I go Ice Shuffling, And Alan Johnson Comes Down With A Bump

So. Ice skating.

It's INSANE. How do people manage to glide around so effortlessly? Apart from practising for hours on end, obviously. I was getting the hang of it by the end of the session, but still: this would explain why we idolise Torville & Dean so much. If you can do something well when it looks impossible to many, then you clearly have talent.

Sadly, a similar task lay in store for Alan Johnson when he became Shadow Chancellor last October, but he was skating on thin ice from the start. (You're fired - Ed.)

Hands up if you're surprised by this news

Johnson was relatively affable and a well-known face, but a politician who is not in control of their brief will find things difficult at the best of times. It is a great shame that personal issues have brought his career to a shuddering halt, and is something you would not wish on your worst enemy. That said, you wouldn't wish the rumours about him on Twitter on your worst enemy, but that hasn't stopped some. Personally, I was surprised at anyone that he resigned, but after his surprise absence from PMQs yesterday, perhaps it was more obvious than I thought.

So, will Ed Balls, his replacement as Shadow Chancellor, give Osborne a run for his money (or rather ours)? He certainly has a better knowledge of economics, and Osborne will find his questions harder to deflect. But whilst it might be tempting to mercilessly attack the Government's policy, voters showed in their rejection of Gordon Brown that a big clunking fist does not always get the desired results. Ed Balls now has the brief he wants: the key to Labour's success is to not let it go to his head.

The Evening Stanners

Widespread Surprise As Union Leader Denounces Cuts

Any idea who this man is? Until today, I didn't either: but after hearing his name on the radio, I have subsequently found out quite a lot about Mr Len McLuskey, leader of the Unite union. For one thing, he's been a trade union activist for most of his career. He was also heavily involved in the British Airways strikes that occurred earlier this year. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, he's belligerently left-wing. Put these facts together and what have you got? A letter to the Guardian, that's what:

"Britain's students have certainly put the trade union movement on the spot. Their mass protests against the tuition fees increase have refreshed the political parts a hundred debates, conferences and resolutions could not reach.

We know the vast rise in tuition fees is only the down payment on the Con-Dem package of cuts, charges and job losses to make us pay for the bankers' crisis. The magnificent students' movement urgently needs to find a wider echo if the government is to be stopped.

The response of trade unions will now be critical. While it is easy to dismiss "general strike now" rhetoric from the usual quarters, we have to be preparing for battle. It is our responsibility not just to our members but to the wider society that we defend our welfare state and our industrial future against this unprecedented assault."

Preparing for battle? It would appear that McLuskey's advocating violence, as it were. Supposedly Ed should be shouting for Osborne's head on a stick at PMQs and prodding Camilla with a stick in order to get us out of this mess? Of course not: violence solves nothing, and has the unhelpful effect of alienating those who would otherwise side with you. But let's move on to the integral part of this letter...

"A key part must be a rejection of the need for cuts. "What do we want? Fewer cuts later on", is not a slogan to set the blood coursing.

So I hope Ed Miliband is going to continue his welcome course of drawing a line under Labour's Blairite past, in particular by leaving behind the devotion to City orthodoxy, which still finds its echo in some frontbench pronouncements that meet the coalition's cuts programme halfway at the least."

Right. I see. Dear Mr McLuskey, are you Arthur Scargill in disguise? Are you seriously suggesting that overthrowing the Government with widespread strikes will somehow make us more stable as a country? Even the Guardian's editorial thinks you've lost the plot. More to the point, Ed Miliband has subsequently come out and denounced your "overblown rhetoric" as "wrong and unhelpful". He might as well have said, "Stop trying to make me look bad, I'm trying to write a Policy Review here".

So, poor old McLuskey, in a desperate bid to influence the Labour Party's policy on cuts, has simply been left looking rather silly. Maybe he should go on strike until someone takes him seriously...

The Evening Stanners

Labour Need To Smarten Up

Is this, dear readers, what the Labour Party has been reduced to in recent weeks? It would appear so. Yesterday in the House of Commons, a Labour MP decided that what the public really wanted to see a discussion on was the dress code of MPs.

The most controversial issue in Parliament?

According to BBC News, "Thomas Docherty, new MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, raised a point of order suggesting several MPs had been spotted wearing denim in the House.

Later he told the BBC the point had been "semi-serious" but some women MPs had been "rocking up in a mixture of denim and knee length boots".

