But it was really only the final straw by the sounds of it. Elsby said that Stoke residents had been paying taxes but for years had been given little in return compared to other places.

“We are only just starting to get regeneration here. We’re only just getting Building Schools for the Future going. If I’m honest we haven’t really achieved anything here in the last five years,” he said.

If the chair of the constituency party felt that way, I wonder how many other Labour people in the city do too.

Infamy, infamy...

The moment Gordon Brown grabbed an aide by the lapels and screamed “they’re all out to get me” must’ve been dead scary for the poor chap getting the hairdryer treatment.

But I can’t help but be reminded of the classic Kenneth Williams line in Carry on Cleo –
“Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me!”

But of all the bumph in today’s Observer my favourite part without a doubt was how Brown used to prepare for PMQs.

Apparently his team ran through how things might go, with Ed Miliband normally playing David Cameron.

I imagine…

GB: Right let’s play this through. I’ll be me. Harriet, you be Alistair. Alistair, you be Ed. Ed, you be Harriet, and other Ed, you be Cameron.

EM: What? Why do I have to be Cameron again? I always end up as Cameron. I can’t get the voice right and it means I always have to lose. Can’t I be you for once?

GB: Eh? Of course you can’t be me. I’m me.

EM: But Harriet’s Harriet, and she’s still Alistair. In fact what about Harriet – I could be a good Harriet, I’ll even put on some mascara.

GB: No, your voice is too soft and besides, Ed’s already got his Harriet wig on. Look, you’re Cameron and that’s just the way it is.

Right here we go [clears throat] – they want to cut, we want to invest, they were wrong on the recession and they’re wrong on the recovery.

EM: [in Cameron mode] Well, I have a leaked document here which shows the Department of Energy and Climate Change is having to make a 10% cut in its budget – this proves this Government is….

GB: Stop! Ed, what are you doing?

EM: Debating, it’s PMQs.

GB: But what’s all this about a leaked document, There are no leaked documents.

EM: There could be.

GB: Oh really. Who leaked them then?

EM: Maybe I did. I mean, maybe Ed Miliband did.

GB: I see, and what documents were these exactly?

EM: You’ll have to ask Ed Miliband.

GB: [grabs Miliband by the lapels]

Mrs Lobbydog is calling me for dinner, but just before I sign out let me remind you of this other line from Carry on Cleo, which feels pertinent having read about Jack Straw in the Observer piece.

It is spoken by Caesar as his bodyguards try to assassinate him: “I don't want to die! I may not be a very good live emperor but I'd be a worse one dead!”

See you in the morning.

Reform will have to be fought for

A document has found its way to Lobbydog which reveals the level of frustration among MPs tasked with reforming Parliament.

The Reform of the House of Commons Committee was set up to decide how to strengthen Parliament, so it could better challenge the Government.

The group published a report last year called Rebuilding the House laying out changes which they expected would be included in a motion to be debated in the Commons on Tuesday.

But the leaked document – a briefing note from a February 10th evidence session – reveals the group felt leaders were not only dragging their feet, but that the motion the Government finally put forward waters down their suggestions.

The note shows reformers had planned to ask party leaders why things weren’t moving more quickly in setting up a “back-bench business committee” which would take over scheduling some Commons business from the Government.

Questions that reformers - including Nottingham MP Graham Allen (above) - wanted to ask included:

“Are all three of you signed up to this idea? If so, can we not go a bit faster than proposed? Surely you can get a Standing Order together which could get the Committee going in a new session?”

The note then shows that reformers believe the Government motion “does not seem to accept” the idea that MPs, instead of whips, should choose who sits on Select Committees.

This is crucial because the current system allows the Government to fill the committees – which scrutinise policy – with friendly voices.

Finally the note shows frustration that the Governemnt motion – to be put forward by Harriet Harman – simply ignores three recommendations the reformers wanted.

They include letting MPs decide who chairs the Intelligence and Security Committee, giving opposition parties more power over opposition day debates and setting up a committee to scrutinise how petitions are used.

The changes that are eventually brought in could dramatically alter the way we practice democracy in the UK.

