Occasional updates and analysis from the Newsnight team
So that's no detail on voter numbers of members, affiliated supporters or trade union affiliates when the winner is announced. That is going to surprise a lot of people.
Image source, Ruaridh Arrow/NewsnightThe scene outside the Rwandan High Commission in London
A UK court has rejected a bid to extradite Rwanda's spy chief to Spain to stand trial for his alleged role in massacres after the 1994 genocide.
Karenzi Karake was on bail in the UK following his arrest in June on a warrant issued by Spain.
His arrest strained diplomatic relations between the UK and Rwanda.
A Spanish judge indicted Gen Karake in 2008 for alleged war crimes. The UK ruling has been welcomed by Rwanda's Justice Minister Johnston Busingye.
Gen Karake had been the victim of "an unjust case", he said.
Read more here and follow Newsnight's Gabriel Gatehouse, external and Ruaridh Arrow, external on Twitter for updates.
Image source, Getty ImagesKarenzi Karake in 2010 when he was still a major general
Monday 10 August 2015
UKIP MEP Mike Hookem believes British and French authorities aren't doing nearly enough to stop migrants from coming to the UK. We spent a day with him as he went about his fact-finding mission in Calais. Here are a few stills from the trip.
Watch Jack Garland and James Clayton's report tonight at 22.30 on BBC Two, or afterwards on iPlayer (UK only)
Image source, Jack GarlandUKIP MEP Mike Hookem climbs a security fence near the Eurostar to show how easy it is
Image source, Jack GarlandHe made it
Image source, Jack GarlandA police officer threatens a migrant with pepper spray
Image source, Jack GarlandA young man hides in a field near the Eurostar railway tracks
Image source, Jack GarlandA slip road in between "the jungle" camp and a motorway
Image source, Jack GarlandMigrants run near a fence leading to the Eurostar railway tracks after being spotted by police
Image source, Jack GarlandWoman rolls "sniper style" across a field near Eurostar railway tracks to avoid being seen by police
Image source, Jack GarlandThis Eritrean migrant told Mike Hookem he'd tried and failed to enter the Channel Tunnel in a lorry, and now wanted to try and jump on a train to travel to the UK instead
Watch Jack and James Clayton's report tonight at 22.30 on BBC Two, or afterwards on iPlayer (UK only)
Friday 7 August
Emily Maitlis
Newsnight Presenter
Image source, PAOn the train to Leeds my producer Ed Brown and I are putting together a list of questions for Jeremy Corbyn. As usual, we start to role-play the interview to work out how it would take shape. Then something funny happens. Ed stops. Looks puzzled and says "I've just worked out I can't imitate Corbyn's voice. I don't actually know what he'd say."
It is a unique moment for a political producer. Usually, we can get the script word perfect. And the intonation to boot. How they start a sentence. And how they will avoid the question. It's to Corbyn's credit that we cannot - yet - second guess him.
Once the interview starts for real there are a couple of times I pull him up and tell him he's sounding like every other politician. The response is immediate - he ditches the crutch of a sound bite - and looks around for something less contrived.
The result is sometimes quite earnest - and not always snappy. As you see from the quickfire questions we asked him for our YouTube channel, he even gets his favourite movie wrong. But they are, at least, believable.
We've come a long way from Gordon Browns Arctic Monkeys. Long may it last.
Emily's interview with Jeremy Corbyn will air on Newsnight tonight (Tuesday 4 August) at 22:30. There's also a quickfire version on our YouTube channel, external.
Tuesday 4 August
How to get over those Recess Blues
Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer
Image source, AP/Dave CaulkinThe Department for Culture, Media and Sport follow horse racing closely
The House of Commons Recess started on 21 July and finishes on 7 September. I'm sure, like me, you're wondering how you're going to muddle through the next month. If so, I come with help, a Parliamentary amuse bouche to see off those hunger pangs.
While MPs are on their holidays (or working hard in their constituencies), poor officials are beavering away in Whitehall to answer the scores of written questions that were asked before Parliament adjourned. The answers are published on the Parliament website. Here are some of the highlights of what we've learned in the past week:
It is a bit like a political anorak's Aladdin's Cave. Have a browse, external yourself. I'll post anything else interesting that catches my eye.
Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer
No crisis is a true crisis unless it leads to a COBRA meeting and the Calais Migrant situation is no exception. There were several last week and another one today, chaired by the Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
There has long been a suspicion that COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Room A) has been at least as much about media management as crisis management, giving a clear impression of thrusting West Wing-style action rather than more prosaically telling the press and public that a group of politicians and officials met in an office in the Cabinet Office.
