Anglonautes > English vocabulary > Politics

Les anglonautes

Vocabulary > Politics > UK

The Guardian p. 13

2.7.2004

L: Gordon Brown,

Chancellor of the Exchequer (1997 to 2007)

R: Tony Charles Lynton Blair,

British Prime Minister (1997 to 2007)

The Guardian

14.5.2004

Prime Minister Tony Blair

Steve Bell
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,,1771530,00.html

Blair v Brown: the public and the private disputes

· Fresh demand for exit date
· No 11 anger at PM letter
· No 10 intervenes in spending
· New pensions row

Patrick Wintour, political editorp. 29 The Guardian

Wednesday May 10, 2006
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1771430,00.html

Tony Blair delivers his speech at the Labour party conference in Brighton.

Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA

'We are the changemakers.' Blair urges ever-faster reform

PM silent on handover. But Cherie tells BBC: 'Darling, it's a long way in the future'

Michael White Political editor The Guardian p. 1 28.9.2005
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2005/story/0,16394,1579855,00.html

Cartoon: Martin Rowson

The Guardian p. 29

28.9.2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/martinrowson/0,7371,1579984,00.html

Prime Minister Tony Blair

Background > Labour Party conference, Brighton

Martin Rowson

The Guardian p. 25

29.9.2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/martinrowson/0,7371,1580743,00.html

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw

Background > Labour Party conference, Brighton

Minister apologises for ejecting party veteran over Iraq

David Hencke and Joseph Harker The Guardian Thursday September 29, 2005
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1580569,00.html

state

welfare state
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/welfare
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/26/iain-duncan-smith-interview-welfare

nanny state
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2165455,00.html

power

power vacuum

the powers that be

power-sharing

separation of powers

establishment
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/majornews/5545521/
Gordon-Brown-is-condemned-over-secret-inquiry-into-Iraq-war.html

rule

divide and rule
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2045547,00.html

coalition
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7123472.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/11/coalition-government-liberal-democrats-editorial

Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition agreement May 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/may/15/coalition-conservative-liberal-democrat-agreement

right

left

rightwing

rightwing thinktank

leftwing

republicanism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/29/royal-wedding-love-storming-palace

freedom

freedom of speech
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,1927460,00.html

free speech
http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article3191534.ece

speech
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/
simon-carr/simon-carr-labours-campaign-may-end-in-their-coming-third-1794984.html

rousing speech

democracy
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ronald_dworkin/2007/03/is_democracy_possible_here.html
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/leader/2007/03/last_night_after_playing_what.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1569257,00.html

parliamentary democracy

democrat

democratic

constitution

Britain's "unwritten constitution" of acts of Parliament, common law and conventions
Push for written constitution
Gordon Brown's route map for constitutional reform
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/World/uk.htm
http://www.charter88.org.uk/
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/constitution/story/0,,2117883,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/constitution/story/0,,2117920,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,,2117933,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2117926,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gordonbrown/story/0,,2114837,00.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/asguru/generalstudies/society/27constitution/constitution04.shtml
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourleadership/story/0,,2078063,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4744980.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5165392.stm
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1890995,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1880126,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1274757,00.html
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm050525/debtext/50525-05.htm
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/vo050111/debtext/50111-04.htm

anarchy

anarchist

cronies

cronyism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/livingstone/article/0,2763,675178,00.html

nepotism

scapegoat

be made a scapegoat

scapegoat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/27/binyam-mohamed-torture

whistleblower
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/nov/14/freedomofinformation.iraq

white elephant
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/cartoon/2009/feb/10/steve-bell-cartoon-bankers-questioned

whitewash
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/the-daily-cartoon-760940.html

politics (+ sing)
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/0,9215,440480,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7123449.ece

green politics
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/apr/22/climate-debate-miliband-clark-hughes

public trust in politics

restore faith in politics

The Independent > Today in politics
http://todayinpolitics.independentminds.livejournal.com/

The Red Box
Sam Coates is Chief Political Correspondent for The Times,
based in the Houses of Parliament.
Red Box is a rolling insider guide to Westminster
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2008/10/umble-mandelson.html

party politics

politics and terrorism
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/0,15935,1466850,00.html

political

political will

political deadlock

political battlefield

political Armageddon

political savvy

political blog
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1264629,00.html

political commentators

commentariat / political bloggers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1644298,00.html

political elites

policy
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labourconference2006/story/0,,1881438,00.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1833538,00.html

foreign policy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/19/gordon-brown-internet-foreign-policy

policy maker

politician
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/
ian-birrell-how-our-politicians-failed-to-stop-the-rise-of-the-far-right-1700206.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/cashforhonours/story/0,,2130928,00.html

shrewd politician

politician > Lord Pym 1922-2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3505795.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1265606.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3506470.ece

politicians on all sides

coup 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/08/gordon-brown-leadership-crisis
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/5462329/
Anatomy-of-a-Cabinet-coup-how-Blairite-ministers-tried-to-remove-Brown.html

plot 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/
5463596/Revealed-how-Cabinet-Blairites-plotted-to-topple-Brown.html

topple 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/
5463596/Revealed-how-Cabinet-Blairites-plotted-to-topple-Brown.html

oust 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/5480104/
Analysis--No-one-had-the-guts-to-ouse-Gordon-Brown.html

lame duck
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2926314.ece

demagogue

demagoguery

power

hand power

hand over

handover
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1765074,00.html

take over

government

caretaker government

governance 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/
dominic-lawson-stop-bleating-about-the-need-for-change-and-hold-an-election-1700199.html

press officer
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/media/story/0,,1861596,00.html

UK politics glossary
http://www.britain.tv/ukpolitics_glossary_m.shtml

poll
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/mar/25/voters-cuts-coalition-poll
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/27/support-poll-support-far-right
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/26/coalition-government-support-dramatically-down

woo the middle classes
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1753893,00.html

class war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1790434,00.html

grassroots

staunch Labour supporter

minister FA
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1944813,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1827511,00.html

secretary FA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1827511,00.html

Justice secretary Jack Straw
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/24/iraq-freedom-of-information

veto
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/24/iraq-freedom-of-information

Ministers
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1779786,00.html

The four major offices of State:
Prime Minister
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Foreign Secretary
Home Secretary
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1986954,00.html

Home Office
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2045266,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2045575,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/comment/0,,2045614,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2045547,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1987030,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,,2044927,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1987030,00.html

Home Secretary
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2036770,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1840482,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1838664,00.html

Home Office minister
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2038442,00.html

The Guardian > Special report > Home affairs
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/0,,584184,00.html

Home Office > deportation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/15/mps-demand-inquiry-flight-death
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/
mothers-lastditch-plea-to-home-office-against-deportation-1213855.html

Ministry of Justice
http://www.justice.gov.uk/index.htm

Ministry of Justice > Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
http://www.justice.gov.uk/about/straw.htm

secretary of State

education secretary Alan Johnson
http://education.guardian.co.uk/alevels/story/0,,1827444,00.html

Whitehall
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/whitehall/

Whitehall mandarins

mandarins
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/23/civil-service-criticise-labour

Peter Brookes

Times

February 1, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2017801,00.html

Contexte : 100ème soldat britannique mort en Irak.

Peter Brookes

The Times

December 9, 2006

L to R:

Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown,

British Prime Minister Tony Blair,

10 Downing Street.

Downing Street
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp
http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page22.asp
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/page41.asp

10 Downing Street (Prime Minister) / No 10 / Number 10
www.number-10.gov.uk
http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page175.asp
http://www.youtube.com/user/Number10gov
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1689856,00.html

No 10
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/06/sarkozy-brown-economy

Chequers
the Prime Minister's country retreat in Buckinghamshire /
the official country residence of the Prime Minister
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2073700,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foi/story/0,9061,1382064,00.html

11 Downing Street / Chancellor / Chancellor of the Exchequer > chancellor George Osborne
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/apr/25/recession-figures-bad-day-osborne
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/25/double-dip-recession-george-osborne

11 Downing Street / Chancellor / Chancellor of the Exchequer > chancellor Gordon Brown
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/graphic/0,,1735895,00.html
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/about/about_downingst/about_downingst_intro.cfm

budget
http://www.guardian.co.uk/budget2006/story/0,,1737452,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,,1736454,00.html

budget box

Pre Budget Report 2006
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,10089-2480497.html

Attorney General
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1471977,00.html

The Guardian's Guide to ministers and departments
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/westminster/page/0,9132,507046,00.html

mayor of London
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1476130,00.html

The Guardian p.10

29.6.2004
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1249655,00.html

leader
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/25/ed-miliband-wins-labour-leadership

leadership
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1480027,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,1478075,00.html

leadership challenge

leadership bid
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/5452979/
Alan-Johnson-refuses-to-rule-out-eventual-leadership-bid.html

leadership coup

Labour party leadership
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/labourleadership

defect to

communism
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/
politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,1412232,00.html

contender
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,1478075,00.html

James Purnell's letter

The Times
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pdfs/jp_to_pm.pdf

copy 6 June 2009

quit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/02/darling-hoon-expenses-reshuffle
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,2032070,00.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1692336,00.html

quit / stand down
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-1973370,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1478084,00.html

resign / step down
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/02/darling-hoon-expenses-reshuffle
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1944813,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1927585,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/blunkett/story/0,15648,1606790,00.html

walk out

walkout
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/new-walkout-hits-brown-reshuffle-1697487.html

walk away
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/05/gordon-brown-elections

stand aside

resignation
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6433889.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6434068.ece

resignation's speech
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/comment/0,15803,1478372,00.html

resignation letter
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/05/caroline-flint-resignation-letter

resignation letter > James Purnell May 2009
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pdfs/jp_to_pm.pdf

contender
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,1478075,00.html

Tony Blair

PM interview

PM gives a broadcast interview in the White Room of Number 10

4 January 2007

© Crown copyright
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page8738.asp?GalleryID=75&ImageID=5116&Start=0

Prime Minister PM
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page123.asp
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/08/prime-ministers-i-have-known
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2615961.ece

General Election > outgoing PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2010/may/11/gordon-brown-resigns-as-prime-minister
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/12/gordon-brown-tributes-tony-blair

The Guardian > Gallery > British prime ministers > 52 pictures
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/gallery/2007/jun/15/primeministers?picture=330022136

Prime ministers' nicknames
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2102828,00.html

premiership
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/03/hazel-blears-gordon-brown-leadership-crisis
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2478595,00.html

YouTube > 10 Downing Street
http://uk.youtube.com/DowningSt

Conservative leader David Cameron becomes Britain’s 53rd Prime Minister May 2010

David Cameron, 43,
becomes the youngest premier since Lord Liverpool almost 200 years ago,
and the first Conservative in No 10 since John Major departed 13 years ago.

