Labour MPs and Tory peer plead not guilty and say workings of parliament should be dealt with by parliamentThree Labour MPs and a Conservative peer charged with theft over their expenses claims are to fight to keep their cases out of the criminal courts by attempting to invoke a 320-year-old law protecting them under parliamentary privilege.Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield appeared today at City of Westminster magistrates court to plead not guilty to charges of false accounting under the Theft Act 1968.The cases were committed to Southwark crown court after lawyers argued they raised issues of "high constitutional importance". If convicted, the four face a maximum sentence of seven years' imprisonment.Julian Knowles, representing the three MPs, stressed the...

Three Conservative committee members walk out claiming inquiry is pursuing Labour vendettaA Westminster inquiry into the row over Lord Ashcroft's peerage was thrown into turmoil when the Tory MPs on the committee walked out and said they were boycotting it permanently.In what is understood to be an unprecedented move, Conservative members have withdrawn from the public administration select committee, some following discussions with the party whips.The committee, regarded as one of the most influential in parliament, announced an inquiry into Ashcroft's ennoblement in the aftermath of the peer's revelation last week that he has non-dom status. The billionaire described how he had renegotiated an undertaking he gave as a condition of his peerage to become a full British resident to allow...

The Lib Dem leader is everywhere at the moment. The new issue of The Economist has an interview with him: Mr Clegg denies that his leadership amounts to a move to the “right” (Lib Dems, with a touch of sophistry, argue that such labels are anachronistic). The left certainly approves of his civil libertarianism and his (now diluted) policy to abolish university-tuition fees. Though he has not called for an end to the war in Afghanistan, he has pleased the left by “rattling the cage” over its conduct.Still, more than his recent predecessors, he is contemptuous of the idea that Liberalism and Labourism are natural partners whose separation in the early 20th century should now be reversed. “Liberalism is a really old British tradition and it has a completely different attitude...

John Kampfner, former editor of the New Statesman, Chief Exec for Index on Censorship, sometime BBC reporter and Chair of the Turner Contemporary Trust has written a tract on a hollow and bankrupt (my view) political party which is all about self interest for activists at any cost and screw social justice and the likes of me and you.I got sent this email (see below) announcing publication of the pamphlet Lost Labours, a couple of days ago, sent to me as one of the benefits of belonging to the Liberal Democrats, I thought it might appeal to my fair minded readers perhaps even the delusional Labour readers.Just a quick note the opinions I express in this blog are my own although I see one local blogger refers to this blog as Liberal Democrat News Margate, it just happens that I believe in...

It seems like George Osborne's incompetence and hardline views are not just well known in the City, they have been noticed abroad to. According to LabourList, Le Monde have written a scathing piece about the Shadow Chancellor.If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times. Opposition Parties who run an agenda of policy by gimmick and who think they can "Seal the Deal", arrogantly assuming a deal has been made, don't deserve to automatically win general elections and thankfully they have their work cut out...

The Conservatives have promised to open up data – even the vast Treasury database, Coins. That's a powerful pitch to voters2010 is going to see the world's first data election.If you don't believe me, then take account of one fact: data has become trendy. It might not win you any friends at parties – of the cocktail kind, that is – but in politics, it is the buzzword of the moment.First – and probably coolest of all – Barack Obama launched data.gov, a gateway for US government statistics as his first legislative act. Then, Gordon Brown bought in inventor of the worldwide web Tim Berners-Lee to help launch data.gov.uk – which is the (better) UK version.Now, it's the Tories' turn. Francis Maude, the Conservative party's shadow Cabinet office minister, launched the party's...

Sometimes Gordon Brown's brass neck literally makes the jaw drop. His latest spat with former soldiers comes smartly on the heals of the prime minister's appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry, during which he claimed that military commanders were always provided with the equipment they requested in Iraq and Afghanistan.The chronology is instructive, and tells us all we need to know about the veracity of Brown's statements. First the prime minister makes his claim. Lord Guthrie and Admiral Lord Boyce accuse Brown of disingenuous answers. At PM's questions Gordon reacts with the equanimity we have come to expect and rants about Tory officers. Soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq have persistently complained about the inadequacy of their equipment. Should we suppose that they too...

