This. My article for Labour Uncut. Yes, 1500 words, published this morning. Sleep is for separatists.
Gordon Brown is now a part of the Constitution. When he speaks, then that is the policy of all three parties, because he has spoken. Don't expect that to stop after this. Having been struck down, he has become more powerful than those who did so could possibly have imagined.
Is Brown going to propose the Devo Max Bill from the Government Despatch Box? Why not? And it bears his marks, anyway: you can see where he used to jab his pen into it.
In other words, Brown to run the country while Cameron gets to be foppish on the telly. Brown has done this one before.
However, as I conclude in the link above (having begun, "There is no West Lothian Question."):
Devo Max will pass. In order to force these concessions in the course of that Bill’s parliamentary progress, there should be 200 votes against it at Second Reading, perhaps even 250, and possibly even 300. There ought to be. But will there be? If not, why not?
Thank you for reminding us what we are all missing. Anyone who did not know otherwise would assume that link was written by a senior backbench MP.
ReplyDelete"We May Hate Brown But He Did Save The Union And The Pound", says your new haunt of Breitbart London. You agree of course. But you are still not afraid to call him wrong on one of the biggest Labour websites. This link is one of the best applications for a seat I have ever read and with the One Nation Society founding document it adds up to a damn good pitch for Leader after Miliband or Deputy Leader next year. You are a terrible loss, those to blame should be very ashamed.
ReplyDeleteJust because you are a gifted, polished writer that doesn't make you Labour. Labour Uncut should change its name if it is going to go publishing a man who has been refused membership of the party, an extremely rare measure.
ReplyDeleteBut they are your mates, like the Buchananite right wingers at the American Conservative that should also consider a name change if even you are now in the fold. There is an interesting lack of women in any of these drinking clubs with websites. It is not hard to imagine all of them together over some very fine whiskies with you at the head of the table.
Your intervention like this and the considerable offline attention you know it is getting are as bizarre as the regular pronouncements by Gordon Brown. He is a backbench opposition MP who hardly attends Parliament, you are a retired Independent parish councillor soon to enter a second decade as a full time blogger.
Long ago expelled from Labour, stood unsuccessfully against us for the old district council you want to bring back in this post, threatened to stand against us for Parliament, publicly endorsed an Independent (Tory) ally of your old Labour district council mates against the Labour candidate, voted Labour and Independent instead of Labour and Labour in the county election only hours before you applied to re-join.
A failed Telegraph blogger, a failed author whose books sank like stones, somehow allowed to keep a Durham University staff card and email address despite having no remaining duties, not had a day job in years, effectively retired before you are 40, engaged in long running feuds with two of the biggest figures in media London, one of its rising stars, one of think tank land's big hitters and one of the most senior Labour staff members plus all his relatives.
Yet they are all talking about this post and people who thought a page had been turned in political life in these parts are beside themselves. It should never have been published no matter how good it was.
Speak for yourself. Most people here never wanted David out of the party and wish Neil Fleming would fall under a bus so he could be let back in. This seat would then be his in 2020.
DeleteWe'd pay good money to read anything a tenth as good as this by Fleming who has never had an original thought in his life.
The threat of Fleming in 2010 led the NEC to impose a women only short list. That's right, to stop one of their own employees from becoming an MP. Much of the NEC like much of the political blogosphere now seems to be made up of David's mates.
The sour grapes comments on Labour Uncut are hilarious. Especially the one assuming anyone on there above or below the line cares about Damian Thompson and Dan Hodges of all people.