Tag: Tony Blair

After the unexpected death of John Smith in May 1994, Jowell was one of the first Labour MPs to assert Blair’s claim to inherit the Labour leadership. “She is a great person, Tessa, just a gem,” wrote Blair. She had also made a number of important social and political connections, moving as she did in a circle of increasingly influential Labour supporters, many of whom shared her belief in the need for a party shakeup. From 1990 until her election to parliament she worked for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and was a senior visiting fellow at the health and social care charity the King’s Fund. In 1971, she was elected to Camden council in London and within two years was chairing the social services committee. In 1970, she had married the social scientist Roger Jowell, who was also a Camden councillor, but she then met and fell in love with Mills. She was promoted to the cabinet as culture secretary in 2001, with the Olympics added as a special responsibility in 2005. When Gordon Brown succeeded Blair as prime minister in 2007, he kept Jowell on as Olympics minister, but she was demoted from the cabinet. In Labour’s last year in office before the 2010 election she was given the job of minister for London and she retained her responsibility for both the Olympics and for London until 2012. • Tessa Jane Helen Douglas Jowell, Lady Jowell, politician, born 17 September 1947; died 12 May 2018

Politics always features, however. Some are brilliant at building a national brand through Eurovision. In the last century, Europe loved Brand UK. He resigned after the 2008 contest. The UK ended up mid-table, with over 100 points. “Not winning” won’t show this. If the professionals like Storm but the public do not, we can read that as disapproval. Songs in English have dominated the contest this century, winning every year except 2007 – and last year, when the winner was in Portuguese. Eurovision, like political Europe, is a liberal project. The professionals’ votes are announced first, so we shall have to wait till the end of the evening to see what Eurovision’s public voters have to say about SuRie – and by extension about Britain.

Tony Blair has called for new political leadership from the “strong progressive centre” and confirmed his institute is developing a raft of policies to encourage such leaders. The former prime minister insisted he had not given up on Labour despite his concerns of it being “in the grip of the hard left”. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he admitted he was trying re-energise the centre ground of British politics, which he claimed was being abandoned by the two main parties. “If you leave between the Brexit-dominated Tory party and a hard-left Labour party vast uncultivated centre ground, at some point someone is going to come along and cultivate it,” he said. At the weekend the Observer revealed that plans for a new centrist party had attracted £50m of investment. Blair denied trying to form a new party, saying: “I’m not advocating it or involved in such a one or certainly not running for its leadership at this or any stage.” But he said such a plan should not be derided by the established parties. “And the result of it is you have rightwing politics going into anti-immigration nationalism and leftwing politics going into sort of anti-business old form of statism, and neither are the answer to the problem of the future.” He confirmed that his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change was developing a platform for any emerging centrist politicians to utilise. Tony Blair launches pushback against 'frightening populism' Read more “It is not a manifesto because it is not for a political party – it is for people whether they are in the Labour party, Conservative party, Liberal Democrats, wherever, who can see the way politics is developing in the is country and who think there must be a better set of policy ideas for the future.” He added: “I have got no infrastructure for building some political party. But what I fully own up to is trying to create the sort of centrist policies that I think can rekindle optimism about the future, since I think that these lurches to the right and to the left are basically the politics of pessimism. “Starting a new political party is incredibly difficult.

Tory hopes of uniting the party behind Theresa May’s latest vision for Brexit faded as former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine dismissed her latest speech as just more “phrases, generalisations and platitudes” which had done nothing to make a deal more likely. We've gone from the fastest growing to the slowest growing economy in Europe and made a Horlicks of the Irish border A lifelong europhile, Heseltine conceded that the prime minister was in a difficult position, as rightwing Tory MPs held “a knife to her throat”. But neither the prime minister nor her cabinet had made any progress on the central Brexit problems, including the Irish border, because such issues were essentially not solvable unless the UK stayed in the EU. The only way forward, he said, was for the issues to be put back to parliament, and then to an election or referendum. “The downsides are becoming more evident as time passes. Play Video 2:01 “It is good to hear that the UK wants to stay in regulatory alignment but that doesn’t really solve any problems,” said one diplomat involved in drafting the EU’s position. Talks have continued between Labour MPs and Conservatives about how to push forward amendments on the customs union, single market, and the date of Brexit, on which May could well be defeated. There are also signs that worries about Brexit could hit the Tories in May’s local elections. Tory council leaders across the UK are among those who believe Brexit will damage their local economies, putting them under greater pressure to push up council taxes and cut yet more services, according to a new survey of local authority leaders and chief executives. The survey by the New Local Government Network (NLGN) showed only 12% of 185 respondents believed it would have a positive effect on their economies, while 26% felt the impact of leaving the EU would be neutral.

It is not that there is a lack of political understanding of the possibility -- indeed the need -- for a deal, at least on the part of the 27 countries that will remain member states of the European Union after the UK leaves. Nor is there a lack of talent on the UK's side. The only way to understand modern British politicians as they address Brexit is to realize that they have infantilized politics. Former senior civil servant Sir Martin Donnelly quipped that leaving the European Union because trade might be better outside was "giving up a three-course meal [now]... for the promise of a packet of crisps in the future." The Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party -- which props up Theresa May's minority Conservative government -- is using its position both to extort money from the Prime Minister and to champion a so-called hard Brexit -- ignoring Northern Ireland's vote to stay in the EU. And what about the opposition Labour Party? The tragedy is not simply in the outcome -- a bad Brexit means a Britain that is permanently poorer. But it is also a tragedy in the process -- because there is a practical and pragmatic deal to be done. Could Britain live being out of the EU, but in the Customs Union and the Single Market? Maybe my son was right all those years ago: Childish behavior needs the sanctions of a good parent.