Morning Report – May 26th

As Barack Obama waves goodbye to the UK and heads to France for the G8, shadow cabinet ministers will be attempting to grab the media’s attention this morning, with two keynote speeches seeing John Healey and John Denham going on the offensive.

Up first is Healey, who is speaking to the Royal Society of Medicine right now, is trying to pin the failings of the NHS reforms on the Prime minister. He’ll say:

“David Cameron is a PR man looking for a PR answer. He must accept the problem is not the presentation of his NHS plans but the full-blown free-market ideology behind them. This Tory ideology is totally at odds with the ethos of the NHS and the essential way it works.”

“Whatever the Prime Minister decides to do with his NHS plans, this first year has raised serious questions about his judgement, competence, values and integrity.”

However, as is sometimes the case when you’re in opposition to a coalition, Healey’s comments (which he has been making consistently for 6 months), could be overshadowed by Nick Clegg’s speech today (and he’s only started having doubts on NHS reforms in the last six weeks – he voted for them before). The harshest criticism of the NHS speech today seems to come from the BMA – they’re demanding that the bill is withdrawn outright.

Today’s other big speech is being given by the shadow business secretary John Denham on graduate underemployment at ippr North in Newcastle – the first of a series of “state of the nation” speeches from shadow cabinet members. He’ll speak to structural flaws in the economy that lead to large numbers of graduates failing to gain graduate jobs after university, and urge the government to take a proactive approach to attracting graduate jobs into the economy. Denham will also broaded out the attack, suggesting that the Tories don’t understand how to attract private businbess, saying:

“The Tory-led government does not grasp how active government policies can foster the right conditions for successful private companies to grow, including in the crucial new sectors of the economy.”

The other big Labour story today is the release of new figures on donations, which reveal that private donations to the party have slumped in recent months, meaning that 87% of all donations are from trade unions. Alastair Campbell was the largest donor to the Labour Party over that period. The figures from the electoral commission also reveal that the party is £10 million in debt. Understandably opponents of the Labour Party (such as the Daily Mail) have used this as a stick to hit Ed Miliband with, although in reality the problems extend beyond one person.. Turning around Labour’s fundraising will certainly be a major task for the next party General Secretary.