In the first of a new weekly Scottish Referendum column for LabourList, Labour’s Shadow International Development Secretary Jim Murphy, writes from the Western Isles and seaside towns leg of his #100Streets tour. When I started my #100Streets in 100 days speaking tour a couple of weeks ago I thought the biggest threat would be Scotland’s summer. Despite the weather you’ve seen on television at Glasgow’s brilliant Commonwealth games it has taken until yesterday for me to get properly drenched by […]
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Amidst the increasingly serious world events this week, two small ripples in the force caught my attention: firstly, the (Baileys) Women’s Prize for Fiction announced the top 20 novels written by women cited as part of its #thisbook campaign. They asked people to say which book (written by a woman) had most affected them. It turned out Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was the winner. Though given the gold-standard calibre of the top-20, it was the taking part, not the […]
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George Osborne is facing serious questions about the use of taxpayers’ money used to fund an “infrastructure tour”, where he tours marginal constituencies and announces funding for infrastructure projects. The Times (£) report that the Chancellor has made 17 visits on the tour in the past month alone. Last week, he was in Southampton, where the Tories are 192 votes behind Labour, and the current MP John Denham is standing down. He’s also recently visited Stockton South, where the Tory […]
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Ed Miliband’s image is now less of an issue as a direct result of his speech last week, according to LabourList readers. Miliband gave a speech last Friday, in which he directly addressed concerns that he was not as photogenic as David Cameron. Launching “The Choice”, Labour’s summer campaign slogan, he set out the difference between himself and the Tory leader: “If you want the politician from central casting, it’s just not me, it’s the other guy. And if you […]
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I recently asked Insight Public Affairs to work with me to compile some data about political parties, their MPs and the racial make-up of the constituencies they represent. The research has just been published by the Guardian and I can only assume, and hope, that the main political parties are as worried about it as I am. It does make for breath-taking reading. You can read it here. There are 650 MPs that represent us. All but 27 of them […]
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