General Press Comments

[Rebecca Flair]

The bombshell revelation of the latest Sun article into the Tory psychodrama shows what we all suspected all along, Cowboy Croft has no backbone and no desire to fight the hard right rot that is taking over his party. He campaigned on breaking ties with the Monday Club and throwing out the individuals who support repatriation as a policy, now he is reliant on their votes to keep himself in a job so not only have they been given a stay of execution but he has systematically began weeding out moderates from the Shadow Cabinet to placate his National Front lite overlords. It is clear that there is no place for moderation in the Conservative Party, as they surge headlong further and further to the right I urge moderate and sensible Conservative MPs to oppose their leadership and try to keep the Official Opposition somewhere close to sanity.

[Clarice Ashbridge]

It would be easy to write off the statements of far-left extremist MPs like James Doherty as the ramblings of fringe lunatics on the left of the Labour Party who should be ignored. But, with the government reliant on the votes of the Socialist Campaign Group to stay in power, it is incredibly concerning that we should see not only a defence of the barbaric Soviet invasion of Afghanistan from these people, but also an attack on our closest ally. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was not a progressive revolution: in which over a million Afghan civilians were murdered and raped indiscriminately by the government that Mr Doherty supports. And in the same breath, the Socialist Campaign Group condemns the democratic government of America as a "rogue state." You couldn't make it up

I call on the Foreign Secretary to condemn and disavow the views of Mr Doherty and his colleagues in the SCG. We live in a changing world, in which the threat from rogue states and international terrorism has never been greater. We cannot have a situation where the British government has to run our foreign policy past those who support tyrants and murderers.

[Sir Jack Anderson]

If the Opposition wanted to make their motion not include refugees, they should not have included the wording: "any foreign national who wishes to emigrate and settle in the United Kingdom", which would then include refugees.

Conservative frontbenchers really like to imagine we are offended by their antics. Unfortunately, I am only offended by their quick support for sloppily written motions that would - inadvertently or not - violate our international agreements, and offended by Shadow Cabinet's perennial chaos as it is unable to settle on policy regarding immigration and asylum, with the Shadow Chancellor supporting the fruitcake right and the Home and Foreign Secretary showing reluctance to do so.

[Will Frost]

I am excited to announce the appointments of Mike Ashbridge as Chairman of the Scottish Conservatives and David Jones as the Chairman of the Welsh Conservatives. These appointment signal the Conservative Party's intention to ramp up our electoral operations in Scotland and Wales, and to make a stronger case than ever before as to why we deserve the honor of representing the people of Scotland and Wales in Parliament and beyond. I passionately believe that Scotland and Wales are best served by commonsense, practical Conservative values and look forward to proving just that over the coming months. We need a more aggressive, passionate, intentional approach in the way we explain to voters our positive alternative to the New Labour Government of sleaze, cronyism, and crushing regulation.

Our new chairmen will be empowered to develop specific policy proposals unique to their areas of the country, will be charged with driving up membership, and will work to lead fundraising initiatives. It us Conservatives who are determined to speak up for small business, the industries that make Scotland and Wales the economic powerhouses they are, and the values of hard working people. We plan on doing just that.

[Rebecca Flair]

In voting against the Public Appointments Comprehensive Reform Act the Government have set themselves up against the people and in favour of individuals who use public office for self-enrichment or other self-enjoyment. They are voting against legislation that would see officials guilty of corruption, misconduct, and misuse of public office thrown out of their position and barred from serving for less than five years. They are voting against empowering the Commissioner for Public Appointments and creating an inquiry into further measures that can safeguard our society from the dodgy backroom deals that New Labour have become famous for. The Government have shown themselves today to be concerned solely for their own self-interest, shielding corrupt officials from being removed from office, and set well and truly against the needs of the people and the need for an open, transparent appointments system.

[Will Frost]

Speaking to reporters after casting his vote in favor of the Opposition's Public Appointments Reform bill, Mr. Croft said:

In her speech on the steps of Number 10, the Prime Minister made clear her commitment to reforming the public appointments system and ensuring that the British people could once again have confidence in the functioning of their Government. "One of my first acts," the Prime Minister confidently declared, "will be to commission an independent inquiry into the appointments systems in the United Kingdom." Since then, however, there has been nothing but silence from the Government. No announcements, no meaningful action, and of course, no independent inquiry. The British people are left waiting for action to be taken on a matter of significant national importance while the Prime Minister and her Government do nothing more than pay the problem lip service.

