Labour's election machine prepares

Beware if you are a journalist wanting to attend Labour functions during the election campaign.

According to Sam Coates writing in the Times

The Labour Party are organising accreditation so journalists can attend their general election press conferences.
In addition to home address, home telephone number, work or mobile telephone number and e-mail address, which is already stretching it somewhat, they have just ask for:

» Passport Number (if you have one)
» National Insurance number
» Driving Licence number (if you have one)
» Your private and company vehicle registration numbers
» A passport style photo in an appropriate digital format

Labour I-phone app on the way

Apparently the Labour Party is to release an I-Phone app which according to Guido Fawkes,will

sync to local campaign events using GPS and postcode data, have a mobile version of their Virtual Phone Bank enabling a user to phone target voters plus have linkage into Facebook and Twitter.

It's not the Sun that will win for Labour it is proportional representation

Much has and still is being written about the Sun's about turn on its support for the Labour party.

Some may argue that this is what happens if you play with fire which was exactly what Tony Blair had done with the Murdoch empire since the birth of new Labour.

There is a very good article over at the New Statesman's site by James Macintyre who writes that

If ever there was proof that New Labour's careful courting of Rupert Murdoch would ultimately work against the party's interests, it came on the night of Gordon Brown's conference speech in Brighton when news broke of the Sun's endorsement of the Conservatives.

James though firmly beleives that the Sun's influence on the electorate is something of a myth but revels in the deep irony that Gordon Brown's u turn on electoral reform

is precisely this supposed influence that a proportional voting system would smash by handing power to the electorate as a whole, rather than a few Conservative-inclined seats in "Middle England".

Incompetence,incredible,unbelievable

Once again the papers make grim reading for Gordon Brown this morning,with words sucha s scandal,crisis,sleaze all dominant.

In for particular critisism is deputy leader Harriet Harman who according to the Times

was under growing pressure in the sleaze row engulfing Labour last night as she was forced to pay back £5,000 given to her by a property developer who has secretly bankrolled her party to the tune of £600,000.

and

was in further difficulties after she refused repeatedly to say if she had in fact solicited the money from the intermediary, Janet Kidd, rather than having had it offered to her. The Times has learnt from other donors to Ms Harman’s campaign that her team actively sought funding from them because they were on a list of people giving to Labour.

The front page of the Mail asks

HOW MUCH WORSE IT WILL GET citing

• Prime Minister admits donations broke the law
• He orders £600,000 to be repaid to secret donor
• His No.2 Harriet Harman is left clinging to her job

And the paper's opinion columns are not generous

Tainted cash says the Sun

Harman was apparently so desperate for cash to pay off her campaign debts that she threw caution to the wind.
The funding fiasco is going to cost cash-strapped Labour £650,000 in repaid donations.
It may yet cost Harriet Harman her job.

So much for Labour's pledge of honesty says the Mail

Isn't it hard to avoid the conclusion that Labour is corrupt to the core?

A control freak leader is beginning to look as if he's not in charge says the Times

Does the Labour Party take us all for fools? asks the Telegraph

incredibly, this was happening at the very time the Metropolitan Police were crawling all over the Labour Party, pursuing their ultimately fruitless investigation into the cash for honours scandal.

The Guardian asks

What bit of doing things by the rules does the Labour party not understand? Party funding has not exactly been out of the political news these last few years. Every elected politician and every party official knows that the subject has become super-sensitive. Parliament tightened up the law very significantly in 2000. Part IV of that new law set out detailed rules about who can make donations to political parties and how parties must deal with them. These include a ban, in section 54 of the 2000 Act, on the concealment of a donor's identity, and a requirement, in section 56, for parties to take all reasonable steps to check out their donors. Lest there should be any doubt, the Electoral Commission has issued regular advice and guidance to the parties on the subject.

A similar theme in the Independent

Is it not extraordinary that, after Mr Blair got into so much trouble, a senior Labour official appears to have tolerated other ways in which a donor could retain his anonymity? Not surprisingly, the resignation of the party's general secretary has prompted questions about whether others also knew what was happening

Only the Mirror stands up for Gord

We have just one message for Gordon Brown - stay strong.

A wave of unrelated, if cumulatively damaging events beyond the Prime Minister's control, are testing his mettle.
But we should never forget the dreadful Labour funding row is not his fault - in fact, he rejected a donation to his leadership campaign fund.

Beeb pays Prescott and Reid

According to that perennial BBC hater the Daily Mail,the corporation paid John Prescott and John Reid to appear on their coverage of Gordon Brown's conference speach on Monday afternoon

Says the paper

After years on six-figure salaries as cabinet ministers, John Prescott and John Reid should hardly be short of a bob or two.
But yesterday it was revealed that both had pocketed about £250 from the BBC to give their views on Monday's proceedings at Bournemouth.
A source at another broadcaster also claimed that Mr Reid had asked to be paid for a five-minute chat, so the interview was cancelled.
Rival politicians described the BBC's behaviour as "outrageous" claiming it should not be using licence-fee-payers' money to pay for party political propaganda.