The commentators                    04-02-15

...on UK politics

Ed Miliband seems terrified of breaking with the union line. He is, in effect, the monkey to Len McCluskey’s organ-grinder. Not only does he have no idea what makes business tick — he is not even vaguely interested in finding out.
- Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Mail
Unquestionably Ed Miliband has it in him to be scrappy, though the memory of his attacks on as poisonously a vested interest as Rupert Murdoch’s has faded since he lost his confidence and his tongue. Miliband needs to say that he is not driven by adolescent dreams of a socialist utopia, but by the simple moral and economic imperatives to temper the more grotesque excesses of unethical capitalism.
- Matthew Norman, The Independent
Mary Riddell
Blue Labour is proclaiming itself a vital force. Its commitment to economic equality, along with the conservative traditions of family, community and an (optional) side order of faith, may sound old-fashioned.
But far from being preserved in camphor, its ideas have found favour with hard-headed modernisers.
- Mary Riddell, Daily Telegraph
There is no good reason why the United Kingdom should fall apart. But if it does – and sadly many Scots now seem to believe it will – it will not be because of what happened during the Scottish referendum, but because of what went wrong in the aftermath.
- Gordon Brown, The Guardian
Coalitions are quite common in British politics, much more so than generally realised. In the past century, there have been 26 years of coalition governments, 18 of which were in peacetime. Most have been founded on good working relationships and firm understandings. The result has been stable governments.
- Daniel Finkelstein, The Times
  • Four Sun journalists face a retrial after a jury fails to agree on whether they illegally paid public workers for stories
  • The Independent reports that phone-hacking at the Mirror group may have been worse than at News International
  • Consultation ends on proposed guidelines which still allow police unfettered access to telephone records under anti-terrorist legislation that has been used to uncover journalists' sources
  • The Guardian reports that security services regard journalists as "dangerous" and in the same league as terrorists and computer hackers. 
  • A Lords committee is told that a proposed press regulator with no one to regulate has so far been given £900,000 of public money
- Trials and tribulations, a snapshot of a week in British journalism

Please sign up for SubScribe updates  
(no spam, no more than one every week or two)

I'd like to become a SubScriber

* indicates required
Comment digest courtesy of
Editorial Intelligence
education
February 3
UK politics
February 2
UK politics
Alexis Tsipras
January 30
Rape law
January 29
UK politics
January 28
UK politics
January 27
Greece
January 26
UK politics
Pope Francis
January 23
UK politics
January 22
Chilcot inquiry
January 21
Page Three
January 20
Anti-semitism and Islam
January 19
Religion and freedom
Hebdo demo
January 16
World politics
January 15
Election debates
January 14
Charlie Hebdo
January 13
Charlie Hebdo
January 12
Charlie Hebdo
Charb
January 9
Charlie Hebdo
January 8
Charlie Hebdo
January 7
UK politics
January 6
UK politics
January 5 
UK politics
For EI daily digests from June to December 2014 please click here