Barry Gardiner appointed Shadow Natural Environment and Fisheries Minister

Grayling gives speech attacking Labour while his own department publish his failings

You know that a Cabinet Minister’s speech has no positive message when the Tory Press Office Twitter account bothers to livetweet it.And that’s exactly what happened with Justice Secretary Chris Grayling’s attack on Labour spending plans this morning. No, we don’t they got him to do it either. The speech itself was standard fare: lots of attacks on trade unions dressed up as economic commentary. What was interesting was that while he was giving it, the Ministry of Justice released […]

I do not have a vote in the referendum, but I do have a voice

By Stephen Doughty

For me, the debate about why Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom is personal and emotive – but is also about hard facts. We are tied together by bonds of friendship, family and economy in so many ways. My family history – going back some 300 years – is Northern Irish, Scottish, English and Welsh. I was born and brought up in Wales by a Cumbrian mother and a Wiltshire father. I went to university in England, and […]

Miliband’s greatest quality is that he’s willing to have a “bloody good think”, says Dobson

By Conor Pope

Last week, Frank Dobson announced his intention to stand down as MP for Holborn and St Pancras after 35 years. Today, The Guardian have a candid and, at times, touching interview with the former Health Secretary. In a wide-ranging conversation with Owen Jones, Dobson sounds optimistic about the current state of the Labour Party: he’s “very confident” Labour will win next year’s election and is pleased that the Party has avoided going “a bit 1979″. Ed Miliband has ensured that […]

Is the NHS in crisis? What is going on with our health service, explained

By Ben Nunn

Monday’s front-pages would have made for pretty grim reading in Number 10 and Jeremy Hunt’s office. “Critical: NHS in crisis as budgets cut”, said The Sun.  “Millions shut out of doctors’ surgeries”, added The Times. Headlines about the NHS are exactly what the Conservatives don’t want ten months out from a general election.  Talk to our strengths, not our weaknesses, says Lynton Crosby.  However, as Monday’s headlines showed, this is difficult to pull off in practice. But, behind the headlines and […]

The Nasty Party’s nasty campaign has begun

By Emma Burnell

Three days ago a group of prominent Tory women warned that the Lynton Crosby led negative campaign the Tories are running risks re-contaminating their party and damaging their electoral prospects. But since when did the Tories ever care about women and their uppity opinons? Yesterday (30th July 2014) before 11pm, @CCHQPress – an official Tory Twitter account tweeted 62 times (including retweets). That seems fair enough, with all that’s going on in the world. Guess how many tweets were about […]