Lisa Nandy has just posted on X:
“I’ve decided to leave this platform and my Department will too. A platform originally designed for free speech and expression now favours abuse and misinformation over meaningful debate. It isn’t healthy for our democracy or our communities and I don’t want to support it.”
Blue sky thinking…
Guido hears that Reform UK has hired Miles Goslett into the newly created post of chief communications officer, with a hand on the party’s overall media operation and special projects. There’s talk of Farage wanting to use his own channels such as the Reform podcast and Substack account to be more proactive alongside the traditional mediums of print and broadcast…
The party is currently gearing up for a general election. Goslett – an award-winning journalist – is remembered by Fleet Street colleagues as the bête noire of the BBC, which he mercilessly held to account on various papers for years before running the London bureau of Rupert Murdoch’s anti-woke website Heat Street. More recently he’s been a consultant for clients including ex-Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft, who credits him as “chief researcher” in several of his unauthorised political biographies – including his latest, The Farage Factor…
Guido has read Goslett’s own book, An Inconvenient Death, which examines the Dr David Kelly affair. If it’s anything to go by, he should have the necessary forensic skills to help prevent the kind of slip-ups for which Reform’s developed an unfortunate reputation. A compelling challenge – good luck…
Keir Starmer will intervene and lay emergency legislation tomorrow in order to allow pubs to stay open past 1 a.m, according to the Sun. Talk about a legacy period…
The government said today that most pubs don’t have the correct licence to stay open and would have to close because the deadline to apply for a Temporary Event Notice has already passed. A travesty No10 is now working to reverse…
In an interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson, ex-No10 Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney reflected on Starmer’s U-turns. He concluded that they weren’t quick enough. Speaking about the “island of strangers” U-turn, he said
“I think Keir made the speech – I know what he intended to do with the speech, and he certainly didn’t intend to offend anyone. He wanted to make the point that unless we get this right, it’s going to cause major cohesion issues in the country. He stuck by that principle. And when he was told by colleagues, by friends of his, ‘Look, what you said offended us. What you said offended me. What you said made me feel like I can’t be part of your story of the country,’ I think he reflected on it and thought, ‘Look, okay, that wasn’t my intention. My intention was to make an argument about how the immigration system needs to change, bring the country together. Because if we don’t bring the country together, things will get much, much worse.’
Now, this was the argument he was trying to make. In the course of that, he said something that he didn’t intend to offend people with, and he did. So he apologised. And I think that’s the right thing to do. But I agree with your point: you have to, in politics, work out quicker which are the conflicts that can be avoided and which are the conflicts that need to be addressed at speed. I think that’s reasonable criticism. That’s a big lesson for him, or anyone, going forward in the future: move faster.”
Too late to learn that one…
Darren Jones has announced a review into the use of WhatsApp in government. Good luck…
The terms of reference for the review into non-corporate communication channels, led by former chief scientific adviser to the government Anthony Finkelstein:
Another pointless review – this one reports back next year. Will Andy Burnham delete his WhatsApp?
Jolyon Maugham’s Good Law Project is dragging Ofcom to the High Court, aggrieved that the watchdog looked at Murdoch’s TalkTV and mostly declined to throw the book at it. Ofcom investigated one programme, opened separate probes into the channel’s climate coverage, but refused to pursue the rest, setting out its reasons in an 86-page report. Not good enough for GLP, who want a judge to overrule the regulator’s own editorial judgement…
By GLP’s own account, barristers’ costs are “estimated to exceed £50,000” and “if we lose the case, we will likely have to pay Ofcom and TalkTV’s legal fees, which are likely to exceed £100,000.” And the small print: “10% of the funds raised will be a contribution to the general running costs of Good Law Project.” Got to keep the staff in frappucinos…
This is the same outfit that weeks ago moaned Ofcom was too slow on GB News, complaining: “if regulation takes this long to come, is it really regulation?” Now it wants the same regulator to take rival stations off air…
Badenoch said at her speech on Monday morning: “We are absolutely ready to fight a general election. We saw the results in Aberdeen South: 50% of the vote. Because we can unite the country… It’s about uniting the country, for God’s sake, behind a centre-right agenda.”