Nick Clegg is deputy PM

Britain’s first coalition government since the Second World War

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/davidcameron

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-youngest-pm-for-200-years-ndash-and-a-milestone-for-the-lib-dems-1971393.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/born-to-rule-the-charmed-life-of-a-class-act-1971394.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/11/coalition-government-liberal-democrats-editorial
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/nick-clegg/7713344/
Nick-Clegg-promises-Liberal-Democrats-new-kind-of-politics.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/7713272/
David-Cameron-becomes-Prime-Minister-after-coalition-deal-with-Liberal-Democrats.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/7682276/
David-Cameron-the-new-Prime-Ministers-life-and-career-in-pictures.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7123472.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7123449.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7123417.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/11/coalition-government-conservatives-lib-dem
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/11/david-cameron-toughest-hand
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/12/david-cameron-nick-clegg-coalition
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/11/david-cameron-speech-full-text

Prime Minister Gordon Brown

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/gordon-brown

Gordon Brown: his career as Prime Minister in pictures
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/7705692/
Gordon-Brown-his-career-as-Prime-Minister-in-pictures.html

The Guardian > Special report > Gordon Brown
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gordonbrown/0,,2081581,00.html

Brownites
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2083920,00.html

The Guardian > Special report > Tony Blair

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/tonyblair

Tony Charles Lynton Blair 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/08/tonyblair.usa

PM > Tony Blair / Tony Charles Lynton Blair Prime Minister 1997-2007

Tony Blair > The Blair years / Blair in power 1997-2007

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,2075995,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/06/27/blair.xml
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/the_blair_years/
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/blair/page/0,,2051838,00.html

Number 10 > Tony Blair speeches from 1997

http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page5.asp

Number 10 > Tony Blair archive

http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page12009.asp

Cartoons > Steve Bell on Tony Blair

http://www.guardian.co.uk/slideshow/page/0,,1985578,00.html

Multimedia > Martin Amis on Tony Blair

http://www.guardian.co.uk/amisonblair/0,,2093372,00.html

The Guardian > The Blair years

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/0,,2054379,00.html

The Guardian > Video > The Blair years

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/video

The Times > Video > Blair

http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/blairs_greatest_hits/index.html

The best Times analysis since Blair took over the Labour Party in 1994

Blairites

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/unions/story/0,,1872662,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1067300,00.html
http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialexclusion/comment/0,,633716,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/tuitionfees/story/0,,1102294,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/labour2000/story/0,,374946,00.html

Blair-haters

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2019769,00.html

Prime Minister

deputy Prime Minister

Dorneywood > the deputy prime minister's official country home in Buckinghamshire
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1787059,00.html

education secretary

education department

pensions secretary John Hutton
http://money.guardian.co.uk/pensions/story/0,,1783537,00.html

Chancellor of the Exchequer
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/about/ministerial_profiles/minprofile_brown.cfm
http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1378.asp
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/glossary/?gl=99
http://www.explore.parliament.uk/Parliament.aspx?id=10060&glossary=true

shadow chancellor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/08/cooper-chancellor-poll-top-labour
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/06/george-osborne-conservatives

home secretary

shadow home secretary

foreign secretary

sack
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1768251,00.html

demote
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1768251,00.html

demotion
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ewen_macaskill/2006/05/post_69.html

cabinet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/may/12/election-2010-new-cabinet

shadow cabinet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/06/jack-straw-quits-shadow-cabinet

reshuffle
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6436610.ece

cabinet reshuffle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/cartoon/2009/jun/09/gordon-brown-steve-bell
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/
leading-article-a-reshuffle-that-betrays-the-prime-ministers-weakness-1698169.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2009/jun/05/reshuffle-labour-gordon-brown
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/03/labour.gordonbrown
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gordonbrown/story/0,,2114837,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1768446,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,,1767606,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1478662,00.html

ministerial reshuffle
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1764572,00.html

reshuffle
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2021007,00.html

shadow cabinet reshuffle
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,1480680,00.html

take on pensions

go to health

switch to defence

cabinet meeting

spin
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservativepartyconference2006/story/0,,1887904,00.html

spin one's way off the hook

spin doctor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/21/damian-mcbride-whitehall-media-no10

hype

stonewall
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6817844.ece

sleaze
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/31/lords
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2959161.ece
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_wilby/2006/12/post_803.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1733758,00.html

abuse of perks
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1765084,00.html

spokesman / spokeswoman

ombudsman

counterpart

mantra

activist
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/31/kingsnorth-activists-climate-change-coal

eco war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/31/kingsnorth-activists-climate-change-coal

political activist > Solly Kaye 1913-2005
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/politicsobituaries/story/0,1441,1475984,00.html

disobedient
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1968205,00.html

hardliner

hardline

rank and file

leaflet

agenda
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/queensspeech2005/story/0,16013,1486296,00.html

top of the agenda

summit collapse

counterpart / opposite number

agreement

settlement

peaceful resolution to...

rules

leaked document

white paper
http://money.guardian.co.uk/pensions/story/0,,1783537,00.html
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/pensionsreform/whitepaper.asp
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/pensionsreform/pdfs/white_paper_complete.pdf
http://money.guardian.co.uk/money.guardian.co.uk/pensionswhitepaper/story/0,,1782990,00.html
http://money.guardian.co.uk/pensions/story/0,,1780264,00.html
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1670889,00.html

white elephant
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/cartoon/2010/aug/01/trident-replacement-coalition-government
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/jun/16/egovernment.politics
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jun/23/economy

red herring
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/dec/29/uk.iraq

red tape
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/buying_and_selling/article1811274.ece
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,16781,1652097,00.html

cross party support

implement

scrap
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/24/titan-prisons-jack-straw

endorse / back
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2068070,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1719905.ece

pledge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/19/david-cameron-pledges-popular-capitalism
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/5546288/
Gordon-Brown-pledges-broadband-for-all-amid-claims-millions-will-be-denied-service.html

pledge

hype up

run a smear campaign

deal with...

stand on...

toe the line

make it clear

U-turn

turn turtle

climbdown
http://money.guardian.co.uk/turnerreport/story/0,,1746572,00.html

ombudsman

pressure group

unveil
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/08/banking.economy1

unveil proposals

elected regional assembly

devolve

devolution

be dissolved

white paper on...

set out proposals

stumbling block

sticking point

on / off the record

diplomacy

ambassador to NATO

transfer of power and authority over...

talks

stalemate

summit

summit collapse

counterpart / opposite number

agreement

settlement

Immigration and asylum
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/immigration

asylum seeker

claim asylum

deport
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2010/oct/15/jimmy-mubenga-son-roland-mubenga

deportation > Joy Gardner's death 1993
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/279922.stm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/gardner-described-as-most-violent-woman-1620126.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/there-is-no-comfort-over-joy-1417068.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/mourners-renew-call-for-inquiry-into-death-after-police-raid-mary-braid-finds-anger-undimmed
at-the-longdelayed-funeral-of-joy-gardner-1468205.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/
deportation-woman-had-mouth-taped-police-taped-joy-gardners-mouth-and-used-body-belt-to-restrain-her-1459353.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/
when-deportation-means-death-joy-gardner-died-after-police-raided-her-home-john-torode-sifts-fact-from-prejudice-1458919.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/doubts-delay-inquiry-into-joy-gardners-death-1466994.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/why-did-joy-gardner-die-it-should-not-surprise-anyone-that-an-illegal-immigrants-death
can-cause-a-national-scandal-nick-cohen-reports-1459872.html

deportee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/22/deportation-heathrow-kenya-flight-video
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/15/deportee-help-flight-dying-witness

private security firm G4S
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/g4s
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/29/g4s-security-loses-deportee-contract

refugee

sanctuary

scandal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/15/shahid-malik-1000-tv

MPs' expenses: The Telegraph's investigation, The Expenses Files,
into how politicians - from Gordon Brown's Cabinet to backbenchers of all parties -
exploit the system of parliamentary allowances to subsidise their lifestyles and multiple homes 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/

row
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/01/lockerbie-libya-megrahi

be held accountable for

beleaguered
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/16/simon-lewis-pr-downing-brown1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/01/alistair-darling-apology-expenses-gordon-brown

embattled

feminism

suffragettes
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/suffragettes.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,1884105,00.html

peace movement

Trotskyist group

the Communist party

quango
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/07/quangos-government-multibillion-pound-bill
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/06/waste-recycling

Ireland

taoiseach
http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/index.asp

Northern Ireland

Sinn Féin
http://sinnfein.org/

euro

single currency

EU membership

join the EU

entry

treaty

European charter

referendum

deliver a crushing "no" vote on the European constitution

reject

UN resolution

defiance of UN resolutions

soundbites

mantra

catchphrase

"You've never had it so good"
http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page131.asp

"Read my lips: no new taxes" USA
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/character/glossaries/bush.html

"the enemy within"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3067563.stm

"Labour is not working"
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tories2003/story/0,13807,1055688,00.html

"education, education, education"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4250158,00.html

"tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/0,7368,464445,00.html

John Major > Back to basics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-kBxQ8cskg

Margaret Thatcher's most famous soundbites / speeches
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1888444.stm
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/politicspast/story/0,9061,1059749,00.html

Margaret Thatcher > "the lady's not for turning" 1981
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ-M0KEFm9I&feature=related

Guardian Special Report > Politics past
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/politicspast/0,9054,442870,00.html

The evidence is clear. Labour isn't working

Sunday September 21 2008
The Observer
Editorial
This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday September 21 2008
on p40 of the Comment section.
It was last updated at 00:02 on September 21 2008.