Funny quip on Political betting today..."Newsnight was funny. Paxman seemed to have a real disdain for Ed Balls".In reply"Actually Ed Balls is one of those people who divides opinions.There are some people who want to punch him in the face all day long.The rest of the people want to kick him in the knackers all day long".Thanks to the Screaming Eagles for that little Bon Mot....

It's interesting to observe how, in the run-up to the General Election, Labour is making valiant efforts to distract attention away from national issues and working hard on a 'localism' programme of their own.It goes rather like this for anyone who hasn't spotted it already. "We, the local Labour Party, may operate under the same flag as the gang in government but really we're different and can offer friendly local solutions that government can't.' Of course, any occasional scraps of comfort or finance that fall locally will, rather like some strange and primitive 'Cargo Cult', will be the divine gift of 'a Labour Government' and just to remind you what this is:'A cargo cult is a type of religious practice that may appear in traditional tribal societies in the wake of interaction with...

Another New Labour triumph has been turned upon its head. Despite Gordon “McCavity” Brown declaiming that crime had been reduced massively under their careful stewardship, it seems that it was all just an illusion, a carefully constructed sham of carefully spun and stage-managed opinion polling. When someone sat down and compared actual crime reports, a...

You’d think that in the UKIP heartlands of Newton Abbot, there’d be a certain solidity to its election campaign, but now UKIP are on their third PPC for the new electoral constituency. The latest incumbent in the role of representing the ‘KIPers, as we affectionately call them, is long-time UKIP supporter Jackie Hooper, who is replacing Neal Raleigh, who replaced Nicholas Forrow. Apparently, ‘Neale is unable to stand any longer’. The UKIP HQ is in Newton Abbot, only a few furlongs away from the EU-baitingTrago Mills (is it true you can still buy things by the bushel there?). Still, at least UKIP have a candidate, Labour seems to have given up the ghost and debunked to Exeter – now there’s faith in the electoral system. And in Torbay Labour are...

Writing on his blog for Sky News, Adam Boulton discusses John Kampfner's decision to support the Liberal Democrats at the forthcoming general election.A couple of choice quotes: it is a wake-up call as to just how important the Lib Dems and their vote are going to be in a general election.And:When I was in the North East recently there was much speculation that the LibDems could take the City of Durham from Labour.It is 23rd on their target...

Gordon's spin machine is making the most of today's announcement on Labour's help 'to get the housebuilding market restarted' with an £83m boost. In London, completions have fallen around 11% from 22,750 new dwellings completed in 2007 to 20,230 in 2009, an annual drop of 2,520 dwellings. However, there are signs that the market is sorting itself out; there was a big standstill in the last quarter of 2008 on new starts as sites were frozen, but these are now being completed, and completions in the last quarter of 2009 were back to 2007 levels. So how much of that 11% drop will Gordon's 'boost' reverse? London's share of Gordon's pot comes to 141 dwellings - that's, er, a boost of 0.62%. If all 141 are built in the same year. I expect the market will sort the other 10.38%. There was a...

Southern voters might be surprised to learn that the Labour heartlands are not the romanticised ‘green valleys’  surrounding the far from romantic pit villages of the Rhonda Valley that the wind-bag Neil Kinnock liked to promote as the seat of Labour Power. Nor are they the teeming back alleys of Liverpool surrounding the now redundant Mersey...

Is Britain really broken? And if so, are families or politicians to blame? Or does this provocative debate distract from a more nuanced reckoning of the role of the family, marriage and the upbringing of children in 21st century Britain? Join our panel as they interrogate the questions that go to the heart of who we are and how we live.The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland chairs the discussion and takes questions from a live audience at Kings Place.Jonathan FreedlandPolly ToynbeeDavid WillettsCamila Batmanghelidjh...

Commenting on the publication of DEFRA’s consultation on dangerous dogs, Shadow Environment Secretary Nick Herbert, said:"The problem of dangerous dogs is growing and the current legislation is clearly not working, but the Government's proposals risk penalising millions of law-abiding dog owners with the blunt instrument of a dog tax. We should be targeting the minority of irresponsible dog owners, not the vast majority who are responsible dog lovers. And we need to legislate carefully, not in haste, so that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the infamously flawed Dangerous Dogs Act.Conservatives and many others have been calling for action to deal with dangerous dogs for years, and we are pleased that the Government has finally woken up to the problem. But we question why they have...

