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The National
6 days ago
- Politics
- The National
What I saw during Angela Rayner's farcical visit to Scotland
Welcome to this week's Branch Office Updates. It's Xander Elliards here stepping in for James Walker this week. KARL Marx's famous maxim states that history repeats, first as tragedy, second as farce. In the case of Angela Rayner's recent visits to Scotland, it's been farce both times. Thursday's not-at-all-publicised visit north of the Border was a case in point. At first, Labour had ungraciously informed the Scottish media that they would have precisely no access to the Deputy Prime Minister. That would have heralded a repeat of her visit to Govan in January, where no media were allowed to speak to the top Labour MP. That had been reflected by Lisa Nandy's visit to Scotland in March, during which she also spoke to no Scottish media. But as pressure from all quarters grew, Labour were forced into a minor concession, one on which they have leant before and no doubt will again. READ MORE: How is Labour's Hamilton by-election campaign so bad? Rayner would now speak to a select few members of the broadcast media, we were told. PA – the news wire which shares its writing with other outlets – would also be allowed to ask just two questions. However, Scottish newspapers would not be allowed anywhere near the Deputy Prime Minister (except, it later transpired, the Labour-friendly Daily Record ... who just backed the SNP in the by-election. Awkward ...) Labour would then be able to deny allegations that Rayner had not spoken to any Scottish media, and deny allegations that she had not spoken to any Scottish newspapers. As The National reported just weeks ago, that was exactly what Chancellor Rachel Reeves did during her own visit north of the Border. Rachel Reeves refused to speak to any Scottish newspapers during her visit to a whisky distillery in May (Image: Andrew Milligan) Unhappy with yet another snub to the Scottish media – despite what Labour may call it – The National decided to turn up at the party's Hamilton by-election campaign office and ask Rayner some questions anyway. When I arrived in Hamilton at 1pm on Thursday – a little ahead of time – it was quickly apparent that we were far from the only people with the idea of 'doorstepping' the Deputy Prime Minister. The Labour campaign office was essentially besieged by pro-Palestine protesters, who I'm told had learned of the visit early that morning and pulled together a last-minute demonstration. 'Resisting genocide is human' is written on the ground in front of Labour activists, who had been asked to make a wall between Labour's campaign office and the pro-Palestine protest (Image: NQ) Chants of 'Rayner, Rayner you can't hide, you're supporting genocide' were echoing up the streets of the Scottish town. As it turns out, however, Rayner very much can hide. And that's just what she did. In what can only be described as a humiliation for the Labour deputy, she was reduced to scarpering away and answering the few questions she had agreed to from the lawn of a private residence in a small village outside Hamilton. It seemed that, with the campaign office surrounded by Palestine protesters deemed too embarrassing for Rayner, Labour's 'backroom boys' (as former shadow chancellor John McDonnell called them) were unable to find anywhere else willing to host her – at such short notice anyway. Rayner was then forced to utter half-hearted claims that she hadn't run away from pro-Palestine protesters literally miles away from the pro-Palestine protesters she ran away from. For posterity's sake: the Deputy First Minister spoke to PA – who Labour had decided would question Rayner in place of all of Scotland's print media (bar the Record) – for less than one minute. The National was then allowed two questions, which lasted slightly longer but saw Rayner say the same amount of nothing. The continuing message is clear: UK Labour have simply no time – and no respect – for Scotland's print media.
Otago Daily Times
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Closing a fulfilling career
After 23 years in Parliament, former Otago MP and one-time Dunedin lawyer David Parker is about to retire from politics. He talks to Mike Houlahan about the highs and lows of an eventful career. "There will always be unfinished business," David Parker sighs, looking back on almost a quarter of a century in politics. By most measures he has had an excellent career: after kicking off by doing what many thought was impossible and winning the rural seat of Otago for Labour, the now 65-year-old lawyer became Attorney-general, among several other Cabinet posts. But Mr Parker is also the deputy and acting party leader who never made it to the top of the greasy pole, and the finance spokesman who became the associate minister but never got the senior role he deeply desired. It has been a fulfilling career with many achievements but it ends with, possibly, a nagging sense that Mr Parker never quite managed to achieve everything that he wanted too. Would he have liked to have been finance minister, or to have held an even greater post? "Maybe," he reflects. "You wouldn't stand if you didn't think that you could do the job. Coulda, woulda, shoulda . . . I'm absolutely privileged to have been elected by my fellow New Zealanders to represent their interests in Parliament. I've done it to the best of my abilities. "If I had different roles would I have done some things that I hadn't done? Probably, but I'm pretty happy with the way things rolled." Little did former National Energy Minister Max Bradford know what forces he would unleash when he came to Dunedin in the late 1990s to try to sell his government's electricity reforms. In the audience for his public meeting was David Parker — a Roxburgh-born and Dunedin-raised lawyer who had already made a mark in his community by helping to set up the first Community Law Centre while studying at the University of Otago. "Dunedin, of course, is a Labour-friendly town, proudly so," Mr Parker said. "So my values that I learnt in Dunedin growing up here, which I still hold dear, which are a mixture of personal responsibility, thrift, egalitarian outcomes. Jack is as good as his master or his mistress, and they are a wonderful set of values." As Mr Parker listened, he became more and more angry. Already a member of the Labour Party, his ire was the catalyst for taking a more active role in local electorate affairs. Then Dunedin North MP Pete Hodgson quickly saw Mr Parker's potential and he became electorate chairman, then thanks to Mr Hodgson's persuasive powers the candidate for Otago — the seat which is now Waitaki, and which few expected him to win. "Pete taught me good campaigning skills, and I just got involved and I thought I might have something to offer," Mr Parker said. "Then they needed a candidate in the Otago seat, which at that stage ran from Mount Cargill up to Oamaru, Queenstown, Alexander, up to Haast Pass, and yeah, I'm running." And winning, a beneficiary of