And here’s the liveblog for this weekend’s Labour Conference in Galway. To join in, leave a comment in the frame or tag your tweets with ‘#lp10′! Thanks to Suzy for setting up.
Tag archive for "labour"
Breaking! Gordon Brown to Address the Chilcot Inquiry Before the Election
The BBC is reporting that Gordon Brown will appear before the Chilcot Inquiry into Iraq *before* the General Election in the Summer. This could have a massive effect on performance of the out-going government in June’s elections.
It was thought that if Brown appeared before the General Election, it would be used like a political football prior to the election, so plans for his appearance were being shelved until after the Summer.
Things took a turn when Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg applied pressure on Brown by asking him what he had to hide and if he would do so before the elections. As expected, opposition MPs jumped on this and Brown was left with little choice, but to volunteer.
In recent days, Brown wrote to the Sir John Chilcot’s investigation offering to appear before the election.
Former PM Tony Blair will before the inquiry at the end of this month.
Photo: Dreamstime (1990)
December’s Live Register Numbers
The CSO released numbers this lunchtime showing seasonally-adjusted increase of 3,300 people on Live Register in December over November. The year-on-year increase in the Live Register is now just over 133,000 people.
The Live Register now stands at 426,700 (seasonally-adjusted).
Breaking down the numbers a little more, we see the following month-on-month moves:
- Increase of 6,761 male versus 3,329 female claimants
- There was 7,425 new claimants for Jobseekers Allowance. This is almost fives time more than new claimants for Jobseeker’s Benefit.
UK Figures for European Elections Spending
Apologies on the blogging front. Election.ie has been a little quiet. Yoyoing between bouts of panic buying gouge-happy stuff for burning and combining the odd reminents left in my press into new meal concoctions. Hello meat stuff with goopy onion tapenade. Darina, how are ya?
On a night where the rebellion against Brown looks well and truly alive, it is interesting to see the financial disclosures of spending in European Elections by UK political parties.
The Electoral Commission released figures yesterday showing just over £9 million was spent by UK political parties for campaigning for the Euros. Some 80% of the amount was spent by the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and United Kingdom Ind Party.
Breakdown of the spending by the parties:
| Political party | 2004 spending | 2009 spending |
| British National Party | £228,813 | £282,843 |
| Conservative Party | £3,130,265 | £2,482,536 |
| The Green Party | £404,057 | £369,324 |
| Jury Team | Did not contest | £344,522 |
| The Labour Party | £1,707,224 | £2,302,244 |
| Liberal Democrats | £1,188,861 | £1,180,884 |
| United Kingdom Independence Party | £2,361,754 | £1,270,855 |
| Parties spending under £250,000 | £579,392 | £794,496 |
| Spending by all parties | £9,600,366 | £9,027,704 |
(Table snipped)
Over Christmas, Suzy linked to the SIPO report to the Ceann Comhairle on spending by Irish political parties for their European campaigns. Very interesting reading there!
Interview with Eamon Gilmore
Just a couple of weeks ago, I trailed the Labour canvas in Dublin South and Dublin Central. Between the walkabouts, I got some time to interview Eamon Gilmore. Audio is a bit spotty. Questions include public service reform, reaction to the Ryan report and his thoughts on Libertas and tomorrow’s elections.
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