Former New Statesman editor John Kampfner has come out in support of the Liberal Democrats in a new CentreForum pamphlet and in an article for the Guardian.The pamphlet Lost Labour: Where now for the liberal Left? is being launched today by Kampfner and Nick Clegg. It can be downloaded from the CentreForum website.In the Guardian Kampfner says:For many Labour supporters, the single most important reason for their party to stay in power is to keep the Tories out. Yet people can only for so long be exhorted to hold their nose, to vote for a party they feel has let them down, simply because the alternative is worse. It is deeply damaging to politics to resort perpetually to the double negative.There is a bigger task facing left-liberals. The election should be used as a means of promoting a...

On face value it looks as damaging as the Ashcroft situation, but there is one key difference. Labour have not hid anything here, there has been no confusion, no pledges were made. As it is many Labour activists, inc myself, are unhappy with any of our donors being non doms and thankfully this looks like this is about to change...

Labour would have you believe that to remove the "stimulus" from the economy would put in jepoardy the recovery. That is unless debt-funded spending is continued, this country will slip back into recession.Let's think about what this means, here in the real world for a minute.This recovery is about spending in the economy and it has been funded until recently by freshly printed money. This source of funding has run out, and the UK is reliant now on the debt markets to provide the "investment in public services" that the taxpayer for the moment is unable to. Or to put it another way, the Chinese tax-payer is funding Gordon's spending spree.The other people who are funding the spending spree are the banks, who are forced, by law to buy more government debt as capital against which they...

Business secretary says Ashcroft has Cameron 'by the balls' and that affair reveals 'fundamental weakness'David Cameron's failure to confront his billionaire deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft over his tax status exposes the "fundamental weakness" of the Conservative leader and undermines his claim to be a moderniser, Lord Mandelson said tonight.In a highly personal attack, the business secretary said in an interview with the Guardian that Ashcroft had Cameron "by the balls", the affair showed Cameron was "too weak to pick a fight with his own party" and the Tories were "fundamentally unchanged".Mandelson raised the stakes in the row that has convulsed the Tories since Ashcroft, the party's chief backer, made the surprise announcement last Monday that he has been a non-dom – not paying tax...

Labour and Tory frontbenchers will not accept the 1.5% rise due to kick in next monthSenior MPs today queued up to renounce a pay rise worth almost £1,000 today amid fears of a public backlash.John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, said it would be "extremely inappropriate" to accept a 1.5% rise, due to kick in next month, in the aftermath of the expenses debacle.Downing Street also made it clear that ministers would not take the extra money due to be added to their pay packet following a recommendation by the Senior Salaries Review Body.The Conservatives made the same pledge, though one backbench colleague warned that some MPs would "struggle" without the pay rise.Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, and his Treasury spokesman, Vincent Cable, are also understood to be planning to forego...

Shamelessly stealing Michael Foot's words from Bob Piper, who himself stole them:We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer ‘To hell with them.’ The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.Remember also Harold Wilson's dictumThe Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing....

“We are not in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and more crippled than ourselves.”Michael Foot MP, 1983Michael Foot has been criticised as having been an ineffective leader, as having been responsible for Labour’s election defeat in 1983 and was caricatured as senile, ‘loony left’ and a naive pacifist. He was none of these things. He was the only leader who all the fragments of a divided party would accept. He was intelligent, honest, blended principle with pragmatism and was as much a democrat as he was a socialist. He was against the appeasement of Franco’s fascists and Hitler’s Nazis and he volunteered to...

The Ashcroft saga looks like it will end up as an own goal for Labour. There is nothing illegal about the whole story. Not only that, but Lord Ashcroft wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth (sorry, socialists), as everyone knows he's a self-made man, and one of the success stories of the old Grammar School System.What will come as a great shock for Labour luvvies is that he also pays tax on his financial and private affairs in the UK, making him a UK taxpayer.In a nutshell, despite the media spin and fake outrage from Labour Ministers and supporters, it seems that the trustworthy UK public have worked out that it's a simple smear campaign, orchestrated (if somewhat slightly out of tune) by Brown's backstairs department.This is going to end up an own goal for Labour as it draws...

Apparently Mugabe would be voting for the Tories in our upcoming General Election, if he could."We have a better chance with (British Conservative leader) David Cameron than with Brown."The fact notwithstanding, Mr Mugabe, that I think you have as much a chance at bettering your situation with David Cameron as we in Britain do, you should really consider poor Gordon Brown's feelings.He...