Disappointingly, there is apparently no truth in the old chestnut that the "Cabinet Office" initials were added to give a bit of glamour and avoid the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman giving a read out to assembled members of the Fifth Estate about the latest BRA meeting.
Nonetheless, Meeting Room A must be one of the most secret-enshrouded rooms in British public life. We only have one photo of it, released as part of a Freedom of Information request, external in 2010.
Image source, Cabinet OfficeCabinet Office Briefing Room A
That's quite a nice video wall, by 2010 standards. On the West Wing point, to demonstrate that British politics is essentially like a more mundane version of American politics, just have a look at how much fancier the White House Situation Room is.
Image source, Christopher MorrisMarc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer
It's the first Monday in August: time to start a tally chart to monitor the progress of the Silly Season, a phenomenon so ingrained in British culture that it has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Quote MessageSilly Season: A period (typically in late summer and early autumn) when newspapers (and other media) often cover trivial material because of a lack of more important news.
Oxford English Dictionary
The OED also gives citations for its earliest use. The first was from the satirical periodical The Saturday Review in July 1861: "We have, however, observed this year very strong symptoms of the Silly Season of 1861 setting in a month or two before its time." This implies that as a media trope it was already pretty tiresome.
The second mention was in the Illustrated London News in 1884: "The ‘silly season’ having begun in real earnest, the newspapers are, as a necessary consequence, full of instructive and amusing matter." I'm not sure exactly how instructive many of today's efforts are. The Guardian did a rundown , externalof some of the best Silly Season stories a few years ago: they include a giant carp, squirrels on crack and killer chimpmunks. Anyone who takes instruction from those obviously lead a more interesting (terrifying?) life than I do.
Even Newsnight is not immune from a good silly season story on a tumbleweed-rich day in August. Last year saw seminal treatments of such pressing items as loom bands, the Great British Bake Off scandal, Buddleia and Yo, an app whose sole purpose is to message people with the word "Yo".
In truth, last August was sorely lacking in levity: Ukraine was in crisis, ISIS was on the rise, Ferguson was in the grip of riots following the Michael Brown shooting, Ebola was rampant in West Africa. Not a lot of laughs there.
So, perhaps the Silly Season is itself a creation of the media's overactive imagination. To illustrate my point, here is a Silly Season quiz for you. Below are 17 events from the past 70 years, all of which would have been worthy of a Newsnight Special on their own and all of which happened in August. The question is: in what year did each occur?
We'll post the answers at 3pm. The first person to tweet us @BBCNewsnight with the sum total of all of the years will get a special mention.
Monday 3 August
Corbyn key backers have rebelled 1254 times
Lewis Goodall
Newsnight producer
If you believe the polls (and who does these days?) then the left-winger Jeremy Corbyn is heading for a barnstorming win.
If that proves correct what happens in the days afterwards? Well one of the first tasks for any new leader is to assemble a shadow cabinet, a prospective alternative government. He has around 15-20 positions to fill.
The problem for Corbyn would be, which Labour bums (so to speak) would sit around that top table? Many current members have already said they could not countenance being included, including Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall, Tristram Hunt and Chuka Umunna. Corbyn has indicated he'd like to bring back shadow cabinet elections (abolished under Ed Miliband).
Presumably favoured candidates might include those who nominated him (for real, rather than those who did so for the rather nebulous cause of "widening the debate".
In that case we might expect the following to stand or find preference from the new leader. It would be a first for almost all of them. In the past, many of them haven't found too much favour with previous leaderships, indeed together since 1997 they've rebelled against the party some 1,254 times. If you include Corbyn's own rebellions that number would rise to nearly 1,800.
Given that, it's hard to see how he or any of them might easily expect the loyalty of their fellow MPs in any Corbyn led Parliamentary Labour Party meeting.
1.) Diane Abbott, Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP since 1987, rebelled against whip 187 times: One of the only familiar faces among the Corbyn backers. She had said she didn't expect him to win. Only problem is, she's standing for the London mayoralty too.
2.) John McDonell, MP for Hayes and Harlington since 1997, rebelled against the party whip 539 times: An ideological soul mate with Mr Corbyn, he's best known for trying to stand against Gordon Brown for the leadership in 1997, only to find he couldn't garner enough support from colleagues to mount a challenge. He's the chair of the Socialist Campaign Group.
