The unspeakable Martin Kettle of The Guardian is a political journalist who has been pretty close to, and supportive of, New Labour since the 1990s. His article ‘The special relationship that squandered a noble cause’ (27 May 2006) opened with this: ‘The long arc of Tony Blair’s rise and decline has been punctuated by […]
[…] eternal, blessed, values of England. Much Conservative history has been written by Conservatives, and a myth has been perpetuated. As Davies points out in his introduction, the Labour Party and its politicians have been the subject of much greater and more critical exposure – as one would expect of anything new. As a consequence, […]
What was Henry Brandon? One of the most interesting secondary sources covering the struggles of the British Labour government under Harold Wilson to prevent the devaluation of sterling between 1964-66 is Henry Brandon’s In the Red, published by Andre Deutsch in 1966. It is a remarkably well-informed text and its reliability is underlined by […]
Edward Pearce London: Little, Brown, 2002, £25, h/b. Compared to the present crop of media-trained, PR-conscious, line-following, careerist pigmies who comprise the current Labour Cabinet, Denis Healey looks like a giant from a golden age. Before his well known roles as Minister of Defence and Chancellor of the Exchequer (during the Tory-induced inflation […]
Peter Oborne and Simon Walters London: Aurum Press, 2004 p/back, £8.99 If you were going to read only one book on New Labour, this account of the New Labour people and their relationships with the media, from the days of opposition through to Campbell’s resignation in the wake of the death of Dr […]
[…] you have to get rid of people: ‘they gum up the works’. That the firm was a little people-light was simply put down to their efficiency. Fewer labour units equalled more profits. Andersen Andersen, the company’s auditor, who let these figures pass, would hardly have survived a moderately close inspection of its own track […]
[…] in the opposition to the Lloyd George Coalition’s Irish policy, in particular the so-called ‘reprisals’ policy with its murder squads and house-burnings. And then he joined the Labour Party. The eagerness with which the Labour Party, including the party at constituency level, welcomed this upper class convert and his wife with their country estate, […]
[…] and the attack on dictators is even-handed to include Castro, Mugabe and Chavez alongside Pinochet and other hate figures of the Left. Furthermore, many of the New Labour foreign policy elite cut their student teeth on campaigns against ‘fascist’ dictators and would have had a sympathetic ear from State Department officials who disapproved of […]
[…] mystery surrounding David Williams/Jack Hill, the major contributor to the Common Cause Bulletin. Harold Smith writes: Jack Hill was the name of a young, bright, good looking Labour Agent who, in the late 1940s (when I was the Labour Candidate in Rusholme Ward for Manchester City Council) was Assistant or Deputy to Reg Wallis, […]
[…] Andrew Gilligan blamed by the internal BBC inquiry while all his superiors escaped censure throws a little more light on the tightness of the New Labour network. Conducting the investigation was Caroline Thomson, the BBC director of policy, who is married to Roger Liddle, Tony Blair’s adviser on defence. Thomson and Liddle, […]