Indeed, there is perhaps no bigger indication of the Government's total lack of interest in doing anything to solve this problem than the debate on my party's legislation. Since debate began on the bill the Prime Minister has spoken a total of zero times. The Chancellor? He's failed to show up as well. The Home Secretary? No where to be found. The greatest intervention in the debate on behalf of the Government was made by the Deputy Prime Minister, who did little more than tinker around the edges of the proposal and make paper thin arguments about the definitions included in the legislation. And when the Opposition offered genuine responses to those arguments, the Deputy Prime Minister was suddenly too busy to respond.

We have tried for weeks to get this Government to work with us and we have gotten nothing but silence in return. For all of the Government's insistence that they are interested in working across party lines on issues of common concern, they showed absolutely no interest in doing so whatsoever as far as public appointments reform is concerned. Labour seems to have all the time in the world to engage in mindless spin, but absolutely no time to address the issues that concern the British people.

[Sir Jack Anderson]

One does wonder if an independent appointments process would put the husband of the Shadow Foreign Secretary as the Chairman of the Scottish Conservatives, or if that's an unusual coincidence. Instead of sloppily written legislation, the Conservatives could work on setting an example with their actions.

[Will Frost]

In yet another unprecedented move, significant number of Labour backbench MPs are joining our cross party effort to reform the public appointments process. While our political differences are many, they see what we see: a Government that is at best incapable of restoring trust in politics, and at worst seems to be motivated by a desire to protect their political allies and friends. The Chancellor can pretend this legislation was "sloppy," all he wants, it's clear by his absence in the debate that he didn't have the ability to muster up any real opposition to our proposals. All the spin in the world won't change the fact that the Government had the chance to pass legislation that would empower the Public Appointments Commissioner and kick out corrupt politicians, and instead they did nothing.

[Jack Wright]

This once great movement of ours was founded to be the electoral arm of the trade union movement, a party to advance the cause of socialism. Its founders intended Labour to be a movement to advance the interest of the working class by shifting wealth and power from the masters of capital and the world to the working people who actually do the socially valuable labour that makes our society run.

Unfortunately, accompanying the New Labour clique's attempts to court billionaire donors have been the adoption of policies that are a great betrayal to the reason myself and so many other working people across Britain were drawn to the Labour Movement in the first place, perhaps most garishly emblemized by the party's leadership's recent policy of cuts to support for single mothers and refusal to change Thatcher's viciously anti-worker trade union laws.  While I am happy that Tony Blair is gone and am hopeful that the new Leadership will take the right steps to win back confidence within working communities after record low turnout in the general election and the loss of 70 seats, history teaches us that change always comes from below, not from waiting for structures to have a change of heart.

That's why I am proud to support my comrade James Doherty's call for a Party Democratic Review. By augmenting our selection practices, choosing a more democratic method of picking our Leader, and making sure the Parliamentary Labour Party truly represents the communities they come to parliament to stand up for, we can ensure that this party will fight with as much vigor for the interests of working people as they have for the real estate industry, in recent years. The exploitative social order that the Labour Movement was founded one century ago to challenge has not magically dissipated with the new millenia. With power and wealth cordoned off for the few, it is imperative that Labour return to its roots as a party of the many. The Democratic Review is an essential prerequisite to building a better world, to demonstrating a recommitment to our party's founding exigency, and I encourage members who understand that the cause of socialism must march on to advocate for the Review in their CLPs.

[Andy Edwards]

When it comes to the questions of public appointments, the last thing we need to do is jump to try to solve every problem we can with knee-jerk reactions. This Government has laid it plain: there will be a independent inquiry into public appointments and how to actually strengthen a system that should be based on transparency and merit. The proposals laid forward by the Conservatives is window-dressing at best: it's to call something independent and then hope that it's fixed the problem. They've come because they didn't like a certain position chosen by the last Prime Minister... not because there is sincere belief in change. This Government's position on proper scrutiny for public appointments has been more than clear and more than consistent; while the Tories continue to skirt that scrutiny in order to appoint family members to important positions in their own party. How they can claim to be for transparency and accountability when they can't be bothered to practice it themselves is every indication that the comments from the Tories are political theatre.

We don't need hastily-written, sloppily-assembled legislation to get things done the right way. Our Government will continue to prove that on this and every other issue.