Image source, Daily Mail3.) Clive Lewis, MP for Norwich South since 2015: A newby to Parliament. Mr. Lewis was a BBC News reporter for a decade (surely counts against him). He describes himself as a "proud socialist" and is against nuclear weapons. Hitherto he is most noted for an incident on the campaign trail where he said he was bound to win his seat lest he was "caught with [his] pants down behind a goat with Ed Miliband at the other end". A cheery image.
4.) Kelvin Hopkins, MP for Luton North since 1997, rebelled against the whip 358 times: Like Mr Corbyn Mr Hopkins is known for his rebellious skirmishes with the whips. Before entering parliament, he worked for the trade union movement all of his career.
Image source, Getty5.) Michael Meacher, MP for Oldham West and Royton since 1970, rebelled against party whip 51 times: The joint-longest serving Member of Parliament, Mr Meacher is a veteran of the PLP and left-wing causes. Uniquely among the genuine Corbyn backers, he was a minister in the Blair administration, serving as environment minister from 1997-2003.
6.) Richard Burgon, MP for Leeds East since 2015: One of the most fervent Corbyn-backers, Burgon is being tipped as something of a new left-wing firebrand in the party. A trade union lawyer before his election to parliament, he has called for the abolition of the monarchy. Before taking his oath of office he said: "As someone that believes that the head of state should be elected I make this oath in order to serve my constituents". Not to be confused with the long-standing MP for Birmingham Northfield, Richard Burden. Think of the post-bag confusion.
Image source, BBC Parliament7.) Grahame Morris, MP for Easington since 2010, rebelled against the whip 11 times: A former parliamentary researcher to the erstwhile MP for Easington. He was a signatory of an open letter from Labour MPs lobbying former leader Ed Miliband to take rail and energy companies back into public ownership and reverse austerity measures. He is the chair of the All-Party Friends of Palestine group and voted against renewal of Britain's nuclear weapons.
8.) Jon Trickett, MP for Hemsworth since 1996, has voted against his party whip 68 times: One of Corbyn's key backers and unusually a shadow cabinet minister under Miliband. Was the secretary of the out campaign in the 1975 Common Market referendum. For many years he was a member of the far-left ILP.
Image source, Third Sector9.) Dennis Skinner, Beast of Bolsover since 1970: Requires no introduction. Rebelled against the whip 286 times.
10.) Ronnie Campbell, MP for Blythe Valley since 1997, rebelled against the whip 123 times: A recognisable geordie in the Commons, he switched his support from Andy Burnham to Corbyn saying the latter was the only "true socialist" in the contest. A former coal miner, during the miners strike he was arrested twice.
Image source, Getty Images11.) Kate Osamor, MP for Edmonton since 2015: A newcomer to the Commons, she has said that under Corbyn women will be taken seriously in the party.
Image source, Getty Images12.) Imran Hussain, MP for Bradford East since 2015: Wrested this seat from the clutches of the Lib Dems, Hussain was previously Deputy Leader of Bradford City Council.
Image source, Getty ImagesOr perhaps not
Alex Campbell
Newsnight producer
Image source, PAA dip into the archives can be enlightening.
Tony Blair’s intervention in the Labour leadership race, for instance, provided an absorbing opportunity to recap the party's seemingly perennial Left-Right tug-of-war.
Comments from both Blair and Jeremy Corbyn read like a BuzzFeed quiz: “1990s or Now.”
“Labour lost the election because it failed to offer people an alternative vision of society and a coherent programme for implementing it. In the end, people simply did not know what, if anything, Labour stood for."
(Jeremy Corbyn, 1992)
"I think our problem as a party is we weren't offering a clear enough alternative to the Conservatives… did we lose the last election because we were too left wing, or because we were offering an austerity-lite agenda?"
(Jeremy Corbyn, 2015)
“I am a politician, not a psychiatrist. But if people seriously think that by going back to where we were … we are going to win power … they require not leadership, but therapy.”
(Tony Blair, 1995)
“This is why when people say, my heart says 'I should really be with that politics', well get a transplant - because that's just done.”
(Tony Blair, 2015)
“These are the issues that should be aired in the current leadership contest. The last thing Labour Party supporters need now is a stitch-up orchestrated by the chattering classes - who proved themselves so utterly out of touch with public opinion in the recent election.”
