Co-founder of St. Michael Advisory. Former 10 Downing Street director of political strategy and Labour Party yeoman. Provincial.
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Joined January 2014
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Irony that if Rachel Reeves hadn’t done unglamorous work of restoring fiscal headroom + a disinflationary budget last year, this government would have had to introduce itself to the country with monstrous tax-rising budget. Many of her Labour critics now most indebted to her!
Budget thoughts: ok, not the end of neo-liberalism or a decade of drift. Lots to be done. But consequential reforms in energy quietly delivered with a decisive shift to ‘cheaper energy’. Striking that activist language and assumptions on net zero relegated to afterthought.
Tough decisions taken by Keir and Rachel in the first few years of this Parliament have set the country on the right course. Still much more to do but foundations being fixed + huge capacity for renewal = more reasons to be long Britain.
Paul Ovenden retweeted
The thing is... Keir and Rachel DID fix the foundations.
On growth, NHS, immigration, poverty, public services - they reversed the momentum, turned us around, and now we are moving in the right direction.
Hard yards need hard decisions and they did that
Well said
NEW: At PMQs, Andy Burnham rules out deal with the Greens following their adoption of the Zionism motion at confefence:
Dame Harriett Baldwin: The leader of the opposition has made it crystal clear about doing deals with other parties. So will the Prime Minister make it equally clear, following the Green Party's descent into the most abhorrent anti-Semitism that he will rule out co-operating with them?
Andy Burnham: Mr. speaker, can I condemn the motion that was passed unequivocally? It is wrong. It is anti-Semitic, and this side of the House will have nothing to do with it. And we will always take the right response when it comes to any partnerships we have with other parties. We cannot support a partnership with a party that holds a position that has recently been adopted.
Shortly after the ‘24 election, I gave the cabinet a snap analysis. It subsequently appeared in newspapers. The upshot was that Labour couldn’t lose sight of the Tory threat, no matter how exciting it was to take on Reform or woo ‘our’ voters from the Greens and Libs.
Fair to say not everyone agreed. And there absolutely was a period when the Tories looked dead. But Labour difficulty in compromising with electorate on some areas of spending/welfare/immigration is a vulnerability and source of oppo strength.
You can feel in the build-up, in the crowd, in the commentary that this Man City punishment is going to have to be sorted out very soon or the league will descend into farce. The whole thing feels asterisked: teams and fans will wonder why they have to play against them.
V good
We are going to take action on non-compete clauses. These are a blight on the lives of too many employees, and many of us in government have become concerned at the way in which their use is limiting job moves in the tech sector in particular. Innovation, dynamism and higher productivity comes from people being able to move easily into the right job for them - so we have to act.
For those who don't know, these clauses in employment contracts restrict people from moving into a new role immediately after leaving an old one. This forces people into limbo with no pay and no job for months on end.
It is estimated that as many as 5 million workers are subject to a non-compete clause - this holds back our economy, stunts innovation and leaves workers stuck in jobs across the economy, from tech to childcare.
So we are going to legislate to make sure that non-competes will no longer be a barrier to hiring for innovative firms & will no longer restrict unfairly the moves that workers in the everyday economy want to make too.
Detail to follow at the Budget, when BIST will publish its response to the engagement it has been doing on this topic.
ft.com/content/297ca864-737c…
For a decade, voters have grasped for change but been less sure how to get it (or what it should look like). Makerfield and H&SP show us Labour is the party they currently feel is best equipped to deliver. The challenge for govt remains the same: making good on it.
Striking that Badenoch describes Reform voters as ‘our people’ but has nothing similar to say to those who switched to Labour in ‘24 beyond a greatest hits of why the Tories don’t like Labour.
This would be a disastrous electoral strategy for the Tories and would keep Labour in power for a long time. There is no future for a Tory party that mourns the defection of Suella Braverman but thinks Penny Mordaunt isn’t ideologically pure enough to even be a candidate!
The Guardian quotes a shadow minister in Kemi’s team who says: “The way we are going, we risk being seen as the nasty party again”.
This is what concerns those who have deserted the Tories. That even if Kemi is robust in her conservative views, there are simply too many others in the party who don’t share her outlook. The infamous Tory ‘wets’ who are now Lib Dems in disguise.
This problem hasn't gone away. As I write in today's @Daily_Express
Interesting intervention from the great and wise @BenNunnUK
Why Andy Burnham won’t be the sole author of his first Budget story.
My piece for the @FT today: ft.com/content/2915c093-4735…
Quoted by the @Independent tonight in their story about the Greens’ descent into the depths of crankery
Last week, the Green Party were offered the biggest opportunity they’ve ever had, in the shape of electoral reform. Today, they’ve made it impossible for them to be accommodated in any administration.