Deputy Speaker Dawn Primarolo said all MPs knew they should dress smartly.

MPs laughed as she suggested Mr Docherty speak to those concerned directly, adding 'I'm sure they would welcome it'."

The scandal of some coalition MPs, eh? First they hike tuition fees, now they're wearing denim. Clearly we need Labour to stand up to these fashion criminals before the country goes to the wall!

Or, perhaps more helpfully, they could start drawing up some policies. After all, if the Tories can come up with something like this notebook for Christmas, the signs aren't good...

Why a notebook, I hear you cry? Bascially, it all stems from Ed Miliband saying that Labour were going to start with "a blank sheet of paper". Perhaps not the best phrase to have used in hindsight, because the Tories have gone for it like footballers go for scandalous affairs, and are actually selling this to their members as a 204-page notebook for a fiver. The joke being: it's blank.

Admittedly, I've heard better political jokes in my time, but the Tories may well have a point. Apart from proposing the graduate tax as an alternative to higher tuition fees, and rambling about "the squeezed middle", Ed is a man who appears to be big on Clegg-bashing but small on policy. Indeed, for someone who wrote the Labour manifesto, he's having difficulties coming up with new ideas: Labour's Policy Review remains unwritten.

The more pressing issue, however, is that Cameron is having a much easier time against Miliband than he was against Brown, who didn't even get voted leader by his party. Ed frequently tries to score points by painting himself as progressive, but the truth is he can't lay a finger on Cameron at present, and is frequently heckled into a state of confusion and irritation: Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday 1st December being the best example so far. What's more, some progressive bloggers are already damning his current strategy. If he's not careful, the confusion may spread throughout his party: but for now, he appears to be safe. Whether he can win the next election, however, is open to serious debate.

The Evening Stanners

All Hail Ed Milibad

Reading Nick Robinson's latest "newslog", it would appear he's had his worst week yet. If that's the case, then heaven knows what's happening to Ed Miliband. If you watched Prime Minister's Questions, you'll know what I mean.

It's not that I despise Labour, but they don't half pick some bad leaders, do they? When you consider they've only had one who's never lost an election (Tony Blair), and five who never won an election (Hugh Gaitskell, James Callaghan, Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and Gordon Brown), it really doesn't look good for the current man in charge. I would like to think his brother could be doing a better job, because the more I watch "Red Ed" (or at this rate, Thick 'Ed), the more I'm convinced he's not up to it. Gordon Brown at least had the ability to be dogged and determined, but if Ed wants to actually make Cameron look silly, he's going to have to do better than make jokes about photographers. As for lambasting Cameron about tuition fees: um, who came up with the idea of tuition fees, Ed?

Oh yes, that would be Labour. Rather like pushing a stone down a hill and then complaining when it appears to speed up. Or did you assume that it would always be Labour calling the shots here? It might have been better to draw attention to the fact that raising tuition fees might lead to MPs in constituencies with a high student population being sacked: Nick Clegg, for example, could be under threat in Sheffield Hallam, thanks to the "Right of Recall" Act.

Or better yet, if you're going to have a crack at Cameron for hiring too many staff, how about the fact he needs no less than six security guards on hand when he goes to a restaurant in Oxfordshire? (This happened the Friday before last when I was in Woodstock: never have I seen so many Land Rovers following one solitary man: a little OTT, perhaps?) Ah yes, I know why: because it was Labour who introduced the idea of having ridiculous amounts of security, like giving sub-machine guns to police officers at railway stations.

Policies, man. You need to have some. Get it sorted. And to think I voted Labour last time...

The Evening Stanners

Dead Miliband

"We're part of a new generation" - that makes their brother quit frontbench politics. Hmm. It has not quite been the result people expected: but whilst the outsider winning a leadership contest can be a good thing, it has a tendency to end badly sometimes.

See Iain Duncan Smith, for example. No-one expected him to be Tory leader in 2003, going up against Messrs Portillo and Clarke. As it was, he somehow found himself being the lesser of three evils, and at the top of the pile. However, at that range it's easy to get shot at: and with IDS, the target was painted in neon. The Tories shifted massively to the right, and became so toxic that they became a political joke.

Will Labour become the same thing in the years to come? It's hard to say. The problem is that we don't even know who's going to be in the Shadow Cabinet. Because, for some reason, the Labour MPs are electing their own cabinet.