So if these issues still have not been sorted out by Tuesday’s debate I hope the reformers have the courage to speak out and demand action from their own party leaders.

P.S. I should add that Graham Allen is not the source.

Reform wriggle

Harriet Harman is trying to wriggle out of a major reform of Parliament – again.

Last summer Commons reformers recommended ways to make Parliament more able to challenge Government.

They said MPs should set the schedule for what is discussed in the Commons – a power currently held by the Government giving ministers obvious political advantages.

This blog reported in the summer how Harman tried to get around this suggestion in order to retain power for the Government, but after reformers protested she temporarily backed down.

Today Harman made a second attempt to block the reform by only offering MPs the chance to schedule “non government business” – the less significant stuff that takes place and only about 15% of the total.

In fairness, MPs will be offered the chance to elect who sits on and chairs select committees, which is important because they pick through laws proposed by ministers.

But if Parliament is to be seen as a bona fide check on the power of Government it must have the power to schedule what it debates.

What enraged me most was Harman’s suggestion that people who criticised the Government’s wriggling on this were troublemakers seeking to block reform.

She said: “You have got a choice. You can either seek to work with us to make progress or you can get in a huff about the process. It's down to you to choose."

Labour meeting sets tone of election campaign

It’s no surprise that tonight’s PLP meeting was a rallying call to galvanise the party for the election campaign.

The Hoon and Hewitt debacle was alluded to only in vague terms by the PM, through his salt mine joke, and by Mandy when he told the party “we are not going to let others insert wedges between us.”

There were a few MPs who talked about it but they were, I’m told, unanimously derisory about the pair of rebels – neither of whom had the guts to attend the meeting.

There seems to have been an effort to show the party that this was an election campaign being run by more people than Brown – “I am not a team of one, I am one of team,” he told them.

Mandelson, Harman and Douglas Alexander all gave speeches in which they outlined various parts of election strategy.

One MP told me they wanted to show that the PM would not be involved in the minutiae of day-to-day decision making, but would concentrate on getting out around the country campaigning.

The party will use signs of economic recovery as a platform for their campaign and will then seek to show that Labour can be a party of change – the “right kind of change” that is.

Meanwhile they will try and score points off the Tories by claiming their ‘austerity’ financial plan will endanger the recovery.

See you in the morning for more fun.

Harman's garbble

I thought it might be interesting to actually write out this answer given by Harriet Harman at PMQs to a question about Lord Ashcroft.

“We certainly do need transparency on this issue and as I’ve said we will bring forward legislation – while he’s busy commending the Conservative party, I would like to, at the risk of being partisan, complain about the Conservative party, because their deputy chair of the Conservative party promised, and this pertains to legislation, this pertains to the need for legislation, their own deputy chair of the Conservative party made a promise to the Honours Committee that he would make his tax affairs on shore. And the Foreign Secretary, er, the shadow foreign secretary, the shadow foreign secretary, can tell us what the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury says he knows…”

What? That was also what Speaker Bercow must have thought before he impatiently cut her off in mid-sentence.

Labour women

When a Labour MP stands down it is normally the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) that decides how the contest to become the new candidate for the seat works.

But there are so many Labour MPs standing down at the next election that the NEC has had to set up a special sub-committee to deal with the issue.

It will meet tonight to fix which of 14 constituencies should hold open contests, which should hold contests from all woman shortlists and on which they should impose a candidate.

There is a feeling that with Harriet Harman weilding a fair bit of clout on the NEC the majority of the 14 will be all woman shortlists.

The rumour, as well as talk of imposed candidates, is already causing friction at a local level.

Kelly has a dig

Drowning in expenses stories, but just a quickie. Respect to Sir Christopher Kelly for twice outing political game playing:

1. He said the leaks of his report were incredibly frustrating and that they had not come from his committee. In fact, he added, they had started to appear within hours of him pre-briefing party leaders on what his report would say. Tut tut.

2. Harriet Harman, he pointed out, had told his committee that MPs should not be allowed to employ spouses, but then speaking in the House reversed her view. It’s leaders that are meant to tell people what they want to hear, Hattie. You’re not one yet.

