Labour Party staff have pleaded for members not to speak to any journalists at an Ed Miliband event tonight. What could legions of party members do to derail the ‘real Prime Minister’s’ event?
The Energy Secretary will be the special guest at the launch of the Southwark Labour 2026 manifesto this evening at a venue in East Dulwich. Also in attendance will be council leader Sarah King and housing minister/Miliband ally Miatta Fahnbulleh, who is MP for Peckham…
An email from party organisers to attendees has warned Labour members off daring to speak to assembled hacks:
“You will be asked to show your Labour Party membership number and/or photo ID for security reasons. The press will be at the launch, but please do not talk to them. We will be taking photos and video of the whole event which will be used in political campaign materials – if you do not want to feature in the photos, please let [RECACTED] know and we will make arrangements. If you could arrive at 6.30pm and we will get our campaign off to a flying start.”
If approached by a journalist remember the three steps: stop, drop, and roll…
The bizarre clip in faux-White House style left SW1 denizens scratching their heads at the beginning of the month. Now GB News‘ Tom Harwood has spotted it is gone from the PM’s TikTok. Doesn’t really chime with Starmer’s pacifist local election push now that he’s finally decided what his line is…
Opposition is mounting to Labour’s mooted plan to curb the use of Freedom of Information requests. The latest transparency crackdown from this fake liberal government…
A double-header of FT stories this month saw one spuriously complain that FOIs were being used by China to gain intelligence and other two days later confirming that the government wants to crack down on FOI use. Proposals include dropping the ‘cost threshold’ which is meant to prevent requests taking too much of officials’ time…
That threshold has been sitting at £600 since the Act was introduced and has not risen in line with inflation, reducing the scope of FOIs in real terms anyway. The News Media Association – representing national and regional news organisations – has written to DCMS to oppose any reduction in that scope. Chief Executive Owen Meredith said in the letter:
“It is not routine or trivial requests that would be excluded. It is the most sensitive and significant ones – those involving complex decision-making, high-value contracts, safeguarding, multi-agency correspondence, and procurement.
Clearly, a reduction in the cost limit would restrict access and weaken scrutiny, and risk undermining the Government’s own commitments to openness and transparency.”
The Society of Editors has also come out against the proposals. Freedom of Information requests are a routine resource available to any member of the British public to retrieve non-sensitive information from the government in the interests of transparency and good governance. Save FOI…
NHS England has only shed 10.5% of its staff one year after Starmer announced it would be ‘abolished’ to great fanfare. A blow to Wes Streeting’s claim to be able to blast through the barriers of the state…
Information obtained by Guido’s FOI Unit shows that there were 17,377 employees of the quango on 1st March last year and 15,556 were still in place as of this month. Only 4,065 staff have applied for voluntary redundancy…
3,761 staff have had their applications for redundancy approved and 564 more have confirmed they would take one. NHS England says there are “more expected.” You would hope so…
At this rate it will take ten years for the quango to finish shedding staff and wind itself down. Maybe Streeting thinks he would be better equipped to finish the job from Downing Street…
Tory-Reform defector Andrew Rosindell has failed to have an High Court injunction granted to prevent his ejection from his Romford constituency office. A blow to Ronsidell who is particularly fond of Margaret Thatcher House…
Romford Conservative Association runs the building and locked Rosindell out of it following his defection. Mr Justice Choudhury ruled against an injunction today, said that the MP “ought to have realised that he had surrendered his right to occupy” the office, and ordered him to pay £23,000 of the Conservatives’ legal costs. Location, location, location…
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”