A disorderly rebellion by backbench Labour MPs and minor ministers last week failed to provoke a formal challenge to Gordon Brown at the party's conference. But there will still be urgent discussion of the leadership in Manchester. The only question is whether the debate will be conducted in hushed whispers in hotel corridors or encouraged by speakers from the conference platform.

Senior Labour figures think the party must pursue a radically different agenda, which means a change of leader. So will they hide their views, impart them to journalists on condition of anonymity or share them openly with the country?

The natural inclination is towards a pretence of unity. Cabinet ministers have warned that voters will punish a party that obsesses about its internal affairs in turbulent economic times. They are right, but their warnings are also beside the point. The introspection cannot be halted by fiat. Besides, voters are already deeply hostile to Gordon Brown.

That is proven beyond doubt by a poll of unprecedented scale revealed in today's Observer - the most comprehensive account to date of Labour's woeful position. A survey of marginal seats, conducted for the Politics-Home website, paints a harrowing picture for the government. On its current trajectory, Labour will emerge from the next election with 160 seats, fewer than they won under Michael Foot in 1983. Meanwhile, any belief that Tory support might wilt is exposed as a delusion. Those who plan to vote Conservative are firmer in their resolve than those who might back the government. Things could get still worse for Labour.

The party might hope its position will recover under Gordon Brown, especially if the economic outlook improves. But the evidence suggests otherwise. The Prime Minister has already tried several times to regain the public's affection, and failed. Even if people accept that the financial crisis is not entirely of Mr Brown's making, they do not want him in charge of the recovery. The poll data are clear: Labour under its current leader is bust.

The only possible reason to stick with Mr Brown is fear that ousting him would just accelerate the march towards defeat. A new leader would face enormous pressure to seek a mandate from the country. Labour will need reassurance that there is a candidate with a plausible chance of taking on David Cameron before starting a process likely to end with a premature general election.

Opinion polls give little guidance on that front. None of the mooted challengers, not even David Miliband, has sufficient public profile for voters to envisage them taking charge of the country. Candidates will only be evaluated in earnest when they have signalled unambiguously that they want the job.

If anyone in the cabinet believes they have the requisite charisma and political vision to lead Labour away from disaster they need to prove it. This week's conference is the place to start. They might be tempted to hold back, for fear that impassioned speeches, full of grand ambition, will be read as overt disloyalty to Mr Brown. But dull rhetoric with half-hearted statements of support for the current leader will also be seen as disloyal, only cowardly to boot. If, however, no one in the cabinet wants to be Prime Minister soon, a simple declaration of that fact is the surest way to unify the party.

The worst scenario for Labour would be a stage-managed charade of loyalty, followed by a resumption of underground agitation; despair disguised as unity.

There may be no ballot, but there is still a contest this week in Manchester. The prospective candidates are on display. They face a clear choice: set out your stall or put away your ambition. Labour is desperate for inspiring leadership. If after 11 years in power neither the Prime Minister nor anyone in the cabinet can provide it, defeat will not only be certain, it will be deserved.

The evidence is clear. Labour isn't working, O, 21.9.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/21/labourleadership.gordonbrown

The battle over government that has raged since Magna Carta

Published: 04 July 2007
The Independent
By Ben Chu

Yesterday Mr Brown referred to the British Constitution as "unwritten". That is misleading. A more accurate description would be "un-codified". In common with the citizens of other countries, subjects of the British Crown enjoy certain legally prescribed rights and freedoms. And like the governments of other nations, British administrations are bound by the chains of law and convention.

The difference is that the various Royal Charters, Acts of Parliament and legal rulings that make up the framework of proper British governance have never been gathered and written down in a single legal document in the style of, for example, the Constitution of the US.

Up until the 19th century, the history of the British constitution was, in large part, the history of the struggle for power between the monarch and the aristocracy. In 1215 a coalition of disgruntled barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta (or Great Charter), left, guaranteeing the right for freemen to be judged, not by the king, but their peers. The monarch was also forced to pledge that "to no one will we deny or delay right or justice", a significant undertaking at a time when rulers enjoyed power unchecked by formal commitments.

The dispute over the limits of royal power rumbled on over the following centuries but it exploded again with great force in the 17th century during the reign of King Charles I. A period of turmoil culminated in the so-called "Glorious Revolution". In 1688, a collection of peers deposed James II and invited Prince William of Orange and his wife Mary to become joint sovereigns on the condition that they acquiesce to some rigid restrictions on the power of the monarchy and guarantees of the rights of parliament. This settlement was enshrined in the Bill of Rights, which guaranteed freedom of speech, frequent parliaments and free elections. This settlement, perhaps more than anything else before or since, was the basis for our system of parliamentary sovereignty. But still only a minority of rich men were entitled to vote. It took a succession of reform acts to widen the franchise.

The battle over government that has raged since Magna Carta, I, 4.7.2007,
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2733250.ece

May 3 1997

The history man's 'noble causes'

From The Guardian archive

May 3 1997
The Guardian

This was our Velvet Revolution, and yesterday the population went wild, British-style. People were seen breaking into half-smiles in public while reading the papers; some thought about making eye contact in the Tube, then remembered themselves and drew back.

The extent of Labour's landslide meant that comparisons with 1945 were inevitable. But there was no repe tition of the remark attributed to a lady diner at the Savoy as news of Clement Attlee's triumph filtered through: 'But this is terrible. They have elected a Labour Government and the country will never stand for that.'

Mr Attlee could never have entered Downing Street with one-hundredth of the studied triumphalism of Tony Blair, or one-thousandth of his elan. The new Prime Minister omitted to drape himself in a purple toga, dragging the defeated general in chains behind his chariot. His symbolism experts must have lost their nerve. Instead, he progressed on foot from the Thatcher Memorial Gates to No. 10, working a cheering throng, who had all been given flags and placards with suspiciously similar handwriting.

This was the piece de resistance of Labour's campaign show, the final celebratory burst of electoral fireworks. At least one hopes it is. There is a lingering suspicion that the next five years could be like this. It worked all right for Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton; and Blair is the first British leader charismatic enough to make the comparisons sensible. He refrained from quoting Francis of Assisi like Mrs Thatcher. He said he would lead 'a government of practical measures in pursuit of noble causes'. Then he said there had been enough talking. 'It is time now to do.'

But it wasn't. It was time for another photo opportunity. The children posed, and Tony and Cherie hugged and waved, and hugged again. Finally, the door shut behind them, and Blair began that mystical process of governance of which he — until that moment — knew as little as the rest of us. The rest of us, meanwhile, tried to come to terms with the magnitude of what had occurred. It was not easy. But it really has happened. The long years of Toryism are history.

Outside Downing Street, London looked as it always does on a warm spring day, more frazzled than sunlit. The West End was clogged with traffic, and there were beggars on the Strand.

You can't blame the Government. Not yet. Reality will intrude soon enough: every one knows that, the Prime Minister better than anyone. But for one shining moment everything does seem bright and new again. Please God, don't let Labour ruin it.

From The Guardian archive > May 3 1997 > The history man's 'noble causes', G, 17.5.2007, Republished 3.5.2007, p. 34, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/05/03/pages/ber34.shtml

On This Day - July 22, 1994

From The Times Archive

Tony Blair became the youngest leader of the Labour Party

TODAY marks the beginning of a new chapter in British politics. After 15 years of unelectability, there is now a good chance that the Labour Party will become a fighting Opposition again.

With Tony Blair at its helm, the principles of competition which lie at the heart of the Tory agenda will be exercised against the very seat of power. If the Conservatives manage to hold on to office at the next election, it will be not because Labour lets them in, but because the governing party has won the battle of ideas and the trust of the British people.

The leadership campaign was the biggest democratic exercise ever undertaken within a British political party. There was a surprising degree of uniformity in the preferences of MPs and MEPs, party members and trade-union levy-payers.

In all three sections, Mr Blair won more votes than John Prescott and Margaret Beckett put together. In the deputy’s race, Mr Prescott was also the clear favourite across the board. Nobody in the Labour movement can complain about the result.

Nor was there the usual acrimony or point-scoring between the candidates. All three conducted themselves with dignity. Mr Blair may have emerged with few concrete proposals in the way of a mandate. But he has also managed to avoid giving hostages which would have constrained policy changes in the future.

From The Times Archives > On This Day - July 22, 1994, The Times, 22.7.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

On This Day - May 16, 1994

From The Times Archive

Following the death of John Smith,
the contest for leadership of the Labour Party looked like being a one-horse race,
with both the media and the Conservatives expecting Tony Blair to win

TONY BLAIR is being urged to stay out of the limelight amid worries among his closest supporters that his Labour leadership bandwagon is racing out of control. Senior Labour figures are voicing fears that the apparent early lead for the shadow Home Secretary, buttressed by a wave of advice, in the Conservative press, to Labour to pick him, could provoke a backlash in the party.

