Labour party

Brown down?
Now that the House of Commons is having a well deserved break for summer, or if you prefer, having a break, tradition has it that we are into the 'silly season', the period when daftness takes over. But with Gordon Brown and Nulabour's problems it seems that 'man bites dog' has been with us for months. It all began with Boris becoming Mayor of London, then there was the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, next the disastrous result at the Henley by-election when Nulabour polled fewer votes than the BNP, finally, for now, Glasgow East. Each of these events brought forth a lot of comment but the silliest so far has been post Glasgow and on the subject of how to get rid of Gordon. Few journalists and a surprising number of Nulabour MPs seem to be able to grasp that the party rule book, latest edition 2002, prevents a quick change of Leader. So look at rule 7 -

Elect the Leader and Deputy leader by the party membership .

This shows that an exchange of phone calls plus meetings by disgruntled backbenchers may set some people off in a flurry but is not allowed as basis for electing a Leader. The party membership may have dwindled considerably over the years but they, the rank and file, as they were once called are involved. So a time consuming and costly ballot of party members would be essential.

NuLabour election strategy?

On May 5th the BBC repeated throughout the day film of a police and immigration officials raid on a chicken factory in Derbyshire, to which the BBC was invited along to film. In fact the raid took place on April 15th and there was no rush to make it public. See video here.