Luke Akehurst has a great post with a selection of, ahem, interesting quotes from Boris Johnson. Do take a read. If Boris can make Luke like Ken, the Hon. Member for Henley must be dire indeed.
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As I mentioned on Luke Akehurst’s blog, I feel rather sorry for Ruth Turner, formerly director of government relations at Number Ten under Tony Blair. She has committed no crime and there is insufficient evidence against her (or, for that matter, anyone else). Nevertheless, the press felt the need to drag her name through the [...]

Vélib is one of the best ideas I’ve heard of in some time. Attention please, Mr Livingstone. Using the equivalent of an Oyster card, you can hire a bike from an automated station around the city and return it to any other station. The first thirty minutes are free.
More information from BBC News and Vélib. [...]

Leader of the Commons - Harriet HarmanChief Whip - Geoff HoonLeader of the Lords - Neil Kinnock
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Quentin Davies, MP for Margaret Thatcher’s hometown of Grantham and Stamford, has defected to the Labour party. More on the BBC News website. In a letter to Dave Cameron, Davies said that the Conservative party “appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything”.
Davies isn’t massively high-profile, but [...]

Well, congratulations to Harriet Harman on winning the Labour deputy leadership and commiserations to everyone else. Looking at the results, it’s pretty clear that Jon Cruddas’ votes transferred to Harriet in the last redistribution, narrowly pushing her past the winning post. Jon Cruddas’ clear call at the Newsnight hustings to put Harriet as second preference, [...]

Gordon Brown has, it would seem, approached various Lib Dems with a view to joining the Government in some capacity, possible at the Cabinet table. The story was broken, I think, by the Guardian this morning. I can’t help but think that this might be the first shot in a coalition negotiation in case the [...]

Now that my ballot paper has arrived, I have had to make a decision on the deputy leadership. I’m going to give Jon Cruddas both my first preferences.
Before I look at the candidates, I think it makes sense to say what I think the deputy leader should do. I do not think it is about [...]

In the deputy leadership, CLPs can give supporting nominations. A total of 309 have seen fit to do so, and the breakdown is Hilary Benn (77), Jon Cruddas (68), Harriet Harman (60), Alan Johnson (45), Hazel Blears (36) and Peter Hain (23). Map to follow later.
The full list of nominations and supporting nominations is here.
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There’s been talk of late, coming from the deputy leadership election debates, about BME-only shortlists following the success of women-only shortlists. I tend to think in terms of the four NUS liberation campaigns - women’s, BME, LGBT and people with disabilities, but if the argument holds for women-only shortlists and BME-only shortlists, why would the [...]