Michael Foot was perhaps the last of the great radical, idealists in a tradition dating back to the formation of the Labour Party. His was a magnificent oratorical style, suited to the campaigning format of an earlier age, where public meetings were the main format of communication with the electorate. The modern media machine has encouraged the destruction of this content-heavy, sometimes ponderous style in favour of communications-lite demand for the soundbite. If you get the chance, listen to Foot's Commons good-humoured, but devastating, assault on Keith Joseph and Conservative economic policy in 1980, which has all the timing and delivery of a top-line comic and clearly had the audience held rapt for the duration, as Joseph was compared to a magician who had forgotten how to complete...

Following the launch of the Conservative iPhone app, Labour have launched an app of their own.Features in the launch version of the app include:■User-friendly guide to all the key policy dodges.■Ability to telephone canvass potential comrades and report their voting intentions back to the Party (great way to target bribes i.e. free laptops).■Simple mechanism for donating directly to the Party (a bit like union dues, but with your permission).■Easy way to watch all the latest Prescott Vlogs (you lucky people).■Virtual ‘Swingometer’ featuring a UK map getting bluer as Labour's percentage share in the General Election decreases.■Automatic Twitter updates (directives) from the Labour Party and integrated access to the Facebook page (access will be monitored).John Prescott...

This week we focus on two Michaels: Michael Foot and Michael Ashcroft; we also contemplate ethics and consider who will come out top in the televised party leaders' debates.To do this we've got Madeleine Bunting - she's pioneering a new project to strengthen personal ethics iin both everyday and political life. Madeleine is joined by Cambridge don David Runciman. From there it's a short hop, skip and a jump to the Lord Ashcroft affair and what it suggests about the ethics driving the modern Conservative party. Madeleine thinks not a lot - looking to the ethics of the political classes is a fool's errand, she says.We also say goodbye to Michael Foot. Listening to some of his soap-box speeches, David has been struck by the shrieking Foot went in for - a reminder that this man came of...

There seems little to add to the reams of material that has appeared both in print and on the airwaves about the death of Michael Foot. He was undeniably a great parliamentary figure and his death moreorless severs the only remaining link with the days in which politicians were expected to command the House of Commons by the power of their oratory rather than command the news media by the succinctness of their soundbites. As Tony Blair said yesterday, he was as far removed as it possible to be from the techniques of modern politics, and maybe that is no bad thing to have inscribed on your tombstone.Nevertheless....I have to say I have been struck by the degree of sentimentality in some of the tributes, notably from Lord Kinnock, about Foot's contribution to the Labour Party in the...

An incorrigible rebel, the former Labour leader failed politically but always followed his mighty heartMichael Foot, the most improbable literary romantic to lead a major British party since Benjamin Disraeli, has died at the age of 96 after a turbulent political career that left him a much-loved but also deeply controversial figure. Though physically frail he displayed his customary zest for life until close to the end.Born a year before the outbreak of the first world war, Foot's career could be traced through many of the horrors and triumphs of the bloody 20th century, while simultaneously harking back to literary and political conflicts long forgotten by most of those whose votes he sought through nearly 60 years of elective politics. Never a communist, always a leftwing socialist and...

Former leader's disclosure reveals peer kept financial affairs secret from senior Conservatives for a decadeThe turmoil at the top of the Tory party over the tax affairs of Lord Ashcroft escalated last night as the former leader, William Hague, admitted he had known "for a few months" that the peer had renegotiated the terms under which he took his place in the House of Lords.Hague's disclosure put pressure on himself and the party to explain why they have repeatedly evaded questions about the matter in a succession of recent interviews. It also highlights how the Conservative deputy chairman kept his tax status secret for almost a decade from his closest ally in the party, and the man who lobbied hardest for his peerage in 2000.The admission, in a BBC interview, came amid growing signs...

Michael Foot died today, aged 96. As a tribute, the New Statesman site has published his last interview, which he gave recently to Mark Seddon. There was also a nice piece about him by Craig Murray last year.Everyone is paying tribute to Foot as a scholar, yet the clips of his speeches being played on the news make it clear that he had a weakness for the slighly paranoid style of oratory that comes naturally to Labour. All that talk of "betrayal", for instance. My mother described his politics to me as "joyless" on the phone, which again is a typical Labour weakness.Remarkably, Michael Foot fought a parliamentary election as long ago as 1935, when he was the defeated Labour candidate in Monmouth.His death leaves John Freeman as the last member of the 1945 parliament left...

