And this next song goes out to all the delegates leaving Labour Conference

Podcasts brought to you in association with Fleishman Hillard

Hillsborough ad is the politics of the gutter

I really hope this story is not true in the sense that it has nothing to do with the Labour Party. It really is disgusting politics that no one wants to see. Whoever paid for the google ad should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

Tabloid reaction to Brown's make or break speech

Says it all really doesn’t it…..

Welcome to the workhouse ladies

It has already been noted that can you imagine the outcry if someone such as  John Redwood had suggsted introducing a policy whereby teen mothers were made to live in some sort of sheletered accomodation what the media would be writing.

Yet today at Labour Conference Gordon Brown introduces such a policy….

I remember when I moved back to Chesterfield a few years ago I rented a Housing Association flat in a former workhouse in the town. It now appears under Labour young new mothers will be given a taste of the workhouse themselves. Not very New Labour is it Gordon!

No vision no argument!

Perhaps a slightly insensitive title for a press release about Gordon Brown, but I have to agree with Party Chairman Eric Pickles who commented,

“This was a speech with no vision and no argument – just a long shopping list with no price tag. Gordon Brown continues to treat people like fools. He didn’t acknowledge the mistakes he has made or that his Government has run out of money.
 
“He talked about change and a new age – but this speech was full of the same old political attacks and was firmly stuck in the past.”

I will be interviewing Eric at Party Conference in Manchsester. If you have a burning question you think should be asked just let us know.

Brothers, go back to your constituencies…. and prepare for opposition

Just listened to Gordon’s final speeach a Prime Minister of this country, as having listened to it that’s what it was.

Promise of a referendum on electoral reform – yet wasn’t that promised in the 97 manifesto? Promise of getting the Post Office to offer more banking services (sorry that’s been an objective or 20 years) from a Government who accepts millions from the Post Office Union, whilst closing over 4,000 post offices during Labour’s time in office.

A semi U-turn on ID cards when billions have already been wasted.

Putting up National Insurance – that really helps the less well off.

Care in your home (but they already admit you may have to pay towards it).

Only one thing to say to Gordon…….

Podcasts brought to you in association with Fleishman Hillard

Party Conference podcasts

This time next week Conservative Party Conference will be in full swing. We have lined up some fascinating interviews with quite a few of our PPCs hoping to take their seats on the green benches after the forthcoming general election.

Not only that, but we have managed to pin down “uber bloggers” Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale who will also be chatting to us. And for those of you more interested in what plans the party has in the months before the election, we will be in conversation with the Party Chairman Eric Pickles MP.

Podcasts brought to you in association with Fleishman Hillard

Do you remember Bryan Gould?

Bryan Gould

Do any of you remember Bryan Gould – ex Labour MP who once challenged for the leadership.

I just dug out some of my letters I received from various politicians that I had written to when writing for a student paper. In one letter I asked Bryan why was he leaving the Labour party and going back to New Zealand. In his response from April 1994 are a few words which certainly seem to be ringing true in 2009:-

“I am, however, a little unenthusiastic about the current direction of the Party. I feel that we are not offering a clear enough alternative to Toryism and that our policies lack a radical cutting edge. Most of all, I am concerned that the next Labour Government (if our recent performance is anything to go by – particularly on the issues like the ERM) will again deflate the economy at the behest of the financial establishment and thereby do great damage to the living standards of ordinary people and to the public services on which they rely. This has happened all too often in the past and I wish I could feel more confident that it was not going to happen this time as well.”

As they say, “who’d have thunk”?

The postman knocked just once.. but what about the Conference pass?

I had to have a wry smile on my face on returning from a well deserved break on the West coast of Scotland.

Royal Mail managed to deliver my letter from the Sleaford and North Hykeham Consevative Association letting me know I hadn’t been shortlisted for their parliamentary selection. (I always think the least that you could get would be a signed letter – as opposed to a poorly scanned signature but maybe that’s me?) Yet have Royal Mail managed to deliver my Conference Pass? Have they hill. Strangely none of the three passes Tory Radio applied for have arrived?

I hope Fingerprint event aren’t struggling to get passes out? Has anyone else not received their conference pass? Maybe it’s a sign of just how many people will be in Manchster.

Don't you just love Charles Clarke

Charles Clarke tonight on Newsnight not only suggested there were four or five people in the Cabinet who could be PM, but that any one of them could do a better job than the current incumbent.

Excellent stuff!!