The View from Westminster |
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Huge thanks to Patricia Hewitt, former health secretary, who was the special guest this afternoon at the last class of the Blair Years course at King’s College London that I teach with Dr Michelle Clement and Professor Jon Davis.
She spoke about the feminisation of New Labour, its achievement in improving women’s representation, its promotion of flexible working and her ban on smoking in enclosed public places – “the best thing I ever did for people’s health”.
I hope to write more about it later. I also asked if she thought her attempt to depose Gordon Brown in January 2009 would have succeeded if Labour had the same leadership rules as the Conservatives – that is, if 50 or so private letters could have triggered a vote of confidence. She said: “Yes.” Quiz question: Which state would be the fifth most populous country in the world if it were an independent country? Answer at the bottom of today’s email |
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What else you need to know today |
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You probably don’t need any more opinions on the big story of the day, but my view, once it was explained to me, was that Chris Rock’s joke was not funny. We would all be better off if he had just left it out
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Rishi Sunak was more forceful in his interview with the Treasury Committee this afternoon than he had been in some of his post-statement media interviews last week, but still managed to contradict himself. He said any spare cash would go on tax cuts not higher public spending, while he was “prepared to act” to provide more help with the cost of living “if necessary”
- Laura Kuenssberg has got the BBC TV Sunday interview job recently vacated by Andrew Marr
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Today’s Redfield & Wilton opinion poll puts Labour two points ahead of the Conservatives, 37 per cent to 35 per cent, down from a five-point lead last week
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Miranda Keeling’s lovely observations of everyday life, illustrated
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Daniel Finkelstein wrote movingly about his late mother
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I wrote at the weekend about the key to understanding last week’s spring statement: it was designed to defend Rishi Sunak against Liz Truss in the next Tory leadership election
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“Death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything” Saul Bellow, Humbolt’s Gift, 1975
Quiz answer: Uttar Pradesh, India, estimated population 243m, after China, India, US and Indonesia (274m), and ahead of Brazil (213m) |
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