At the same time it became clear that the traditionalist Labour Left is split over who should be its candidate. John Prescott, shadow Employment Secretary, and Robin Cook, shadow Industry Secretary, are both considering standing.

Mr Prescott, the only contender to appear in television interviews, gave what many in the party saw as a clear signal that he will present himself as a unity candidate, capable of bringing together the political and union wings of the movement. The concern of Mr Blair’s backers is heightened by the fact that he and Gordon Brown have yet to decide which of them should stand as the modernisers’ candidate in the election to replace John Smith. Various leading party and union figures have asked the shadow Chancellor to stand in recent days. His backers say that he is better placed to win left-of-centre support than Mr Blair and could more easily take over Mr Smith’s mantle as a unifier of right and left.

From The Times Archives > On This Day - May 16, 1994, 16.5.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

On This Day - April 28, 1992

From The Times Archive

Betty Boothroyd was renowned for being forthright when bringing MPs to order.

She served eight years as Speaker, retiring in 2000

THE LABOUR MP Betty Boothroyd was elected as the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons yesterday with the help of 74 Conservative MPs who supported her in preference to Peter Brooke, the former Northern Ireland secretary.

Miss Boothroyd, 62, won the contest with a 372-238 vote a majority of 134 on an amendment proposing that her name be substituted for that of Mr Brooke. The amended motion was then carried without a further vote.

MPs on all sides stood and flouted Commons tradition by applauding as she was pulled to the chair with the traditional show of reluctance. Mr Brooke was one of the first to congratulate her.

She becomes the 155th Speaker and the first since the war to be chosen from the ranks of the Opposition party. Her calls of “Order, order” will make hers one of the best known voices in the land.

Victory for Miss Boothroyd was assured by her record in the chair as deputy Speaker and popularity across the House, the Conservatives’ failure to agree among themselves on a single candidate, and fears among some MPs that Mr Brooke might not be enough of a “backbenchers’ man”. Accepting nomination, she said: “For me, the Commons has never been just a career. It’s my life.”

When MPs had applauded her to the chair she said, clearly moved: “Before I take the chair I wish to thank the House for the very great honour it has bestowed on me. I pray that I shall justify its confidence.”

On This Day - April 28, 1992, The Times, 28.4.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

On This Day - April 21, 1992

From The Times Archive

Despite his victory in the 1992 general election,

John Major could not escape the shadow of his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher

MARGARET THATCHER broke her election purdah yesterday to issue a warning to her successor, John Major, claiming that there was no such ideology as “Majorism” and that the prime minister was “not his own man”.

In a forthright article entitled Do not undo my work in the latest edition of the American magazine Newsweek, the former prime minister instructs Mr Major to adhere to her principles. She bluntly warns him not to jettison her legacy which, she suggests, she handed down to him, by allowing public borrowing and the government machine to expand again.

Her comments dramatically illustrate that, with the election over, she intends to cast aside inhibitions about criticising Mr Major’s administration and the direction in which he is taking the Conservative party. Her growing disillusion with Mr Major’s strategy comes out forcibly in her warning about the rise in public spending and his appointment of her rival for the leadership, Michael Heseltine, as the trade and industry secretary.

Since her departure from the Commons and Mr Major’s election victory, Mrs Thatcher’s ability to wound the Government is more limited. But her stern, almost dictatorial, comments will send a shiver through ministers and give a foretaste of the strict watch she intends to keep on them from the Lords. Mr Major and most of his cabinet were still on their Easter break last night.

On This Day - April 21, 1992, The Times, 21.4.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

On This Day - May 6, 1989

From The Times Archive

Margaret Thatcher's first ten years as Prime Minister were marked
by many changes to the economy's manufacturing base

“MRS THATCHER prefers people who make money to people who make things,” complained a delegate at the Confederation of British Industry conference last year. He was not quite right. Mrs Thatcher likes people who make both.

In the early years of her administration, John Ashcroft, chairman of Coloroll, was reckoned to be her favourite entrepreneur. It was, thought the beleaguered metal bashers of Brum, typical of Mrs Thatcher that a manufacturer of pastel wallpapers should be fêted while the solid industries which founded an empire struggled to survive. Ashcroft had all the attributes admired by Mrs Thatcher. He is self-made and, by his own admission, pushy. He produced a concept called “Death RAE,” under which managers are Responsible for their actions, Accountable for them and Exposed to the consequences.

He was also young, charming and good-looking, attributes also admired by Mrs Thatcher. He was frequently at No 10, held up as an example for industry to follow. At the same time, Alan Sugar became one of Mrs Thatcher’s most famous multi-millionaires by building Amstrad into a leading computer manufacturer from an unpromising start in a street market selling car radio aerials.

The backbone of British industry was affronted by praise heaped upon some businessmen while others struggled to survive the harshest economic environment since the Second World War.

From The Times Archives > On This Day - May 6, 1989, Times, 6.5.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

On This Day - April 12, 1988

From The Times Archive

By Philip Webster, Chief Political Correspondent

In the late 1980s a poll tax was seen by Margaret Thatcher as a vote-winner to replace the 'unfair' rates system

A FEW days before the Conservative local government conference last month the organisers received a request from Downing Street. The Prime Minister, unlike in the past when she had spoken informally to councillors and candidates, wanted to address the conference.

A space in the programme was found, and Mrs Margaret Thatcher surprised and uplifted her 700-strong audience with a speech in which she urged them to go out and fight in the May 5 elections on perhaps the most controversial part of her third term: the community charge, or poll tax.

She called the charge the “ready reckoner” by which people would be able to judge for the first time exactly how local authorities were spending their money.

She said: “We should welcome that because Conservative councils are careful with people’s money; Conservative councils are good managers. It is Labour authorities who have to be rate-capped because they spend other people’s money like water.”

According to party strategists, Mrs Thatcher’s early intervention, along with her effectively simple description of the charge, galvanised the local campaign. Nervousness about the effects of the poll tax in the elections has been replaced by a determination to turn it to the party’s advantage. When they open the Tory campaign tomorrow, Mr Peter Brooke, the party chairman, and Mr Nicholas Ridley, Secretary of State for the Environment, are expected to emphasise that the votes people cast this May and next will determine the level of community charge they pay when the system is introduced.

On This Day - April 12, 1988, Times, 12.4.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

On This Day - July 25, 1969

From The Times Archive

Imprisoned for smuggling leaflets into the USSR,

Gerald Brooke was exchanged for the Soviet agents Peter and Helen Kroger

LOOKING gaunt and pale after four years in Soviet gaols, Mr Gerald Brooke flew home yesterday “numbed” — to use his own word — by the shock of his sudden release.

Speaking haltingly at first, he explained that he had to get used again to speaking English — “and to seeing so many people”. Half-an-hour earlier, after stepping from a Soviet Ilyushin 62 aircraft, he was reunited with his wife Barbara in a private lounge at Heathrow airport.

Wearing his old grammar school tie and the same charcoal grey suit in which he was arrested by the KGB, the Soviet secret police, in April, 1956, Mr Brooke, who is 32 and was a lecturer in Russian, talked with reporters before being driven in a Foreign Office car to his home in Finchley. He said the Russians had only broken the news of his release 24 hours earlier — exactly four years to the day after they had gaoled him. A Soviet official said they had “splendid” news for him. “Tomorrow”, he was informed, “you will be in England, and tomorrow evening at home with your wife and family.”

Mr Brooke was visibly bewildered by his sudden switch from the harshness of a Soviet gaol to the brightly lit interview room. Asked about his health he answered: “I am not well at all.” He had been suffering from an inflammation of the lower colon which had been “aggravated by the sort of food I had to eat in prison”.

All attempts to get Mr Brooke to speak about conditions in prison and the Russians’ treatment of him failed. All Mr Brooke would say about his prison conditions was that “they were not particularly soft”.

From The Times Archives > On This Day - July 25, 1969, The Times, 25.7.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

On This Day - August 5, 1963

From The Times Archive

Dr Stephen Ward, the osteopath at the centre of the Profumo scandal,
died after taking an overdose at a friend's flat

AN inquest will be held at Hammersmith on Friday on Dr Stephen Ward, who died in hospital on Saturday after having been in a coma for 80 hours following an overdose of drugs. A post-mortem examination is expected to take place today. Dr Ward was found unconscious at the flat in Chelsea of Mr Noel Howard-Jones on the last day of his trial at the Central Criminal Court. Mr Justice Marshall decided to complete his summing up in his absence. When the jury found him guilty on two charges of living on immoral earnings the judge postponed sentence.

In an unsigned note addressed to Mr Howard-Jones which was found at the flat, Dr Ward said: “Dear Noel, I am sorry I had to do this here! It’s really more than I can stand — the horror day after day at the court and in the streets.” Another extract read: “I do hope I haven’t let people down too much. I tried to do my stuff but after Marshall's summing up I've given up all hope . . . I’m sorry to disappoint the vultures — I only hope this has done the job. Delay resuscitation as long as possible.”

One of Dr Ward’s last actions was to telephone the Home Office official who is helping Lord Denning in his inquiry. A statement from Miss Christine Keeler’s solicitor said that she was very distressed by the news of the death of Dr Ward. “Under these circumstances,” the statement added, “she does not intend to carry out the plans for her to take part in a film based on her life.”