(Jeremy Corbyn, 1992)
“Our party must become a social movement again. It was founded to stand up to injustice, and too often we have lost our way, ignored our supporters or been cowed by powerful commercial interests and the press."
(Jeremy Corbyn, 2015)
“Of course it means changes…it calls for a new politics. It is time to break out of the past and break through with a clear, radical and modern vision for Britain.”
(Tony Blair, 1994)
“We can win again. We can win again next time. But only if our comfort zone is the future and our values are our guide and not our distraction.”
(Tony Blair, 2015)
What is perhaps even more striking than any wry commentary on the Labour Party’s identity debate, and in complete contradiction to the fossilised Blair-Corbyn debate, is the reminder archives provide us that politics is remarkably fickle.
The language surrounding Labour’s election defeat and leadership race has been classically thespian; veering from the greatest crisis, external ever to oblivion, external.
Maybe they’re right this time. Who knows?
Either way, we’ve been here before.
An electronic trawl through UK news publications since 1984 for the terms “Labour Party” and “in turmoil” returns a staggering 21,900 stories.
Despite the arguably right-leaning bent of the UK's printed press, it isn’t much more edifying for the Conservative Party. It has 13,225 hits for its own turmoil over the same time period.
As for “electoral oblivion”, in 30 years the Labour Party has been connected with that 4,025 times.
It’s 2,400 for the Tories – warned of oblivion from within their own ranks by Malcolm Rifkind in 1998, former chairman Michael Ancram in 2001 and Francis Maude in 2012.
You may have noticed that they controlled the last government then stormed the election.
Of course, this is not science. But as emotional debate rages about the future of Labour and the left, it might just be worth noting that this is not the first political apocalypse. And I’d wager it won’t be the last.
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On the programme QC Michael Mansfield spoke very movingly about his daughter who took her own life in May. In the UK about 6,000 people make that decision every year. On Friday, there's an event called "The Silence of Suicide" which aims to help break the taboo over discussing it. You can find the details here, external
Thursday 30 July
Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer
Sun and Mail readers was just one demographic where Labour fell short
After Labour lost in May, the familiar cry went up from across party that the party had to "learn the lessons" from the defeat. On Tuesday, Andy Burnham made a speech on creating a National Health and Care Service. One of the reasons he gave for introducing the policy was that he believes "it would help win more than just the 26% of over-65s who voted Labour at the election".
There has been plenty of data in the public domain to help Labour since then, but those who want the Cheat's Guide to Why Labour Lost could do a lot worse than look at this paper, external produced by the House of Commons Library.
Here are some of the grisly highlights if you're of a Labour persuasion:
Image source, YouGov, Audit Bureau of CirculationsFacts like these set out the dilemma that is torturing Labour thinkers at the moment. Is the way to win to strike a clear divide from the Conservatives on issues like austerity and wealth creation in the hope that you will energise those groups who already support Labour but in insufficient numbers? The risk of that is that you further alienate those professional, middle class voters who have already drifted away from Labour. Or do you seek to win back Tory voters with a pitch to the centre? The risk there is that you risk totally turning off those voters who look to Labour for a real alternative and might desert the party if all they see is a Tory-lite option.
As a problem, it's actually pretty straightforward. Whatever your view on the answer, there is no question that, as it stands, the demographics are moving very much against the Labour Party.
Who is in the new Lib Dem leader's team?
Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer
Image source, Getty ImagesWe're all familiar with the store cupboard supper. You come home from work, rummage through the fridge and find nothing that even remotely resembles a square meal. So, you do your best and end up with some hideous culinary chimera that doesn't really work.
In political terms, that was the situation facing new Lib Dem leader Tim Farron in assembling his team of spokespeople. We would usually call it his "frontbench team" but this would be a bit of a misnomer for reasons that will become clear.
It was never that easy a job for previous Lib Dem leaders to fill all the necessary "Shadow" posts, even when their total of MPs was safely in double digits. Now, with just seven other MPs, not including Mr Farron, it has become almost an exercise in self-selection. This was exacerbated by the decision of Nick Clegg not to accept a front bench job. So, then there were six.
So, how has he managed? Firstly, by glossing over the inconvenience of having so few MPs and appointing people who are not MPs. Two defeated MPs (Lorely Burt and Lynne Featherstone) are given jobs. Prominent Lib Dem local government representatives are given jobs. Finally, and most understandably, Lib Dem Peers pick up most of the slack.
