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How to be right and wrong...

SOME weeks after last year's Assembly elections, I made a mistake. I wrote that I expected a rainbow coalition of Plaid Cymru, Conservatives and Lib Dems to take control of the Assembly Government. A programme of government had been agreed...

Posted by Tomos Livingstone on November 13, 2008 1:24 PM

Supporting Liverpool FC can be bad for your career

DID a Government minister's passion for Liverpool Football Club cost him his £30,000 job? There was much head- scratching when fire minister Parmjit Dhanda was axed - until it emerged he had been seen in deep and frequent conversation with...

Posted by Rob Merrick on October 15, 2008 1:54 PM

Manchester, United

A strange kind of unity has broken out all over the Labour conference, with everyone stating their public backing for Gordon Brown. It's a showdown postponed, rather than cancelled though - most expect some sort of move against the Prime...

Posted by Tomos Livingstone on September 22, 2008 9:22 AM

Do you mean it, Darling?

Journalists have been complaining for weeks that Westminster has been bereft of stories, but few expected salvation to come in the form of Alistair Darling's musings from the Isle of Lewis. Mr Darling's blunt message on the economy came as...

Posted by Tomos Livingstone on September 1, 2008 12:30 PM

The Truth is Out There, Somewhere

Just what is David Miliband plotting? One story doing the rounds is that he is already drawing up plans for his first Cabinet - with former Health Secretary Alan Milburn as Chancellor. But friends of the Foreign Secretary have denied...

Posted by Jonathan Walker on August 7, 2008 7:07 PM

Better The Devil You Don't Know

Ladywood MP Clare Short claims that David Miliband would be a lousy choice for Labour leader, partly because nobody has ever heard of him. But nobody had heard of David Cameron before he stood for the Tory leadership. It was...

Posted by Jonathan Walker on August 5, 2008 2:26 PM

Stop Listening and Start Talking

So Gordon Brown is to come to the West Midlands in a bid to prove he understands what ordinary people are going through. As well as a meeting of the Cabinet, there will be events where Ministers "listen and learn...

Posted by Jonathan Walker on August 4, 2008 9:41 PM

The plot doesn't thicken

THE plotting merry-go-round keeps a' spinning at Westminster, with the search for someone, anyone, to go on the record taking up everyone's time. Many wiser heads than I have already spotted the key flaws in the 'plot' story, not least...

Posted by Tomos Livingstone on July 29, 2008 3:38 PM

Clutching at Straw

Judging from some of the papers, you might think Westminster today was a hotbed of gossip, plotting and intrigue. Not so, I'm afraid; it's just hot. Most MPs are on holiday, David Cameron strolling in shorts on a beach in...

Posted by Tomos Livingstone on July 28, 2008 2:23 PM

Gordon's Glasgow kiss

There's plenty more analysis of the fall-out from the Glasgow East by-election in tomorrow's Western Mail, so I'll keep this relatively brief. Gordon Brown has, predictably enough, talked about 'getting on with the job', and has just delivered a speech...

Posted by Tomos Livingstone on July 25, 2008 1:22 PM

Glasgow earthquake

Iain Macwhirter: "Scotland could be an independent nation within 10 years. The entire UK will be shaken by the earthquake in Glasgow." Michael Brown: "The Prime Minister's survival until polling day is crucial to the Tory general election strategy." Jeff...

Posted by David Williamson on July 25, 2008 8:09 AM

Last minute wobble in Glasgow East

Latest gossip in Westminster is that the SNP is ahead in the Glasgow East by-election. Of course, I have no idea if it will prove to be true when the result is announced about nine hours from now. But it...

Posted by Jonathan Walker on July 24, 2008 3:28 PM

Brown is going nowhere

School's out at Westminster, as Parliament has broken up for the summer break and won't be back until October. This should make life easier for the press pack, who will have less to write about. In fact, it makes things...

Posted by Jonathan Walker on July 23, 2008 8:54 PM

Gordon's Chequers mates

EVER wondered who Gordon Brown has round for dinner? Thanks to nosy Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb, Downing Street now publishes an annual list of the Prime Minister's evening guests at Chequers, his country residence. Mr Brown's guest list, published...

Posted by Tomos Livingstone on July 23, 2008 11:03 AM

The more things change...

Back at Westminster today after a few days off in mobile signal-free parts of Scotland. So have I missed much in my week away? It would appear not; much of the news agenda appears to have been recycled, which I...

Posted by Tomos Livingstone on July 21, 2008 12:17 PM

Political nous

IT being 'end of term' week at the Welsh Assembly, it would normally fall to first minister Rhodri Morgan to handle a special on camera media briefing. But as Rhodri and deputy Ieuan Wyn Jones stole the show last week...

Posted by Tom Bodden on July 15, 2008 2:52 PM

Going North

Mohammad Asghar, the only Muslim member of the Welsh Assembly, will be taking part in the Glasgow East by-election, persuading locals to abandon Labour and give the SNP a chance. His friend, Bashir Ahmad of the SNP, is the only...

Posted by David Williamson on July 15, 2008 2:28 PM

David Davis vs Miss Whiplash

Two members of the Government have suggested to me that Labour should not even put up a candidate in Haltemprice and Howden - and let David Davis fight it out with Miss Whiplash and the Monster Raving Loony Party. The...

Posted by Jonathan Walker on June 12, 2008 6:52 PM

Whose fault was it really?

Peter Hain’s targeted intervention over Labour’s dismal election showing is the clearest indication yet that something deeper than a 10p tax gaffe is wrong in the party’s relationship with Welsh voters. The findings of an internal inquest into Labour’s failures...

Posted by Tom Bodden on May 13, 2008 5:31 PM

GB: 'I feel your hurt'

Gordon Brown is facing an uncomfortable test of his leadership qualities. Some of the same leftist MPs who actively sought his redesign of new Labour to replace that of Tony Blair are now among those piling the pressure on his...

Posted by Tom Bodden on May 5, 2008 9:55 AM