From The Times Archives > On This Day - August 5, 1963, The Times, 5.8.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

On This Day - May 12, 1956

From The Times Archive

In 1957 the colony Gold Coast became, as Ghana, the first black African nation to be granted independence from Britain

A FIRM date for granting the Gold Coast independence within the Commonwealth will be given by her Majesty’s Government, if a reasonable majority for such a step is obtained in the local Legislature after a general election. This promise was given in a statement made by the Secretary of State for the Colonies in the House of Commons yesterday.

Mr Lennox-Boyd said the present constitution marked the last stage before the assumption by the Gold Coast of full responsibility for its own affairs.

Since the present constitution was introduced there had arisen a dispute about the form of constitution which the Gold Coast should have when it achieved independence within the Commonwealth. Efforts had been made to bring about a reconciliation between the major parties, but they had so far met with no success.

“I have been in close touch with the Prime Minister of the Gold Coast on these matters,” Mr Lennox-Boyd continued. “I have told Dr Nkrumah that if a general election is held, her Majesty’s Government will be ready to accept a motion calling for independence within the Commonwealth passed by a reasonable majority in a newly elected Legislature, and then to declare a firm date for this purpose.

“Full membership of the Commonwealth is, of course, a different question, and is a matter for consultation between all existing members of the Commonwealth.”

From The Times Archives > On This Day - May 12, 1956, The Times, 12.5.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

April 6 1955

A love for England and the Commons

From The Guardian archive

April 6 1955
The Guardian

"He loved England with the passionate enthusiasm which Pericles felt for Athens and he trusted the House of Commons as no one else."

These words used of the heroic Sir John Eliot who withstood Charles l can be applied with a strict appropriateness to Sir Winston Churchill. They do not present the sum of the qualities of the prime minister, the orator, the historian, and biographer who has now surrendered the seals of office to the Queen.

But they are laurels he would value as highly as any. His country has been his religion: and country means the empire and Commonwealth.

His trust in the Commons has been absolute. But he has done more than trust. He has had reverence and affection, and it has endured through the 50 years and over that he has been a member. He has not long been happy away from it. His love has been for the theatre of party conflict in which the claims of tolerance are operative and differences of opinion do not exclude friendly personal relations

As for trusting the house, no more shining examples could be found than his conduct during the war. Hardly a day passed when he was in London but he was in his place. In the darkest hours he was never afraid to tell it the blackest truth. His addiction to the secret session was another aspect of this trust. His faith permitted him to speak words in private to 600 members that he could not in public, confident there would be no disclosure.

At no time when the conduct of the war came under criticism was he prepared to go on without obtaining a vote of confidence. No prime minister in war could have deferred more to the house. Lloyd George at the height of his power developed that touch of caesarism tempting to a war prime minister and for periods disdained to attend the house.

Sir Winston's immunity from any thing savouring of the autocrat ought never to be forgotten, for he was exposed to greater temptation to play the role. So great was the country's gratitude that he might have arrogated to himself powers beyond any other prime minister.

He has also been the most human of our prime ministers. None has been more serious about public issues but none has had such a zest for the battle. Lloyd George was also a great fighter, but he had not Sir Winston's enjoyment in the tussle. This native pugnacity — probably derived from his father — has gone with magnanimous warmth, with the artist's capacity to see himself with humorous detachment in the heat of the engagement.

Harry Boardman

From The Guardian archive > April 6 1955 > A love for England and the Commons, G, Republished 6.4.2007, p.40, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/04/06/pages/ber40.shtml

July 5 1948

From The Guardian archive

Mr Bevan's bitter attack on Tories

July 5 1948
The Guardian

"The eyes of the world are turning to Great Britain. We now have the moral leadership of the world, and before many years are over we shall have people coming here as to a modern Mecca, learning from us in the twentieth century as they learned from us in the seventeenth," said Mr Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, at a Labour rally in Manchester yesterday.

The meeting was called to celebrate the anniversary of Labour's accession to power. The Labour party, he said, would win the 1950 election because successful Toryism and an intelligent electorate were a contradiction in terms. His own experiences ensured that no amount of cajolery could eradicate from his heart a deep burning hatred of the Tory party. "So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin," he went on. "They condemned millions of people to semi-starvation. I warn you young men and women, do not listen to what they are saying, do not listen to the seductions of Lord Woolton. They have not changed, or if they have they are slightly worse."

The Government decided the issues in accordance with the best principles, he said: "The weak first; and the strong next." Mr. Churchill preferred a free-for-all, but what was Toryism except organised Spivvery?

As a result of controls, the well-to-do had not been able to build houses, but ordinary men and women were moving into their own homes. Progress could not be made without pain. People who campaigned against controls were conducting an immoral campaign. There was a kind of schizophrenia in the country, so that people reading newspapers and hearing talk in luxury hotels got an entirely different conception of what was happening, which did not square with the statistics. The bodies and spirits of the people were being built up — but the Government's efforts could not be sustained except by the energies and labour of the people. Production must be raised to make the new legislative reforms a living reality.

The Government never promised in 1945 that everybody was going to be better off. It knew some were worse off to-day, but it always intended they should be.

[Bevan's "vermin" remark — one of the most famous jibes in politics — was adroitly turned against the Attlee government by Tory speakers, who pretended it insulted their voters rather than policy makers. However, Bevan merely retorted that men of Celtic fire were needed to bring about great reforms like the new NHS. That was why, he explained, Welshmen were put in charge instead of "the bovine and phlegmatic Anglo-Saxons."]

From The Guardian archive > July 5 1948 > Mr Bevan's bitter attack on Tories, G, republished 5.7.2007, p. 30, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/07/05/pages/ber30.shtml

June 21, 1945

Labour's 'great moral purpose' in 1945

From the Guardian archive

Thursday June 21, 1945
Guardian

Declaring that the Labour party were in the most deadly earnest in their purpose, Sir Stafford Cripps, in a broadcast last night, appealed to youth to help to drive forward fearlessly into a new and better world.

"We need your enthusiasm and vitality, linked with that of your comrades the world over, if we are to break with the evil ways and outworn traditions of the past.

"During the war all our resources have been put at the disposal of the nation. They had to be or we could never have planned their most efficient use and so win the war.

"Listen to this roll-call of the unemployed and think what it meant in human suffering: 1932, 2,800,000; 1934, 2,200,000; 1936, 1,800,000; 1938, 900,000 - and all that time the Conservatives had a huge majority in Parliament.

"Either they did not try, or they tried their best and failed, which proves their policies useless."

"The only way to defeat poverty and unemployment after the war was by careful planning and control by the government. Between the two wars there were tens of thousands of competing plans each based upon how the greatest profit could made out of a particular manufacture. That was private enterprise which so often tended to keep down output as to keep up prices.

"We want to change these controls - take them out of the anonymous and irresponsible hands of private individuals and place them in the hands of the people's representatives - the Government.

"We can't afford to let private enterprise muddle along in inefficiency or combine into cartels to hold the public up to ransom. Just imagine the absurdity of Messrs Smith and Company's Grenadiers, advertised as the best fed and equipped unit, Messrs Robinson's the most up-to date aircraft carriers the world has ever seen, and expect that sort of thing to win a war.

"That is how it is suggested by the Conservatives that we should conduct the forces with which we must fight all the peace-time evils of our society.

"The industries of our country are a national asset. We must give to the scientist and the technician their proper place in the national service.

"We in the Labour party are in the most deadly earnest. Our nation will never rise supreme unless behind all our acts, and instinct with all our policies, is some great moral purpose. Greed and profit, opportunism and material gain are no foundation".

· In the July 5 election Labour won a 2-1 majority. Cripps, the party's famous high-taxing idealist, became chancellor of the exchequer in 1947.

From the Guardian archive > June 21, 1945 > Labour's 'great moral purpose' in 1945, G, Republished 21.6.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1802396,00.html

May 8 1940

Lessons of Norway

From The Guardian archive

May 8 1940
The Guardian

[In popular histories of the war, this debate was dominated by one phrase, "in the name of God go", which destroyed Neville Chamberlain.
That was not how the Manchester Guardian or the Times reported the occasion.]

As far as the debate has gone it has changed nothing in the Parliamentary situation. That is, superficially.

And yet there was a difference. Today's Prime Minister was not the Chamberlain of a few weeks ago whom one heard telling the Tory Central Council that Hitler had missed the bus. But one can still hear those cheers from the embattled "Yes Men" .

Mr Chamberlain's apologia for the Norwegian failure can be studied elsewhere. Here one turns to his "general observations" which shed a good deal of light on himself and his Government. The lessons are those which the Opposition parties have been trying to teach him for months, so the Labour and Liberal benches rocked with cheers at his discoveries.

One lesson was that we had not realised the imminence of the threat. There the Opposition cheered for a full minute. The Leader of the Opposition [Mr Attlee] saw Norway as only one more failure in the uninterrupted story of Ministerial failures. Yet he was full of confidence about our winning the war, though he said bluntly it would only be done by putting different men at the helm.

Drama touched the debate once, when Admiral Sir Roger Keyes alleged in effect that Trondheim had been lost through faint hearts in Whitehall. He rose in his uniform of an admiral of the fleet, as he explained, because he had come to Westminster to speak for men in the fighting Navy who were very unhappy.

Sir Roger admonished [Mr Churchill] to steel himself for vigorous action, because he possesses the confidence of the War Cabinet, the country and the Navy. He ended by reminding Mr Churchill of Nelson's saying that bold est measures are always the safest. So far this had been quite the most disturbing speech in the debate.

Sir Roger's speech will probably tell for more against the Government than Mr Amery's, which followed, but Mr Amery's speech was a sustained and harsh denunciation of the Government for its timidity and ineffectiveness, full of power, and concluding with the savage application to the Government of Cromwell's words to the Long Parliament: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say. Let us have done with you. In the name of God, go."

