Ballot papers are currently being sent out for the Labour selection in Leyton & Wanstead and I’ve made up my mind – I’m going to be casting my vote for John Cryer. I was unable to attend the hustings yesterday so I’m going on the basis of the materials sent...
The shortlist for the Labour selection in Leyton & Wanstead has been published. The names on it are: Tristram Hunt (still no site online, despite this) John Cryer Terence Paul (no website as far as I can tell) Sophie Linden Ahmad Shazad (no website as far as I can tell)...
There seems to be considerable surprise today that James Purnell, former Work & Pensions secretary, is to stand down as a Member of Parliament at the general election. Purnell is 39 and has been an MP since 2001. Personally I’ve never really worked out what I think of Purnell –...
Today the report into Eurostar’s December failings is published, and everything is resorting to normal form. The Guardian and BBC have straight and factual reports about what went wrong. There’s a new @eurostarcomms account on Twitter. Eurostar has published its response to the review, and has changed some things already....
Over the last 48 hours there has been quite a buzz on Twitter, Facebook and on various left-ish blogs about a new campaign (campaign site here) in the UK for a so-called Robin Hood Tax. What the hell is a Robin Hood Tax was my first thought? Unlike income tax...
There’s a piece on the website of the Leyton & Wanstead Guardian that Labour is rumoured to want historian Tristram Hunt as its candidate to follow Harry Cohen who’s standing down. The line is that Hunt would be worse than Dromey if someone were to be ‘imposed’ on Leyton and...
I can’t remember the last time I was so optimistic about a site launch as today: the election campaign website for Liz Kendall, Labour candidate in Leicester West at the forthcoming general election has gone live. Liz initially contacted me having seen sites I’ve developed for Rushanara Ali and Chuka...
Mark Reckons has done an excellent bit of work looking at the likelihood of UK MPs milking their expenses correlating that with how safe their seats are. Meanwhile New Europe has raised the question of if and when the scrutiny of expenses is going to come to the European Parliament....
It’s good to see that the story that the UK government is cutting funding for the College of Europe is starting to be seen more widely – today’s FT has a story entitled “Funding cut for places at Eurocrat college“. I first wrote about the issue on Friday last week...
Two striking phrases appear in Tony Blair’s 2002 Labour Conference speech – the famous “We have been at our best when at our boldest” and a lesser known line “Thanks to the brilliance and vision of Gordon Brown we have succeeded beyond any Labour government“. Fast forward a little over...
A UK general election is on the horizon and my name is on the electoral register in the Leyton & Wanstead constituency in East London. As I’m a Labour Party member resident there for more than 2 years it means I have a vote in the selection procedure to see...
It’s one of Tony Blair’s best known phrases, a promise to put Britain at the heart of Europe. Leaving the big issues (Euro, Iraq) to one side, any relationship with the European Union needs people to make the relationship work, and that’s the focus of this blog entry – where...