John Prescott: class traitor of the decade?
Word up is that Number Ten wants the Croquet Kid – pictured left – to stay on as deputy prime minister for as long as Blair remains in the top job. Not that much longer, in other words. Predictably, the DPM wannabes are already lobbying for the position. Names that have emerged so far include [...]
£21m bung for Balfour Beatty and Network Rail
Balfour Beatty and Network Rail were last year given record fines totalling £13.5m for their role in the Hatfield rail crash – pictured left – of October 2000, in which four people died and over 100 injured. Mr Justice Mackay described BB’s work as ‘the worst examples of sustained industrial negligence in a high-risk industry’ [...]
Cameron and the chichi set
Tory MP John Hayes – chairman of the hard right Cornerstone group – is not best pleased with the assorted selection of Corrie extras and chick lit authors that Cokehead is trying to foist on unreconstructed constituency associations: ‘The idea that we can parachute insubstantial and untested candidates with little knowledge of the local scene [...]
Ken Loach: he’s a bit of a Trot, apparently
I was shocked – shocked – to read Dominic Lawson’s devastating revelations about Ken Loach in today’s Independent [subscription required]. I don’t quite know how to break this to you, gentle reader, but it appears that Britain’s best living film director is … a revolutionary socialist. ‘For many years, Mr Loach has been associated with [...]
Tommy Sheridan: open letter to SSP members
If I lived in Scotland, I would be a member of the Scottish Socialist Party. I don’t, so I’m not. And although I try to keep up with SSP developments, I simply do not know enough to take a position on its factional disputes. I’m posting this document from MSP Tommy Sheridan – pictured left [...]
Dr Chai Patel: big contract for Labour donor
The Ministry of Defence is spending more than £4m a year on private sector mental healthcare for service personnel. And most of the money is going to the Priory Group, owned by long-time New Labour financial backer – and frustrated House of Lords wannabe – Dr Chai Patel, pictured left. According to The Independent: ‘Figures [...]
Galloway: moral justification for killing Blair?
In an interview with GQ magazine – extracts available on most main news websites – George Galloway was asked: ‘Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber – if there were no other casualties – be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?’ The Respect MP for Bethnal Green & Bow [...]
Peugeot: the only way to save jobs
French motor manufacturer Peugeot is set to close its plant in Ryton, Coventry, and transfer production to Slovakia. That will mean the loss of both 2,300 jobs at the factory itself, and a further 1,700 among suppliers. So what now? It seems the main British unions involved – the TGWU and Amicus – have already [...]
Labour’s Great Pensions Robbery
New Labour’s proposals to raise the retirement age – announced today – will not affect anyone currently over the age of 47. I am 46, so I will be losing out. Now, as it happens, I wasn’t reckoning on stopping work at 65, anyway. It is almost certain I won’t be able to afford such [...]
Campaign Group: ‘New Labour in free fall’
The Labour left are clearly delighted with the tally of 69 rebels – and a further 15-20 abstainers – against the Education Bill last night, if this press release from the Socialist Campaign Group is anything to go by. The statement quotes SCG chair John McDonnell as saying: ‘This is a crippling blow to the [...]