Mr Amery's philippic was delivered as usual to half-empty benches on his own side, but there was a goodly muster of the Opposition to hear him.

From The Guardian archive > May 8 1940 > Lessons of Norway, G, republished 8.5.2007, p. 28, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/05/08/pages/ber28.shtml

June 8 1934

Mosley's circus at Olympia

From The Guardian archive

June 8 1934
The Guardian

Sir Oswald Mosley provided close on 10,000 people in Olympia tonight with an entertainment which Mr. Bertram Mills might at once have envied and deplored. For while Mr. Mills must certainly have envied Sir Oswald the number of his audience and the excitement he and his hecklers provided, he must have deplored the violence with which that excitement was obtained.

For what is described in the talk of the gangsters as 'rough-house work' no meeting in these islands within memory can have shown anything like it.

Inside the great hall it was seen that Sir Oswald Mosley had nothing of theatricalism to learn from either Hitler or Mussolini. There was a massed band of Blackshirts, the Union Jack, and the black and yellow flag of the British Union of Fascists. There were arc-lamps, and there was an aisle lined with Blackshirts.

Exactly thirty-five minutes after the meeting was due to begin the band dropped into a Low German march, the arc-lamps swung on the Blackshirted aisle, and Sir Oswald appeared — preceded by six men carrying Union Jacks and the British Blackshirt flag. The march proceeded to the platform while some people — they did not seem to be many — raised their arms in a Fascist salute.

Sir Oswald began his speech. Almost at once a chorus of interrupters began in one of the galleries. Blackshirts began stumbling and leaping over chairs. There was a wild scrummage, women screamed, black-shirted arms rose and fell, blows were dealt.

Sir Oswald stood to attention in the half-darkness, making unintelligible appeals through the amplifiers. For close on two hours the meeting dragged on like that, interruption and ejection. Suddenly, as Sir Oswald was speaking, a voice sounded high up in the girders, 'Down with Fascism!'

There, balanced one hundred and fifty feet above the crowd, a man was seen clambering across the girders. Then from each side Blackshirts appeared treading the same precarious perch. Sir Oswald went on speaking, but all eyes were on the climbers. Suddenly the interrupter clambered up above his pursuers and swung along the girders on to a platform high above them. His pursuers followed.

A sudden crash of glass tore the air. Someone had fallen sixty feet, at a guess, on to a floor. It is not disclosed whether the man was the interrupter or one of his pursuers.

The meeting ended in a mild chaos — not from interrupters but from a general stampede of the audience, who had plainly grown tired of Sir Oswald's two-hour monologue.

Our London Staff

From The Guardian archive > June 8 1934 > Mosley's circus at Olympia, G, republished 8.6.2007, p. 40, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/06/08/pages/ber40.shtml

On This Day - April 16, 1929

From The Times Archive

The attempt by Winston Churchill, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer,

to win over the electorate by reducing some taxes and promoting Conservative economic competence failed to secure victory for the Tories in the 1929 general election.

With the support of the Liberal Party, a minority Labour government was formed

BUDGET day lived up to its reputation in attracting to the House of Commons this afternoon a crowded audience of the public anxious to learn their fate as taxpayers, and of members anxious to take the omens of their fate as politicians.

The essence of Mr Churchill’s statement was a sober review of his record at the Exchequer and a balanced use of the last modest opportunities of the present Government. Without at any time passing the bounds of legitimate challenge, he forced home on the Socialists the magnitude of the economic disaster of 1926 and the immense recovery expressed by the realization of a “solid surplus” in 1928-29. His conclusion was that a lucid interval of two years had permitted a steady advance in prosperity which already outweighed the setback of one catastrophic year.

This general improvement in the conditions of the country the two Oppositions proposed to consolidate by spending money as fast as possible. The Socialists proposed to create “disillusionment in our own time” by raising £65,000,000 in chaos-producing taxation — a sum sufficient to finance about a quarter of their pledges. The Liberals proposed to borrow £200,000,000 in order to make racing tracks for well-to-do motorists. No could accuse them of “cheap ” electioneering. The Conservatives could adduce £7,500,000 saved on the annual cost of armaments, and £5,500,000 saved on the annual cost of the Civil Services.

He firmly believed that the only cure for unemployment was the revival of industry as a whole, and that private finance was the best spur and guide to rationalization. But the State would help. The railway passenger duties would be abolished in return for a guarantee by the railway companies to spend £6,500,000 on transport improvements. The bulk of his prospective surplus would be used to abolish the tea duty.

Mr Churchill insisted on the merit of the Government’s record. It had increased the Sinking Fund, restored the gold standard, checked expenditure, and initiated rating reform. The nation had rounded the corner of its economic difficulties.

On This Day - April 16, 1929, The Times, 16.4.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

July 6, 1928

Celebrating full suffrage for women

From the Guardian archive

Friday July 6, 1928
Guardian

"This recalls the famous breakfasts we used to have in the old fighting days when the prison gates were opened," said Mr Pethick-Lawrence, one of the speakers at the breakfast held this morning at the Hotel Cecil to celebrate the passing of the Equal Franchise Bill.

Of the 250 people present many could remember with him the breakfast welcomes that used to be given to the militant women released from Holloway Gaol. Dame Millicent Fawcett had on an early occasion, strongly as she disapproved of militant methods, consented generously to preside at one of the prisoner breakfasts. But many others, ex-prisoners or colleagues, who would have liked to join the celebration were unable to do so. They belong now to the great new army of business women and had to be in their office, which shows with wider freedom comes new restraint.

The great stars of the occasion were those two wonderful women Mrs Despard, founder of the Women's Freedom League, and Dame Millicent Fawcett, leader of the National Union of Suffrage Societies.

Great sympathy was felt with Mr Baldwin [prime minister], Sir William Joynson-Hicks, and more especially with Lady Astor, who had been unable to come, and it was felt that the Labour party had every cause to be proud because their leader, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, did come, and was able to say that his party had from the beginning supported the claim of women to equal civil rights.

Mrs Pethick-Lawrence referred with gratitude to the pioneers, and in touching words named specially four of those who had not lived to see the victory: Mrs Pankhurst, Miss Emily Davidson, Lady Constance Lytton, and Mrs Cobden Sanderson.

"We have our differences but have never had any difference as to women's franchise," said Mr Ramsay MacDonald, expressing the congratulations of the Labour party. "I want to say that as far as the great body of people in this country was concerned, the victory was won before a single shot was fired in the European War."

Lady Rhondda, who was to thank "the men who have helped us", said the men deserved more credit, for the women had had the prick of discomfort to spur them on.

Mrs Despard [recalled] the little meeting in a small room at which the Women's Freedom League was formed twenty-one years ago, expressing her delight that so many comrades from other societies were present, and assuring her friends that women continuing to work together in unity would accomplish great things in the future.

From the Guardian archive > July 6, 1928 > Celebrating full suffrage for women, G, Republished 6.7.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1813566,00.html

October 3, 1924

A bolt from the blue for the Tories

From the Guardian archive

Friday October 3, 1924
Leader
Guardian

Almost without warning we find ourselves on the brink of a first-rate political crisis, with the dissolution of the working alliance between the Liberal and Labour parties almost accomplished and a general election in sight.

The alliance has all along been precarious, since it could only be stable if it were reciprocal, and by the Labour party any sort of return for service rendered has been steadily refused.

We have as yet precisely to learn the exact grounds on which Mr Asquith rests his decision. For some time past the [Liberal] party in Parliament has been growing more and more tired of its position of hewer of wood and drawer of water for another party which requites its services only with distrust, suspicion, and dislike.

A very small dose of the famous "atmosphere" of friendliness with which Mr. MacDonald prepares and surrounds his approaches to foreign Powers would have made all the difference.

But the Prime Minister, who can be so sweet to the foreigner, has nothing but unconcealed dislike and exaggerated suspicion for those who in this country stand nearest to him in politics and on whose support the life of his Government depends.

It is not surprising that a situation such as this should have become more and more galling to those who got the kicks and paid the ha'pence, but it had lasted for a good many months. There is a powerful reason for not breaking the peace until at least the grave danger in Ireland had been overcome.

We confess ourselves unable to understand the apparent levity which would endanger the Irish settlement. Nobody outside the left wing of the Labour party approves the proposed loan to the Bolshevist Government, except on conditions as to both the amount and security which are probably unattainable. Mr. MacDonald, so lately as in June last, scouted the idea of pledging British credit in this way.

It cannot be said that the prospect of a general election fought under these circumstances is attractive. No doubt there is plenty of anti-Russian feeling which could be exploited against the pro-Russian feeling of a section of Labour, but Liberals would be easily outdistanced by the Tory party under the ardent inspiration of Mr. Churchill and their own Diehards.

It is unlikely that the Labour party would gain anything out of a conflict on this ground, but then neither would the Liberal party. The Tory party might.

[The Tories did, winning what became known as the "Zinoviev letter" election by a large majority. Liberals lost 118 out of 158 seats. This leader is attributed to CP Scott.]

From the archive > October 3, 1924 > A bolt from the blue for the Tories, G, Republished 3.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1886396,00.html

March 7 1924

'Sloppy sentiment' on the illegitimate

From the Guardian archive

March 7 1924
The Guardian

The House of Lords yesterday went into Committee on Lord Buckmaster's Legitimacy Bill. The Archbishop of Canterbury moved an amendment providing that nothing in the Act shall operate to legitimate a person whose father or mother was married to a third person when the illegitimate person was born. He said this proviso was in the bill they passed last year, and its adoption would assimilate the law of England and Scotland.

