This week will go down as one of the most significant in recent Scottish political history. Fresh from extolling the virtues of the ruling SNP-Green coalition on Tuesday, by Thursday morning the First Minister had consigned it to the history books – leaving Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater out of government. Humza Yousaf may not have been the First Minister who signed the Bute House Agreement – but from the outset of his leadership, he has tied his political destiny to the partnership. The Bute House Agreement has failed When Nicola Sturgeon signed the Bute House Agreement she told us it would ..read more

Labour has pledged to protect ticket offices and staff if elected to power, as part of its planned radical overhaul of the rail network. Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh unveiled the party’s proposals to bring Britain’s railways back into public ownership on Thursday at an event at Trainline HQ in central London. She vowed to  crack down on delays and make the service better value for money for passengers. She said that the overhaul, the “biggest in a generation”, would work to address the root causes of the “deepening crisis” in the rail network, with Labour’s “fully-costed” plans ..read more

Labour’s Louise Haigh has pledged to deliver the “biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation” ahead of the launch of the party’s “thorough and detailed roadmap” to take Britain’s rail network into public ownership. At a launch event in central London on Thursday as part of Labour’s local election campaign, the Shadow Transport Secretary is expected to say Labour would “expect” to complete nationalisation within the first term of a Labour government. Ahead of the event, the party shared a series of endorsements its plans have received from industry experts and others, including the chair ..read more

The Labour leader of Rochdale council is urging other local political leaders to join him in calling for a “more civilised” local election campaign – after a brick with a “f*** Labour” note was allegedly thrown at the window of a Labour candidate’s home. In an email to another party’s local leader, Labour’s Neil Emmott claimed that one of his fellow candidate’s homes had been “attacked”, and called on local politicians “to join with me in publicly condemning it”. The email continued: “I won’t name our candidate, suffice to say it was a terrifying experiencing [sic] and the matter has been repo ..read more

Frank Field has long been a hero of mine, and he will remain so for the rest of my life. Behind all of his ideas and projects was a desire to harmonise self-interest with the pursuit of the common good. He knew how powerful an impact, for good or ill, the design and implementation of public policy could have on both the individual and society; not simply in a material sense, as important as that is, but also in respect of our character and behaviour. He knew instinctively how decisions taken in Westminster could, and almost always did, bring out that complex mix of strengths and frailties we a ..read more

This piece was originally published on Philip Collins’ Substack and can be found here. I think of Frank Field in Birkenhead, the constituency he served with such distinction between 1979 and 2019. In a pub in the Georgian glory of Hamilton Square, where Frank lived, a member of the far-left group Socialist Organiser began to harangue him. Socialist Organiser had deselected Frank as Birkenhead’s Labour candidate which had prompted Neil Kinnock’s office to order the corrupt process be rerun. This activist was angry, and it seemed that only I stood between a rather meek MP and physical pain. Wher ..read more

Tributes have been paid to the former Labour minister and cross-bench peer Frank Field, after his family announced his death after an illness. The news on Wednesday morning came just hours after the writer Anthony Barnett said his friend David Marquand, a former Labour MP, historian and political thinker, had also died after a “long illness”. Field, 81, was director of Child Poverty Action Group in the 1970s, before serving as Labour MP for Birkenhead, Wirral, in north-west England for four decades from 1979. He campaigned continually over poverty, and served as a minister for welfare reform a ..read more

From the very beginning, Keir Starmer’s Labour has been proudly patriotic. The 2022 Labour Party conference opened with delegates coming together to sing the national anthem to pay their respects to the late Queen. Flags feature prominently at conference and in the background of key speeches. Labour wants to reassure voters that we are a government-in-waiting that loves this country and will work tirelessly to serve people throughout the UK.  It was interesting to see newspaper articles suggesting some unnamed MPs felt discomfort with the idea that the UK flag was featured on recent elect ..read more

The Fabian Society’s chair has said it is “deeply sorry” after its own report said a “culture of misogyny and marginalisation”, abuses of power and sexual harassment had developed within the Young Fabians, with some current and former members calling it “toxic”. A leaked report seen by LabourList reveals the findings of an investigation for the Labour-affiliated think tank into claims of “unacceptable behaviours and troubling practices”, convened in November last year. It highlights “troubling reports of unchecked misconduct: of bullying, of sexual harassment, of poorly understood safeguarding ..read more

The Prime Minister’s speech on welfare reform last Friday was not only high on rhetoric and low on evidence, it was grossly offensive to millions of sick and disabled people and to thousands of GPs up and down the country. It’s clear we’re in an election year. The Prime Minister says he supports the ‘values’ of the welfare state and agrees that a ‘safety net’ should be there for those who ‘genuinely need it’. He refers to a ‘moral mission to reform the welfare system, giving everyone who can a chance to return to work, making it a fairer system ‘for the taxpayers who fund it’. Let’s just unpic ..read more