The five hundred to one-ers

Forget about the Miliband brothers, or the tussle between Johnson and Harman – I want to see Esther Rantzen and Joanna Lumley slog it out for the Labour leadership.

The pair of fifty-somethings’ pin-up girls (I bet you like Lumley don’t you OldRightie) are among an elite group of outsiders who are at 500/1 to be the next leader.

They are joined by spin-Dr Alastair Campbell, tax dodger Kitty Ussher, Broxtowe MP Nick Palmer and Blair, that’s Cherie not Tony.

Just on a side note – imagine one Blair as Prime Minister and the other as President of Europe.

Harman takes on Gord's leadership role, says Labour rebel.

Alan Simpson has got a big old rod out and is stirring up the doo-doo to the best of his ability.

The Nottingham South MP, who earlier this week said he would only pay £500 back if he were forced to by the courts, lauded Harriet Harman today for taking on the role that he said the PM had “walked away from”.

Simpson claimed Brown had “rolled over” on the expenses issue by simply ordering his MPs to hand whatever money back that Sir Thomas Legg demanded.

The rebel MP added that even loyal Labour members – like those who criticized Brown at the party’s meeting on Monday night – were beginning to realise that the PM would sacrifice anyone and anything to keep himself in Number 10.

Then up pops Harriet Harman during yesterday’s Business Questions to suggest that MP’s would be justified in not paying money back and that they were free to challenge Legg’s findings.

Simpson said: “What we saw yesterday was Harriet Harman taking on the leadership role that Gordon Brown simply seems to have walked away from.”

Rumours of a new plot to overthrow Mr Brown have begun to circulate in the Palace of Westminster.

At the end of this month Barry Sheerman MP, an arch-critic of the PM, will attempt to become the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party – the organisation of backbench members.

Meanwhile another Notts MP Nick Palmer was among a group of ten members who launched Labour’s Future, set up to counter the idea that the party has become “intellectually exhausted”.

Palmer denied the move was meant as a criticism of the way the party was being led.

The mechanics of Legg

It seems that Labour MPs’ support for John Bercow in the Speaker’s election is coming back to haunt them and their wallets.

For many of them, voting for Bercow was a sneaky political act designed to give a black eye to Tories who can’t stand the new Speaker.

But yesterday, to many MPs’ annoyance, Bercow said Sir Thomas Legg could set 'retrospective' limits on spending and that MPs should pay what he’s demanding.

What we’re seeing play out – with expenses, Bercow and Harriet Harman’s assault on the Legg review yesterday – is an extension of a spat that started in the Members Estimate Committee.

The committee is the body that decides matters relating to MPs’ pay and expenses and it set the remit of the Legg review.

It’s made up of six members including Harman and is chaired by Bercow.

When it came to setting Legg’s guidelines Lobbydog has heard that Harman was really pushing for a much more specific, tight remit – and had the support of other members of the committee.

But Bercow, who has the casting vote, decided the remit should be no tighter than the one that was eventually set.

The remit leaves a little wriggle room for Legg, for example, by saying claims should be reviewed against “rules and standards” rather than just “rules” in place at the time.

Accordingly while Bercow’s position is tied to implementation of the Legg review, Harman’s may be tied to batting it away.

With rumours of a plot to oust Brown brewing, it won't damage Harman’s chances to be seen as defender of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Harriet farce

What an absolute numpty Harriet Harman is.

Yesterday she struck out at a website called Punternet on which people can review prostitutes from their area.

She even demanded it be closed down by Arnold Shwarzenegger, the Governor of California, where the website is based.

But, predictably, since highlighting it the site has experienced a massive surge in traffic.

So much so that managers have now posted an open letter to Harman thanking her for her. They write:

I would like to thank you for the huge influx of traffic to my website which your actions have caused.

I am sure that the ladies who are a part of the PunterNet community thank you as well, as they will no doubt benefit financially from the many new clients who might otherwise never have found them.

Lost in communication?