The Duke of Atholl supported the amendment, believing that, without it, the bill would stand no chance of becoming law. As drafted, the bill would encourage free love and polygamy. It was sloppy sentimentalism run wild. It might even lead to crime.

The Lord Chancellor said the Government had nothing to say as a Government. In this matter he spoke as a private member. The noble lords overlooked the fact that the whole object of the bill was to remove the stigma from illegitimate children.

Lord Parmoor strongly supported the amendment, and repudiated the Duke of Atholl's insinuation that the Labour party had not as good a moral standard as any other party.

He added that he would be away in Geneva next week and therefore he would not be able to oppose Lord Buckmaster's Divorce Bill. Viscount Finlay urged Lord Buckmaster to accept the amendment.

Lord Buckmaster said he had been accused of introducing a bill which was an incitement to murder and suicide, free love and polygamy, and other devastating consequences. The bill was designed to do justice to children born out of wedlock and the amendment would shut out a certain class from that benefit.

It had been backed up by inflammatory and denunciating arguments and fantastical hypotheses which almost bewildered him. He asked the House to reject the amendment.

The House divided, and the amendment was carried by 54 to 18. A new clause, proposed by Lord Buckmaster, making an illegitimate child next of kin in law to its mother if she died intestate was agreed to.

The bill passed Committee as amended. The Administration of Justice Bill and the Treaty of Peace (Turkey) Bill passed the third reading.

The Diseases of Animals Bill passed Committee and was read a third time.

[The successful clause of the Liberal peer Lord Buckmaster's bill legitimised children whose parents subsequently married.

As late as 1959 peers again voted down a Commons bill legitimising children of adulterous unions. Advised to avoid a fight with MPS, they later passed the measure.]

From the Guardian archive > March 7 1924 > 'Sloppy sentiment' on the illegitimate, G, Republished 7.3.2007, p. 38, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/03/07/pages/ber38.shtml

November 10, 1910

Tonypandy's day of fear ends in peace

From the Guardian archive

Thursday November 10, 1910
Guardian

Tonypandy, Wednesday. The town was awake all night. Excitement and fear kept many out of bed, and only the dawn scattered the prevailing alarm.

All night long men were boarding up the shattered shop fronts and carts were going round for the sweepings of plate glass that littered the main street for three quarters of a mile.

Now and again there was the heavy tramp of large bodies of police going or returning from the Glamorgan pit at Llwynypia, but nothing occurred to remove or increase the anxious suspense. Today is also full of fear.

The few shops that escaped damage yesterday are being barricaded today, and the night is awaited with dread. Soldiers have arrived. A squadron of the 18th Hussars reached Pontypridd early this morning, and after a rest a troop came here by road, a distance of seven miles, while the other troop went to Aberdare... The troop here rode through the town about one o'clock to their quarters at the New Colliery offices. The Metropolitan Mounted Constabulary have also arrived.

Superficially there is nothing but curiosity in the minds of the slow-moving crowds that are in the streets, but the same could have been said yesterday, and those who know the temper of the Rhondda miners predict more trouble. Let us hope the prophets of evil are wrong.

Ten o'clock. Tonypandy tonight and Tonypandy last night are not like the same town. Even within the past two hours there has been a great change. There is not even a crowd about except in the square. At first the disappearance of the strikers caused misgiving. It seemed as if they had acted on a common understanding, and the fear was that they might be congregating elsewhere.

I have walked to Llwynypia and as far as the grounds of Mr. Llewellyn's [the colliery general manager] house. There are only curious sightseers about. The colliery is brightly lighted, and the loud hum of the machinery in the power-house shows that it is running at full speed. The police are stamping up and down to keep themselves warm. Mr. Llewellyn's house looks as secure as Buckingham Palace. No doubt there are many police guarding it, but they are all hidden by the darkness, and it has not been thought necessary to secure the gates.

· Many trade unionists believed for decades that troops sent by Winston Churchill, as home secretary, fired on locked-out miners during this dispute. This report indicates troops only arrived the day after the savage disturbances, though the decision to send them was known earlier.

From the Guardian archive > November 10, 1910 > Tonypandy's day of fear ends in peace, G, Republished 10.11.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1944387,00.html

September 28, 1909

The Lords and Tories fear a land tax

From the Guardian archive

Tuesday September 28, 1909
Guardian

That the Lords will reject the Budget - or postpone it, which is the same thing - till after a general election, the spokesmen of the Opposition seem now agreed.

No one with eyes and a memory really doubts why they will; what they dislike, as they started by showing quite simply, are the land taxes.

It was only when the land taxes were found unexpectedly very popular that this attitude had to be abandoned.

All sorts of refinements were resorted to in order that the land-owning peers who condemned the Budget because it touched their pockets might be saved. Since then we have a series of alternative cries.

Lord Rosebury disclosed the appalling spectre of commercial insecurity, happily not visible on the markets; and then Mr. Balfour lit a still brighter lantern inside a larger turnip and labelled it Socialism.

The drawback to all these devices has been that they have not really touched the obnoxious land taxes. When they are described as Socialism, the description, if not dismissed at once, tends rather to make people think less ill of Socialism.

Some other direct weapon had to be found. The latest and most logical was that which Mr. Balfour tried to wield last night - the plea that they were not levied solely for the benefit of the local authorities.

Now no one who puts to the landowner who receives unearned increment Mr. Churchill's question, "How did you get it?" can fail to see that the local authorities, by expenditure out of the rates, have helped confer the increment.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer [Lloyd George] sees that, and he proposes to hand half the yield of the taxes over to them. But when Mr. Balfour and Mr. [FE] Smith condemn him for not letting them have the whole, they expose themselves to two crushing replies. Their whole criticism is based on the asking of that very question "How did you get it?" which every spokesman of the landowners has told us it is so wicked to ask.

Where a public authority has helped to create a great value, it is justified in taking a reasonable toll of the value. This is what, in defence of the land taxes, we have urged all along; and if when urged on behalf of the municipality it is, in Mr. Balfour's words, "a simple principle" and one which he "appreciates", how when urged on behalf of the State does it become "Socialism" and robbery and spoliation, and, in fine, the beginning of the end?

[Lloyd George's budget proposed a tax on sales of land. It had to be dropped because of opposition.]

From the archive > September 28, 1909 > The Lords and Tories fear a land tax, G, Republished 28.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1882502,00.html

July 25, 1889

Mr Gladstone's untiringly youthful mind

From the Guardian archive

Thursday July 25, 1889
Guardian

We all know what we owe to Mr. Gladstone, or some of us at least know, but perhaps no one but Mr. Gladstone himself knows what we owe to his wife.

We shall best express our sense of what we owe to the lady who completes her fiftieth year of married life today by declining to regard her as apart from her husband, and rather uniting them in our thought as they have been united in purpose, in labour, and in sympathy.

And what a fifty years it has been! In the marriage register Mr. Gladstone is described as member of Parliament for Newark, where he had sat for half-a-dozen years as the friend of Sir Robert Peel and the nominee of the Duke of Newcastle.

Already he had held office as an Under-Secretary of State, and men pointed to him as destined to do great things and as the rising hope of the Tory party. One half of that forecast has been fulfilled in ample measure, but the other has been strangely falsified.

Nothing is more wonderful than the unceasing growth and expansion of Mr. Gladstone's mind. Lord Palmerston lived to a greater age than Mr. Gladstone has just attained and held power to the last, but long before then he had reached the limits of his political tether, and the world waited to move on till he should have passed away.

But to Mr. Gladstone it would seem to have been given to carry forward to the limits of his age the privilege of youth - its elasticity, its hopefulness, its readiness to embark on new and great undertakings. Had Mr. Gladstone retired from political life even ten years ago he would already have accomplished more things and greater than any other statesman of the century.

To have borne a great part in the battle of Free Trade, to have reformed the tariff, to have compelled the enfranchisement of the householders in the boroughs and to have carried their enfranchisement in the counties, to have given protection to the voter by ballot, to have laid broad and deep the foundations of a system of national education, this surely would have been praise enough and labour enough for any single man.

Yet to all this Mr. Gladstone has added the greatest by far of the tasks of his life - the reconstruction of the political relations of Ireland to the remainder of the United Kingdom. Of all living men he is best able to carry it to a happy and a fruitful issue.

· Attributed to GWE Russell. Gladstone, 80 at this time, still had his fourth spell as Liberal prime minister before him.

From the Guardian archive > July 25, 1889 > Mr Gladstone's untiringly youthful mind, G, Republished 25.7.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1828118,00.html

July 6 1850

The death of a remarkable prime minister

From The Guardian archive

July 6 1850
The Guardian

Our latest intelligence on Wednesday contained the melancholy announcement, received by electric telegraph, of the decease of Sir Robert Peel of the injuries received by the fall from his horse on Saturday.

[The ex-prime minister] had called at Buckingham Palace. Proceeding up Constitution Hill, he had arrived nearly opposite the wicket gate leading into the Green Park, when he met Miss Ellis, one of Lady Dover's daughters. Sir Robert had scarcely exchanged salutes with this young lady, when his horse, becoming restive, swerved towards the rails of Green Park, and threw Sir Robert sideways on his left shoulder.

Sir Robert, on being raised, groaned very heavily, and [asked] whether he was much hurt, replied, "Yes, very much."

From A Special Correspondent: From 1841 to 1846 I heard every speech he delivered and [have read] every speech he ever delivered. He is open to the reproach of having been a dextrous party leader, often leading people who trusted him astray as to his real objects.

But, apart from this, his public life of forty years is associated with some of the most remarkable of the measures which have changed the very character of the government; the remodelling of the currency, the improvement of the executive in Ireland, the amelioration of the criminal law, catholic emancipation, and commercial freedom, are the monuments of his public career.

