A murky deal in the Labour leadership vote
One thing that puzzled me about the lists showing which Labour MP voted which way in the leadership contest, is why Gordon Brown's former parliamentary private secretary (PPS) Jon Trickett placed Ed Balls as his first preference.
This was odd given that Trickett came out prominently for Ed Miliband a few weeks ago, and this week has been acting as a key member of the Ed Miliband team, involved in the talks with David M.
The answer involves a murky deal with the Deputy Speaker of the Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, who was a Balls man. Hoyle agreed to switch his second preference from David to Ed, in return for Trickett voting Balls first and Ed Miliband only second.
Hoyle was keen to boost the overall Balls vote, and Trickett's move made no difference to the outcome since his support was transferred to Ed Miliband in the final round.
The gap between Ed and David Miliband in the final vote was the equivalent of about five MPs switching between the brothers, so the Trickett-Hoyle pact would account for 20 per cent of that result.
When the Commons returns the week after next, Deputy Speaker Hoyle may find Labour's newest backbencher not the most compliant of members.
I'm Michael Crick, and I'm Newsnight's political editor. My guiding rule is that in any story there's usually something the politicians would prefer the world not to know. My job is to find that out. Follow me on
Comment number 1.
At 30th Sep 2010, zwingli2 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 2.
At 30th Sep 2010, DebtJuggler wrote:Fiddling while Rome burns!
You useless bunch of navel gazers.
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Comment number 3.
At 30th Sep 2010, stevie wrote:so Debtjuggles Cameron and Nick are riding to the rescue are they? No mandate to increase VAT, no mandate to have savage forty per cent cuts affecting the most vulnerable in our society, attacking the most needy beacause of pure ideological reasons and pure venom, at least the Labour party introduced the NHS unlike your lot who introduced the Poll Tax also remember they did not win an election, they are a coalition supposed to help ALL the people not just sections of society...now go back to your train set....
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Comment number 4.
At 30th Sep 2010, tabblenabble 01 wrote:"2. At 11:57am on 30 Sep 2010, DebtJuggler wrote:
Fiddling while Rome burns!"
It's just evidence that the media goes where the action is. The excitement seems to be in scooping what's going to happen next, regardless of whether what's going to happen next is very important.
Good behaviour analysis and politic sis necessarily takes the wider view. I would have thought the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ would do the same, but I'm clearly not in touch with the market.
See the ADHD topic.today and
Many self-medicate or find activities which serve the same end - e.g. dashing about excitedly. ;-).
"3. At 2:13pm on 30 Sep 2010, stevie wrote:
so Debtjuggles Cameron and Nick are riding to the rescue are they?"
As I see it, so long as the Private Sector has PR types in MPs seats they are happy, especially if they can get them to bail out their feckless behaviour using what little is left of the Public Sector treasure trove laid down over decades. The more women and young light-weights there are in politics the better, and anyone is worth sponsoring so long as they're guaranteed to be regulation-lite and won't get too serious about politics.
That isn't cynicism, that's Liberal-Democracy, has been for years bar the theatrics.
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Comment number 5.
At 1st Oct 2010, Its_an_Outrage wrote:To be fair, this is a political blog the ADHD story is hardly a political issue. And it might well be all hype in the first place (no pun intended).
I thought the article was quite an interesting glimpse of the quick flash of daggers on just one short, dark stretch of the road to power.
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Comment number 6.
At 1st Oct 2010, Steve_M-H wrote:Doesnt your chest ever get sore with all that Tarzan like beating????
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Comment number 7.
At 1st Oct 2010, xTunbridge wrote:First time I have visited your blog.
I like it.
Please keep up the good work and reveal all and everything on the tricks the duplicitous lot who want to govern again get up to.
And the lot running the show now too of course.
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Comment number 8.
At 26th Oct 2010, Its_an_Outrage wrote:All seems a bit quiet on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ news blogs. I heard a rumour that some are to be discontinued. Now, that would be an outrage.
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