This will create a few logistical difficulties for the party. How, for example, will those who are not in Parliament represent Lib Dem views? One simple solution would be that those people will be nominated as Lib Dem peers. How, also, will the party get a hearing in the Commons in those portfolios where their spokesperson is in the Lords. This is particularly the case for a huge area like the economy, on which Baroness Kramer will speak. The likely solution is that Mr Farron himself will seize any high profile issues for himself.
Two final points. The defeated leadership contender Norman Lamb is not moved from his health brief. Mr Lamb has great expertise in that area, so in some ways it makes sense. But one would normally think that a defeated rival would be strongly in the running for the economy job. This could suggest that Mr Farron and Mr Lamb do not necessarily see eye to eye on the best way to position the party for the future.
And what is the deal with Ceredigion MP Mark Williams? He is the only one of the Lib Dem MPs apart from Mr Clegg not to have a job. The Lib Dems say that he will have a campaigning role that will focus on specific issues such as the Human Rights Act. Disappointingly, this means that there is hardly any potential for us to talk about Mr Farron having a backbench rebellion, unless Nick Clegg decides to make things difficult for his successor.
The full list is as follows:
Wednesday 29 July
Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer
Former Labour Leader Michael Foot led the party to defeat in 1983
Much of the debate about Labour over the past week has focused on whether the party has "gone back to 1983", with the clear sense in most cases that this would be an undesirable destination.
Not everyone feels that way. John Wight has written a thought-provoking piece, external on The Huffington Post entitled "It Is Time to Dispel the Myth That Labour's '83 Manifesto Was Too Left Wing."
Needless to say, the article has raised the eyebrows and scorn of a number of commentators.
But, given the waxing star of Jeremy Corbyn in the contest, this argument merits further examination. I would say there are two points to look at: firstly, was the manifesto the kind of "beyond the pale" nonsense that deserved the Gerald Kaufman jibe of "the longest suicide note in history" and, secondly, could a similar prospectus ever win an election?
On the first point, it is certainly true that some of the ideas in it were ahead of their time. So, there are proposals for a minimum wage, to spend 0.7% of GDP on development aid, to increase the personal tax allowance, to eliminate lead in petrol and so on. Their proposed Equal Pay Act presaged the current blazing debate about income inequality. You could also argue that Labour's insistence that the country needed to pull out of the EU (EEC at that point) to deal properly with Britain's problems was also prescient of the eurosceptic surge of the past decade. Their economic policy (borrowing to invest) seems to be quite a tough sell at the moment but would not exactly be regarded as loony by many respectable economists.
So why does the manifesto have such a bad reputation? I think in many cases it was not the policies themselves, it was the ghosts that floated around the party at the time. On the economy you had the ghost of the country being bailed out by the IMF in 1976; on the unions, you had the ghost of the Winter of Discontent in 1978; on security, you had the threat of a Soviet nuclear strike on the UK.
Looking back on past manifestos is an exercise in sterility, where you can read the policies but miss any sense of the emotional resonance that they had for voters at the time. For many of these in 1983, Labour represented a risk that they were not prepared to take. The entire process of modernisation started by Neil Kinnock and finished by Tony Blair was all about exorcising these ghosts.
On the additional question, John Wight sets out two reasons why he believes that Labour lost the 1983 election:
- "The bounce in personal popularity enjoyed by Margaret Thatcher in the aftermath of the Faklands War the previous year"
- "The split in Labour's vote by the breakaway SDP faction"
On the first point, you could argue it was not just that Mrs Thatcher found popularity post-Falkands: it was that people contrasted the strong Tory rhetoric on defence with the unilateralist nuclear policy of Labour. On the second, it seems that the danger is to confuse cause and effect. A counter-argument would be that senior Labour people left the party because they were so disillusioned with what they saw as Labour's leftward journey to unelectability.
The wider point raised by the article is whether elections are actually won in the centre ground of politics. The period of so-called "Butskellism, external" that ran from the 1950s to the mid-1970s established a system where Labour and Tory exchanged power with very few major points of distinction (this is disputed on both sides). Mrs Thatcher ended that, winning elections by eschewing any courting of the centre ground as a fruitless compromise with your opponents. Tony Blair revived it from the mid-1990s and won two landslides.
That's the question for Labour: do they want to find their own Margaret Thatcher, a leader who will stick it to their opponents without fear? Or do they want someone who, like Blair, seeks to understand why people voted for their opponents and win them over.
Tuesday 28 July