[As a young MP] Peel was in the prime of manhood, and the champion of the protestant interest. It would have been absurd to expect an early abandonment of his position.

But any one who will take the time to read his speeches during several years prior to catholic emancipation will detect the gradual conquest of his intellect over his prejudices.

Any observer, during the period between 1841 and 1846, could discern that the intellect of Sir Robert Peel was capitulating to the arguments of the economists and that the repeal of the corn laws was merely a question of time.

Had [the Irish potato] famine been followed by the European revolutions of 1848, with the corn-law unrepealed, the Anti-corn-law League in full operation and the middle classes exasperated to the last pitch of endurance, the whole fabric of English society would have been shaken to its very foundations.

From that tremendous peril did Sir Robert Peel save us; and he accomplished it at the sacrifice of his power, his reputation and even his health.

From The Guardian archive > July 6 1850 > The death of a remarkable prime minister, G, republished 6.7.2007, p. 36, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/07/06/pages/ber36.shtml

August 2, 1848

The Irish uprising that never was

From the Guardian archive

Wednesday August 2, 1848
Guardian

[This was the reality behind Manchester's official panic about a supposed insurrection in Ireland, as reported in Saturday's archive extract.]

Although we never expected any very serious consequences from the treasonable conspiracy in which so large a number of Irishmen were known to be engaged, and the existence of which they took care to proclaim to all the world, we scarcely expected so ridiculous a burlesque of an insurrection as that which Mr. Smith O'Brien and his friends have been acting in Tipperary.

These amazingly foolish people appear to have paraded themselves through great part of the counties of Waterford, Tipperary, and Kilkenny, sporting green and gold uniforms of unquestionable brilliancy - the possession of which they seem to have considered sufficient guarantees of their strategic and military skill.

The people of the south of Ireland, however, were a little wiser than Mr. O'Brien. They do not appear to have thought that a few green uniforms constituted a sufficient nucleus for an insurrectionary army.

They wanted to see that formidable force which was alleged to have been organised in Dublin, but which was by no means forthcoming.

No doubt the rebel leaders were, to a great extent, the victims of their own mis-statements as to the extent of the organisation. The repealers of Dublin, who saw clearly enough the dangers which they would have to encounter in case of an outbreak in that city, were very willing to believe that the first move would be made by the people of the south.

They had been taught that nothing was easier than to overthrow British power in Ireland - that almost at the first shout the Lord Lieutenant and his court would be but too happy to make their escape.

The Dublin men saw, however, that their share of the achievement was not quite so easy.There were rather too many troops and police and too much vigilance.

It was much easier to rely upon the people of Waterford and Tipperary. The Dublin leaders on the first appearance of danger betook themselves to the south; never doubting but they should find an army on foot to receive them.

But it happened that the "boys" of Tipperary and Waterford had been doing just what had been done in Dublin. They had relied upon the great army from some other quarter; from Dublin, or Cork or the United States.

When [the leaders from Dublin] made their appearance, with no other military appliances than four uniforms, and urged them to rise in insurrection, they naturally demurred.

From the Guardian archive > August 2, 1848 > The Irish uprising that never was, G, Republished 2.8.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1835357,00.html

April 26 1834

Trades union procession in London

From the Guardian archive

April 26 1834
The Guardian

On Monday last the projected meeting of all the trades' unions of the metropolis took place for the ostensible purpose of presenting a memorial addressed to his majesty, praying that he would be pleased to interfere to prevent execution of the sentence passed on the six men convicted at Dorchester of administering unlawful oaths.

The appointed place of assembling was Copenhagen Fields, an elevated piece of ground west of the metropolis, which had been hired for the occasion at an expense of £20.

The procession, consisting of nineteen trades, with the paraphernalia and officers of lodges, headed by the central committee, all the unionists wearing crimson ribbons and rosettes, commenced their march about half past nine o'clock.

The petition or memorial was placed in a car, and borne by twelve brothers. The deputation appointed to confer with Lord Melbourne, consisted of five persons named Brown, Watkins, Hall, Maples, and Styles. On leaving Copenhagen House, they were joined by Mr. Robert Owen (late of New Lanark), the Rev Dr. Wade in full canonicals, wearing a robe of black silk, and a crimson collar round his neck. The unionists proceeded … to Whitehall where the head of the procession halted opposite the home secretary's office.

The numbers of the unionists in the procession, who were distinguished from "the curious crowds" that flanked them by their crimson rosettes &c., were here estimated by several competent judges at the Horse Guards as not exceeding 35 or 40,000.

At twelve o'clock the deputation bearing the petition (which is described as two feet in diameter) and accompanied by Dr. Wade and Mr. Owen were conducted to the apartment of Mr. Phillips, the undersecretary of state, who stated that Lord Melbourne could not see them and that he was only authorised to receive the deputation.

They went out and returned without Mr. Owen, and then Mr. Phillips said that Viscount Melbourne was in the office, and that he had his directions to say that his lordship could not receive a petition presented under such circumstances and in such a manner.

[In one of its least far-sighted editorial notes, reprinted here on March 29, the Manchester Guardian initially denounced the Tolpuddle martyrs as "mischievous" and hoped their fates might serve as a deterrent to oathing procedures by embryonic Lancashire trade unions. The issue haunted its news columns until the sentences were remitted in 1836].

From the Guardian archive > April 26 1834 > Trades union procession in London, G, republished 26.4.2007, p. 37, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/04/26/pages/ber34.shtml

April 12 1834

A prayer for the Dorchester convicts

From The Guardian archive

April 12 1834
The Guardian

On Monday last, a meeting of unionists and others, convened by placard as "the working classes", was held at Mr Scholfield's chapel, Every Street, Ancoats, to petition parliament for remission of the sentence of transportation passed upon the six men [known as "the Tolpuddle martyrs"] convicted of administering secret and illegal oaths at Dorchester.

The chapel being found too small to hold the crowd of idle people, an adjournment took place to the chapel yard, 1,400 or 1,500 persons being present. The chair was taken by a young man named Grant, who it is said was formerly a cotton spinner.

The meeting was addressed by a delegate from some union in Edinburgh, a delegate from "the consolidated trades unions of London", and others, who spoke in violent language of the partiality and injustice with which they said the law against secret oaths was administered. The Duke of Sussex [was] suffered to preside over a lodge of freemasons, and the late Duke of York over the orange lodges, in both of which secret oaths were taken.

Petrie, the London delegate, said government dared as soon send the men abroad as they dared cut their own throats. It was merely an experiment on the submission of the people. They had drawn the sword against two millions of men who were pledged to effect their own emancipation and to obtain a proper return for their industry. He would not advise any appeal to force, but recommend the labouring classes to rest upon their oars, and declare that they would cease producing until "the thing" rotted away.

The following petition was adopted: The petition of the undersigned labourers, and others, humbly represents that these poor men have been entrapped by a law grown obsolete in the memory of the nation, until the revival of it by a sentence of unusual and undeserved severity; and as there are other associations which meet and administer oaths unlawfully, one of which is presided over by a prince of the blood royal, your petitioners fear that the law may fall into contempt from its seeming partiality and cruelty.

They therefore pray that your honourable house will use its influence with the executive government for a remission of the sentences, pass an act rendering the law upon this question more equal and impartial.

It was resolved that the petition after lying a few days for signatures should be sent up to Mr John Fielden for presentation, and that Mr Cobbett, Mr Hume, Mr Ewart and other members should be requested to support its prayer. A collection was made for the support of the convicts.

From The Guardian archive > April 12 1834 > A prayer for the Dorchester convicts, G, 12.4.2007, p. 32, http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/04/12/pages/ber32.shtml

On This Day: March 23, 1802

From The Times Archive

Until the mid-19th century, general elections were notorious for the bribes, or treats, offered by candidates to electors.
Lord Belgrave’s Bill was one of many attempts to stop such corrupt practices

LORD BELGRAVE rose to move leave to bring in a Bill to repeal much of the Act of the seventh of William the Third, as related to disabling persons from sitting in that House who should offend against the said Act; and to make more effectual provisions in lieu of the same.

To the principles of this Bill he did not suppose there could be any objection; it was evidently intended to prevent the riot and excess which too generally prevailed at Elections; to preserve the health and morals of the people; and was calculated to secure the freedom and purity of popular Elections.

He had at first intended to propose the repeal of this Act altogether, but from further consideration, it appeared that the former part of it was unexceptional, but that the latter was not sufficiently explicit or effective to answer the purpose — it was found to have produced many contradictory opinions in the Election Committees of that House.

The necessity for such a measure must be acknowledged by every person who recollected the disgraceful scenes that had occurred during the last Election, particularly in the Borough of Southwark. He felt much pleased in reflecting on the assistance the Treating Act derived from some late decisions in the Courts of Law, where it was determined that the value of articles furnished for Election purposes, contrary to the spirit of this Act, was not recoverable by law. This would serve, no doubt, to check the publican’s readiness to give credit, and perhaps, in consequence, to restrain the candidates’ disposition to extravagance.

On This Day: March 23, 1802, Times, 23.3.2005, http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp

British monarchy > Queen Elizabeth II

British monarchy > Prince Charles

democracy / dictatorship

USA > politics

USA > politics > presidential elections

USA > politics > president

USA > politics / legislation > House

USA > politics / legislation > Senate

diplomacy

Histoire > Royaume-Uni > Politique

The Guardian > Special Report > Politics obituaries
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/politicsobituaries/0,1441,562536,00.html

www.anglonautes.com
Le site "Les anglonautes" forme une base de données protégée par le Code de la propriété intellectuelle (art. L.112-3) - Anglonautes © ®