The loss of any life is a tragedy, and my sympathy to his next of kin. But we, the British people, must be eternally grateful for Michael Foot’s contribution to British Politics. Thanks to his CND Supporting loony left wing ideals Margaret Thatcher gained a landslide majority. Thank you Michael....

I've just posted something about Michael Foot over at Slugger O'Toole. This quote of his popped up in the comments (hat tip: DeargDoom) and I couldn't help nicking it:“We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer ‘To hell with them.’ The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always...

Former Labour leader and past Member of Parliament for Plymouth Devonport, Michael Foot, passed away today aged 96. Michael Foot was a towering figure in politics. For those on the left he was a hero, the embodiment of class struggle who fought for those who had little and took the battle all the way to the top. He was a visionary and unique leader of the party who made not only an impact on the national stage but a very real impact here in Devon as the Member of Parliament for Plymouth Devonport. He was a steadfast Socialist who was unapologetic for his political views and determined in his efforts to achieve real change for those who needed it most. Those who worked closely with him will speak of his incredible genius and his first-class oratory. His speeches on the stump and in the...

The man I knew as a friend and comrade was a passionate advocate of liberty and justice for all. Let us honour his legacyMichael Foot, who has died aged 96, was a supreme parliamentary democrat who used his great gifts as an inspiring speaker and writer to urge peace, security, prosperity and opportunity for humanity and punishment for bigots and bullies of every kind. His bravery and generosity were unsurpassed. He used both to ensure that the Labour party survived as a political force when self-indulgent factionalism could have doomed it to irrelevance.Michael was a resolute humanist with profound faith in the ability of "free men and women using free institutions" to secure irreversible advances in standards of living and liberty for every country and community. He was a friend to all...

I've just heard that Michael Foot, ex-Labour Leader, has died. It's sad news indeed as Foot had a large impact on my politics, although not always in a way he may have intended.Foot was probably responsible for my first ever truly political thought, which was during the Falklands War. I remember watching him on TV attacking Thatcher for not pursuing the war hard enough, for not being patriotic enough and for not putting the boot in hard enough. Even at my tender age (twelve I think) I thought "This is wrong, you're meant to be in CND and against war. This can't be right."From that day on I described myself as a socialist - although my understanding of that word has certainly developed in the intervening twenty eight years.The one thing that is likely to come up in the numerous obituaries...

The death of Michael Foot was announced shortly after 12pm today. I'll be reporting on the tributes to one of the giants of Labour postwar politics as they come in.1.04pm: Michael Foot is now remembered principally for his short and ill-fated period as Labour leader in the early 1980s, but he was a leading figure in Labour politics throughout the postwar period and one of the outstanding orators of his time. Today politicians from all parties are paying tribute to him.Michael FootLabourPolitics pastAndrew Sparrowguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...

Michael Foot was a great journalist, fine orator, a brilliant writer and a giant of the Labour movement. His life from the Spanish Civil War and the founding of Tribune through to his less happy time employment secretary and Labour leader saw him play a big part in the great events of the 20th century. He was a towering intellectual and a believer in ideas, someone whose convictions fitted their times, but whose actions were characterised by courtesy and statesmanship in expressing those ideas. His time as leader was not a happy time for the party, and he didn't deserve the personal abuse he suffered in those times, even though he was not the best person to do that job. The death of Michael Foot is also the death of an era of politicians of a pre-television age. May he rest in...

Labour party leader between 1980 and 1983 dies aged 96Michael Foot, Labour leader during one of the most tumultuous periods in the party's history has died, it was announced today.Foot led the party from 1980 to 1983, presiding over the party during the formation of the Social Democratic party. He quit after Labour slumped to a stunning defeat in the 1983 election. A distinguished writer and journalist, as well as a cabinet minister in the Wilson and Callaghan governments, he was an MP from 1945 to 1992.Tony Benn, his cabinet colleague and occasional nemesis, said today: "He was one of the great figures of the Labour movement."Ken Livingstone said: "It's amazing that somebody that nice got to the top of the Labour party but not surprising that he didn't win the election."Foot was a...