Tag Archives: Giles Coren

Morning roundup, Thursday 30th April 2009 (Gurkha edition)

Well done the comrades on the Gurkha debate yesterday! The comrades, I hear you roar? THE COMRADES?! For was it not David Cameron who posed with Joanna Lumley outside St Stephen's Entrance for the cameras with wee Nicky Clegg? (Yea!) Was it not the Government that was defeated at the vote and promised to bring forward the review of the guidance to before the summer recess and put a moratorium on deportations? (Yea!) Why yes, to all of the above. But it was actually the LABOUR backbenchers by and large - who actually care about the Gurkhas and have been lobbying for years for justice - who put on the pressure to bring about the changes (although hon menshes go to Ann Widdecombe and other Liberal and Tory members of the APPG on Gurkha Rights). The rest is just vacuous grandstanding by two leaders with pretty hair for the benefit of headlines involving the words "BROWN" and "CRISIS." Guess it depends whether you think politics should be about process or progress, I guess.

Morning roundup, Tuesday 28th April 2009

Justice Minister Jack Straw engages with the consultative process on Titan prisons. And gets roundly berated for it. It's like all those howls of "CONTROL FREAK" from the Tories and meedja under the Tonemeister never happened, isn't it?