If Labour wants to restore its reputation, it must introduce a referendum on Britain’s voting system, argues Ken Ritchie
Archive for June, 2009
By Tribune Web Editor /Monday, June 15th, 2009
There may be a smidgen of good news in these desperate times: the completion of the “new” Labour project. This would finally be accomplished, proclaimed Tony Blair, “when the Labour Party learns to love Peter Mandelson”. Presumably this has now come to pass, with Baron Mandy glorying in his elevated role as First Secretary of [...]
Building the future politics on our toxic present
By Tribune Web Editor /Monday, June 15th, 2009As the age of destruction dawns, a blueprint for survival is proposed by Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford
Joan Smith: Vaulting ambition o’erleaps itself – Brown must go
By Tribune Web Editor /Sunday, June 14th, 2009It isn’t over. The reshuffle, the plots and counter-plots; all of it is driven by fear, and that fear is not going to go away. Two forces are in play: Gordon Brown’s terror of being driven from office, and the anxiety of Labour MPs and activists that his premiership is destroying the party. On Monday night, MPs dragged themselves to a long meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party where Brown appeared contrite and fear held back some MPs and ministers who privately want him to go. In recent weeks, they have been battered by an unprecedented wave of public hatred over their expenses, electoral losses and the election of two British National Party candidates to the European Parliament.
Ian Aitken: It’s strictly personal, not political
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, June 13th, 2009I have one simple question to ask about the hullabaloo that has engulfed the Parliamentary Labour Party over the past three or four weeks. I want to be told what it is all about. Why are Labour MPs tearing their party to pieces, to the enormous satisfaction of the Daily Mail’s columnists and Rupert Murdoch’s leader writers?
We’re already using the best and fairest system available
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, June 13th, 2009The blunt choice is between first past the past and a flawed system that no one understands, argues Brian Donohoe
Westminster Watch: A truce, not a victory
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, June 13th, 2009Gordon Brown lives to fight another day, but he has not united his party, says James Lyons
Ken Livingstone: Shift to the right is the last thing Labour needs
By Tribune Web Editor /Saturday, June 13th, 2009There is no doubting the scale of Labour’s defeat in last week’s elections. It is the worst result in the party’s history. It has seen Labour down to 16 per cent of the national vote, beaten by the Conservatives in Wales, the SNP in Scotland and losing control of all of our remaining county councils in England.
By Tribune Web Editor /Friday, June 12th, 2009
The British National Party has launched its first invasion of British institutions – the Sudetenland outpost of the Press Complaints Commission. In an orchestrated effort to cleanse itself of fascist and new-Nazi stains, members have been instructed to make complaints on any and every pretext in order to deter the media from perpetuating the truth. [...]
Brown ‘on probation’ as he stages comeback with call for alternative voting
By Tribune Web Editor /Thursday, June 11th, 2009A new system for expelling from Parliament MPs found guilty of abusing their expenses and a review of the voting system were promised by Gordon Brown in the first stage of an attempted come-back following the collapse of a Labour coup to oust him.