Articles

After a few blog-free weeks, welcome to my new site, which I hope you like; and many thanks to the French health service for looking after my daughter – and that includes those much-maligned managers!

The Labour Party’s media monitoring brief is, as I have mentioned before, a superb piece of work. It can sometimes be a ltttle misleading however, particularly when read overseas. As I read it this morning in the US, and enjoyed the detail of what struck me as something of a scandal (the row over Forgemasters) [...]

Say ‘Conservative blogger’ in the UK and you probably think of an Iain Dale or a Tim Montgomerie, or any number of avowed Tory supporters who have adapted to the changed media and political landscape and found their little niche within it. In the States, where I am at the moment, it conjures up an [...]

As David Cameron works away in the US – gee what a Big Society that is – let us consider what we learned from yesterday’s (re)launch of his Big Society back home. We learned that his favourite Grange Hill character was Gripper Stebson, a bully and a racist. Even for a member of the Bullingdon club [...]

To the Tricycle theatre in Kilburn last night to see no fewer than nine plays under the banner ‘Women, Power and Politics’. It was the final night, so unless someone decides to invest in taking them to the West End or around the country, if you have not already been, you may have missed the boat. Pity, because [...]

The tone surrounding the public spending debate has shifted up, or rather down, a few gears as ministers move from general direction to specific changes. Though there remains a honeymoon feel to a lot of the coverage of the coalition, the dominant developing theme of the political narrative is the cuts now expected, and coming [...]

SPEECH BY PAT MCFADDEN MP, SHADOW SECRETARY OF STATE FOR BUSINESS TO THE FABIAN SOCIETY VENUE: ENGINEERING EMPLOYERS FEDERATION, BROADWAY HOUSE, TOTHILL STREET, LONDON SW1H 9NQ PLEASE CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY This morning I want to share a few reflections on what I believe to be the critical question facing the country – how to shape the economy of the [...]

The Daily Telegraph yesterday asked me to fill their notebook slot with any thoughts inspired by the coverage of Peter Mandelson’s book. Here they are, as printed in the paper today. One of the reasons I keep a diary is that when ev ents are fast-moving and days and nights roll into each other, my [...]

As the World Cup withdrawal symptoms abate (hugely helped by that abomination of a Final, over which the Dutch should stop whingeing about the ref and go kick someone their own size) I tuned into Newsnight and was pleasantly surprised by the depth and nature of the debate on the Tories’ health reforms. I say [...]

Apart from lots of journos who send their kids to private schools doing their best to suggest Michael Gove’s cocks-up are not too serious, and David Cameron being ‘terrified’ of London state comprehensives (all part of paving the way for his ‘free schools’ nonsense),the continuing wall-to-wall coverage of Moat-hunt, and the odd (I mean odd) [...]