Quite frankly, this makes no sense. Surely the leader picks his own team? Why does he need 257 people helping him to make the decision? It's surely going to lead to more infighting, and Labour has lost a lot of good and able politicians thanks to that. The most bizarre twist is that, amidst all this, Neil Kinnock has risen again in prominence, mainly due to singing Ed Miliband's praises.

Kinnock? Seriously? This is a man who could not beat John Major in the 1992 general election: which compared to 1997, does not exactly seem difficult. Yes, he was Labour leader for nine years: but he never looked like beating Thatcher. Made her look uncomfortable at times, granted. And a damned sight better at leading Labour than Michael Foot, naturally. But whilst it makes sense to have Kinnock advising you on how to reform the party, it does not make sense to give the impression that he is influencing national policy: because ultimately, Kinnock did not have the ability to convince people that his policies were better than anything the Conservative governments had in mind.

Ultimately, a shift to the left does a lot to gather attention: but battles are won on the centre ground. One piece of possible good news, though: Ed Miliband wrote the manifesto for the party that came second at the general election. The person who did that in 2005?

David Cameron, PM.

Miliband's either destined for No. 10, or destined to end up like his biggest fan Kinnock. At least he's doing better than his brother, eh?

The Evening Stanners

Labour Leadership Contest...

JUST.

GOT.

INTERESTING.

Taken from that raging leftie machine of death... I mean, the Guardian :-)

Diane Abbott today became the first black person to contest the Labour leadership after a flurry of late nominations secured her place in the race alongside four other contenders.

The leftwing MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington will fight for the leadership alongside David Miliband, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, who were already confirmed as contenders.

She is joined by Andy Burnham, who this morning notched up the last two nominations from Labour MPs he needed to reach the threshold of 33.

Abbott entered on the closing day for nominations with the support of just 11 MPs – 22 short of the threshold. Amid unease that the race would be made up exclusively of white, male, Oxbridge-educated candidates, support for Abbott soared in the final hours before today's 12.30pm deadline when her fellow leftwinger John McDonnell withdrew and key figures such as David Miliband revealed that they were nominating her.

Abbott's campaign had already received a big boost when Harriet Harman, the acting Labour leader, took the unusual step yesterday of nominating her to ensure a woman's name on the ballot paper. As acting party leader, Harman does not intend to cast a vote in the election.

Today, McDonnell revealed he was withdrawing from the contest because he could not secure enough nominations and wanted to ensure the presence of a woman on the ballot.

The MP for Hayes and Harlington, who chairs the Socialist Campaign group, which Abbott attends, made his announcement just three hours before the deadline.

Harman was rumoured to be lobbying party colleagues to lend their support to Abbott in the final hours before nominations closed, with the remaining MPs required reportedly signing her nominations during the final minutes, as prime minister's questions was under way at noon.

Balls had asked MPs who had yet to cast their vote to throw their weight behind Abbott, since he had already received 33 nominations.

Miliband, the shadow foreign secretary, made good on his promise last week to offer his nomination to any candidate if it might make the difference to them appearing on the ballot paper.

In a Twitter message, he said: "Gather John McDonnell pulled out. I'm going now to nominate Dianne [sic] myself. Encourage others to do the same."

Jim Murphy, the shadow Scottish secretary, revealed that David Miliband had lobbied in favour of Abbott. "Good that David Miliband spent morning on phone persuading MPs to nominate Diane Abbott," Murphy said on Twitter. "It worked and good for contest."

Two of the last people to nominate Abbott were Jack Straw and Phil Woolas. Woolas was asked to nominate her by David Miliband. Straw and Woolas were keen to get her on the ballot even though she has condemned the Labour policy on immigration they strongly supported.

Abbott said she would stand out from the other candidates because of her "very different view on immigration", her record of opposition to the Iraq war from the start and her determination to recapture the civil liberties agenda from the Tories.

"The important thing is to have the best possible debate and then to regroup and lead the battle to protect our communities against Tory cuts," she said.

Citing 23 years on the backbenches, Abbott said she knew the importance of taking party members seriously and reconnecting with the party's grassroots.

Abbott, a Cambridge graduate, said: "I have never been a policy wonk. My parents left school at 14 and emigrated here in the 1950s. I am a single mother and I have spent 23 years working at every level in this party."

Confirming the candidates, Harman said: "This will be the biggest and most widespread election of any political party or any organisation in this country. The contest will be open, engaging and energising. It will be a chance to invite supporters to join the party to have a vote."