Listening to senior Labour figures speak so far there is a concerted effort to try and shift media attention on to the Tories.

I heard Brown, Harman, Glenis Willmott and several others at delegate meetings last night – one thing they kept highlighting was the Tories’ position on Europe.

In particular they highlighted the Conservatives’ new alliances in the European Parliament, their voting record there and how Cameron’s wish “to pull back” from the EU would jeopardise progress in this country.

When they spoke with one voice they did push a powerful message. But the problem was they were speaking to delegates and MPs, an audience desperate to be rallied.

It’s not clear that the same points are being made effectively to the public yet, for that to happen the whole party needs to be on message.

Some MPs are saying there is no guidance or communication from the top coming down on which key points they should be hammering home.

Leadership musing

As silly season comes around, so do stories about leadership manoeuvring at the top of Labour.

The funniest one is all about the Mandy/Harman “dream ticket”.

I’ve no doubt Harman has the desire to be at the top, but I suspect Mandy knows he has too many skeletons in his closet.

Plus many Labour MPs I speak to would rather bite one of their own fingers off than let Mandy run the party.

U turn if you want to...

A quiet little u-turn seems to have occurred on House of Commons reform.

At the moment the Government has the power to say what is discussed in the Commons and when, giving it obvious political advantages.

When it was grandstanding about parliamentary reform last month ministers seemed as though they were on the verge of letting the Commons schedule its own business.

Obviously, that would have meant the Government giving up its power for the greater parliamentary good.

But then, when setting out the reform motion, Harriet Harman only outlined the scheduling of “non-governmental” business.

That meant Parliament would not get to schedule any of the laws put forward by Government – 85% of what goes through the Commons.

There was uproar among MPs on the reform committee – who felt the Government was finding it too hard to let go of power.

Then today the motion appeared again on the order paper – this time without the words “non governmental”.

It means the Government has backed down and is now prepared to entertain the idea of the Commons scheduling all business.

PMQs vid

Hat tip Mindtrackresearch

Harman makes best of a bad hand

I actually thought Harriet Harman did a better job of arguing Labour’s case on cuts Vs investment than Brown has done until now.

If you start from the point that Labour’s case is full of holes, to advocate it you have to stay away from the figures – which is what Harman did.

It even meant she didn’t look totally stupid when challenged with the 0% rise claim. She didn’t defend it at all, she just talked about something else.

If it were Brown he would have pulled out a list of stats that didn’t add up, before making some sort of tenuous claim about them.

His problem is that he can’t avoid the figures when he’s talking because normally that’s the only area he’s comfortable with.

All in all, PMQs was a fairly tedious affair today, the Tories had to keep themselves amused.

Nadine Dorries even gave Andrew Robathan a flirtatious little tickle on her way out, making the whip jump like a girl.

Radical reform, well, reform anyway… sort of

Seems as though the Government’s gusto for handing power back to Parliament has already dampened.

They decided to set up a Reform Committee which would get to set out how new powers – including Parliament scheduling its own business – would work.

At the moment the Government gets to decide what things are debated, and when – enabling them to use scheduling to their own advantage.

After a lot of big words the signs were that ministers were ready to let Parliament control its own scheduling, until Harriet Harman published the motion laying out what powers the Reform Committee could discuss.

It talks of the committee discussing the scheduling of “non-governmental” business. See it here, click and scroll down to number 66.

That means Parliament would not get to schedule any of the laws put forward by Government – 85% of what goes through the Commons.

So to a House which is meant to be the main check on Government, ministers are effectively saying, “you can have more power over everything – but the Government”.

Expenses inquiry

It is a little publicised fact that the inquiry into MPs' expenses starts today.

So much for transparency and public engagement – they should’ve been shouting about today's hearing of Christopher Kelly's committee from the roof tops.

The hall which has been booked is apparently very large, let's hope it’s not too late to fill it.

The hearing starts at 10am at the Emmanuel Centre, in Marsham Street, Westminster.

Today is important because we'll get an idea of just how penetrating and just how determined this inquiry is really going to be.

Harriet Harman and Alan Duncan are among those giving evidence.