Daily Archives: August 31, 2010

Jim Pickard

For the Blair memoirs to be a genuine bestseller and pageturner it would help if they answered some of the outstanding questions of his decade in 10 Downing Street. You could write an entire book on those concerning the Iraq invasion – but instead I’ve come up with an alternative list:

1] Which of the current leadership candidates does he prefer? Is it David Miliband, as widely presumed? What is his assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the shadow foreign secretary? Ditto the other four candidates? If DM, at what point did he identify him as a future party leader and bearer of the New Labour torch? Also, did he have doubts about DM’s commitment to the “Blairite” reform agenda?

2] Did he believe that Gordon Brown was trying to undermine him during the run-up to the Iraq invasion? How committed was GB in private to the process? Did Brown try to rein him back? Did he fear that if the war went badly GB would mount a coup? What role did religion play in Blair’s thought processes?

3] Just how influential was Alastair Campbell (pictured) in government? Did the former head of communications play a key role in reshuffles, big policy decisions and so on? Did Blair ever regret giving him so much influence? Was AC instrumental in the second sacking of Mandelson? How hard did Blair try to keep Mandy in post?

4] Relations between Downing Street and the Treasury. How did things get so bad ? Did Blair feel frustrated that the domestic agenda was in Brown’s hands? What were his feelings in only getting Budget announcements at the last minute? How close did he come to sacking Brown and why did he refuse to? Was this out of weakness or brotherly love?

5] Euro. Why did he believe that entering the single currency was such a great idea and how hard did he fight for it internally? How did he feel when he was frustrated over the issue? Is he still a euro believer?

Jim Pickard

One of the flagship proposals in Ed Miliband’s policy manifesto is his plan for a “living wage” which would mean workers getting no less than £7.60 an hour (we’ve looked at it before here). This would not be imposed on companies by law. Instead they would be offered tax breaks in return for instigating the policy.

Mili-E (pictured) claims this would not cost anything because there would be a corresponding fall in the cost of tax credits and benefits. The problem is, he has not produced any costings to show how this maths would work.

George Parker and I interviewed Ed Balls last Friday (the result is here) and he reserved some of his strongest criticism for the other Ed’s living wage policy. Not only did he point out that he had implemented it in the education department when he was a minister – while Miliband had not at DECC.

He also questioned whether Mili-E had done his maths. “It seems to me that there would be a substantial extra cost either to the exchequer or to business,” he pointed out.

Balls was also critical of the way in which the Miliband brothers always talk about “values” in their speeches and interviews (although, to be clear, he didn’t mention them by name). “People talk about values as if somehow this is distinctive,” he said. “The implication is that somehow other candidates don’t.”

Jim Pickard

No doubt there will be voices raised in dissent at news that Britain and France are likely to proceed with plans to share three aircraft carriers. (Liam Fox is meeting his French counterparts on Friday).

Expect Labour figures to accuse the coalition of taking risks with British security given that the two countries don’t share identical geopolitical priorities. The decision is likely to be portrayed as evidence that the comprehensive spending review is cutting far too deep.

But – as the Times revealed in May 2008 – these talks were initiated when Gordon Brown was in power. As that newspaper reported back then:

The “bilateral carrier group interoperability initiative” was proposed by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, at his summit meeting with Gordon Brown in London in March (2008).

MoD officials did not deny those talks at the time, describing them instead as “aspirational”.

Jim Pickard

George Osborne to cut Treasury staff numbers by a quarter - George Parker, FT
Star chamber gathers, knives ready – FT
Hatred of Blair is over the top – Gideon Rachman, FT
UK and France press ahead with plan to share aircraft carriers – Sun
Will Blair “trash” Brown in his autobiography? - Tim Shipman, Daily Mail

Westminster blog

on the UK political scene

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Jim Pickard and Kiran Stacey, FT Westminster correspondents, share the latest news and analysis on the UK's political scene.

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Contact the Westminster blog team: Jim Pickard, Kiran Stacey, Nicholas Timmins, Elizabeth Rigby and Helen Warrell.

The illustrations of Jim and Kiran are by Nick Hardcastle.

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The authors

Jim Pickard joined the lobby team in January 2008. He has been at the Financial Times since 1999 as a regional correspondent, assistant UK news editor and property correspondent.

Kiran Stacey is an FT political correspondent, having joined the lobby in 2011. He started at the FT as a graduate trainee in 2008, working on desks including UK companies and US equity markets before taking over the FT's Energy Source blog.

Contributors

Elizabeth Rigby, the FT's chief political correspondent, joined the lobby team in September 2010. Elizabeth has worked at the FT for more than a decade and was most recently its consumer industries editor.

Helen Warrell is the FT's UK reporter, covering home affairs, crime and policing. She joined the FT in 2008 and has spent time as a reporter in the Brussels bureau and more recently, editing the paper's Asia coverage on the world news desk.

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