McDonnell's decision to withdraw from the race means he has now twice been thwarted in his attempt to represent the left in a leadership debate. His attempt to challenge Gordon Brown in 2007 failed after he did not manage to secure the necessary number of nominations.

His latest campaign was marred by his joke earlier this week that he would like to have gone back in time and assassinated Margaret Thatcher, the former Tory prime minister.

Shadow environment secretary Hilary Benn, who backs Ed Miliband, denied the last-minute race to secure enough nominations for Abbott meant the contest had become a shambles.

"It's not a shambles at all," he told BBC Radio 4's The World At One. "It's going to be a good contest. There's going to be an open political debate because we are not just choosing a leader, we are determining the future of the party."


Abbott denied she was the beneficiary of positive discrimination. "Not at all," she told the BBC News Channel. "I have been an MP for 23 years and if, after 23 years, I haven't earned the right to stand for the leadership then nothing counts for anything."

Abbott said her senior colleagues had responded to the mood within the party for a contest with a greater diversity of candidates.

"This isn't an artificial thing," she said. "There is real support out there, both in the party and the public, for the broadest possible slate of candidates and for a proper debate about the future of the Labour party."

Abbott, who appeared on the BBC's late-night This Week politics show prior to throwing her hat in the ring, cited opinion polls which indicated that was the second most popular candidate among Labour voters and the top choice of the public at large.

"My support came from across the party and I believe in the contest I will get support from across the party also," she said.

The successor to Gordon Brown will be chosen by a complicated electoral college system in which three sections – MPs and MEPs; affiliated organisations including trade unions; and party members – each wield one third of the vote.

The postal ballot will be conducted over the summer, with the result announced on 25 September at a special conference ahead of the party's annual autumn gathering in Manchester.

Voters will rank candidates in numerical order of preference on ballot papers, with a "transferable eliminating" system used to redistribute votes until one contender has more than 50% support.

Labour is hoping that interest in the leadership contest will spark a surge in membership applications, with anyone joining the party before September 8 entitled to vote.

Exciting stuff, no? It's definitely a good day for democracy, because this leadership contest was in danger of becoming horrendously boring. As it is, we now have five people running instead of three, two of whom are relative unknowns, and one of whom (Abbott) is on the left of the party, voted against the Iraq War and is a backbencher. Burnham will also make things more interesting, whilst the performance of Ed Balls, David Miliband and Ed Miliband will show just how dead or alive New Labour is.

Also pleased that Harman backed Abbott. Another triumph for Women's Lib, perhaps?

The Evening Stanners

Labour Leadership Contest: Ed, Dave and Eddie

Okay, the show was technically called Ed, Edd and Eddie. But you get the idea.

Here's the deal:

David Miliband is nominated, as is Ed Miliband. Ed Balls, whilst still struggling a bit, has at least got himself nominated and will be difficult to remove from frontline politics, as the Conservatives found when they failed to "decapitate" him from Morley on May 6th.

The other three are still trailing, unfortunately. Burnham is half-way there (thank you Bon Jovi. Yes, now you too have that song in your head), McDonnell has six signatures, and poor old Diane Abbott only has one. So much for diversity!

It will be a lot clearer after the end of this week who's not going to make it: after all, the other three do have a whole week to garner support, so we'll see.

Interestingly, Dave Miliband has suggested the idea of televised debates for the contest, which would certainly be a modernising move and would do Labour a fair bit of good in my opinion. After all, it did inspire Cleggmania!

More soon...

The Evening Stanners

Labour Leadership: Ed's Ahead

Well, that was quick. The nominations by MPs for the Labour Party's next leader have only been open for a day and already Ed Miliband has taken a storming lead.

The nomination process is a bit complicated, but basically it works like this: there are 258 Labour MPs who can pledge their support to any one of the six candidates. They do this in the form of a signature, and every candidate has to get at least 33 signatures in order to advance to the "next stage", as it were.

Anyway, in a somewhat surprising development, Ed Miliband has already achieved that, with 35 signatures to his name. His brother David is on course to get enough, but is still trailing significantly with just 19 signatures. Ed Balls is third with four, Andy Burnham has one, and Diane Abbott and John McDonnell do not have any support so far. That should change in the next few minutes, however, as the Labour Party website is updating the signatures at 12:30pm and 5:30pm every day until the 9th June.

So in short, this could take a while: but expect both Milibands to have advanced to the next stage by the end of the day.

The Evening Stanners