National's historically poor performance in the 2002 election. Although Mr Parker could not repeat the trick in 2005, he ran his National successor Jacqui Dean respectably close — and, crucially, had impressed enough in his first term to be afforded a winnable placing on the party list. "I really used to love representing constituents," Mr Parker said. "I felt like a professional driver, but you come to realise that the vast majority of New Zealanders live good lives. You know, they look after their families well, they participate in social organisations like service clubs, or school committees, or churches, whatever their thing is, and, you know, they pay their taxes, and they make society better than it would otherwise be, and you don't get that understanding of people quite as much as a list MP. "I think one of the other dangers for some list MPs is that you can become too engaged on particular issues. It drives me crazy how much political capital is wasted by so many people on identity issues these days. We're already one of the most liberal accepting countries in the world, and yet we put so much energy into some of those issues. "I'm not denying their importance to some people, but they can get in the way of concentrating on economic matters and issues of economic fairness and prosperity, which in the end are also often the key to the delivery of other services like education and health." In Opposition Mr Parker soon settled down into what became his specialist subjects for most of his political career: law reform, the environment and economics. For his sins, as his career evolved, Mr Parker became his party's expert on the gargantuan, convoluted and much criticised Resource Management Act. "The processes under the RMA became more and more convoluted. It took forever to change a plan, took forever to change national direction, which sort of gives guidance to councils, and constrained subdivisions and other housing developments in a way that drove up the price of not just new sections, but that flows through to the cost of all housing, including existing houses," Mr Parker said. "When I was Minister for the Environment we introduced fast-track — we didn't go so far on fast-tracking as the current government has, which was to override provisions in the Conservation Act and the Wildlife Act. But in terms of, you know, getting fast consents, we proved that that can be done. And, you know, it's stripped out a lot of time and cost from the process. "A lot of the provisions that were in our replacement for the RMA that the new government repealed will be carried forward in their legislation. So, you know, I think progress will be made on that issue . . . . I think Chris Bishop's competent, and I think we'll get to a settled place." That is a compliment which may surprise some, but loyal as Mr Parker is to Labour he has never been a blinkered partisan. That has earned him great respect from all sides of the House, typified by a generous compliment from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon when Mr Parker's imminent retirement was announced. "We are political opponents testing each other, but we're not enemies, and there is a difference," Mr Parker said. "Democracy is a fragile and valuable thing, and you see what's happening in other parts of the world now where polarisation is breeding a discontent with democracy, and you see these instances where people say that they'd rather have an alternative to democracy. "I think that should worry us all, and really, democracy belongs to everyone, and it relies on everyone to engage in it and defend it, and participate in it, and criticise those that would tear it down." That egalitarian streak, a major motivating factor for Mr Parker entering politics, has been a constant in his time as an MP. His enthusiasm to review New Zealand's tax system and enthusiasm for a wealth and/or capital gains to be fairly taxed is well-known, although having come from an entrepreneurial background he is not averse to businesses making a profit either. "I would have stood down at the last election, but for some unfinished business that I had in respect of what I think are unfair tax settings in the country, where people who work for a living and earn their income through salary and wages pay tax on every dollar they earn," Mr Parker said. "The average middle class person in New Zealand would probably spend around 30% of their income across income tax and GST on taxation, whereas the wealthiest people in New Zealand pay about a third of that, a third to a half, and it's a matter of record that I was disappointed that some of the things that myself and Grant Robertson had proposed in respect of that didn't come to pass, and so I stayed on to try and influence those outcomes for the future. "This comes back to the ethic that we have in Dunedin, and I really want people to thrive and be entrepreneurs and succeed, but everyone should still pay their fair share of tax, and if they don't, the wealth divisions that we already have in society as a matter of arithmetic get bigger year by year, and we already live in a country where the top 1% of wealth holders own 26% of everything." Add in improving New Zealanders' savings habits, possibly through an Australian-style retirement savings scheme, and improving air and fresh water quality, and there are plenty more unticked items on the Parker to-do list. However, he is now the longest continuing-serving Labour MP (Damien O'Connor has served longer, but not in one stretch) and it is time to pass the baton. "You can't do this forever, and neither should you," Mr Parker said. "I haven't advanced any plans in advance of stepping down . . . I'll probably hang my shingle up again as a lawyer, at least part-time, and, yeah, life will carry on. [last year] I knuckled down and wrote the best part of the book, actually, on some of my ideas, and, you know, one day I might finish that. On the other hand, I might not get around to it." In his own words Leadership "Phil Goff would have been a very good prime minister. Some other people that I've been there with that would have been good prime ministers include, I thought Russel Norman in the Greens, Jeanette Fitzsimons, that would have been good, Simon Bridges from the National Party would have been a good leader, you know, there's any number of people who could have led the country." Otago "We've got this incredible natural bounty here. It's the wildlife on the Otago Peninsula, those beautiful snow-fed rivers that we've got that glisten and carry fresh water over those gravel bases, beautiful mountains, the wide open tussocklands, or the little coastal settlements like Karitane. We're absolutely spoilt for choice, and I love all of them." Social Media "I believe that democracies are being undermined by these tech barons, who I call middle and maniacal, tax-avoiding tech barons. They're selfish, they're greedy, how much money do they need? They owe none of the duties that you owe in your newspaper or any television in New Zealand or owes about balance or being responsible for defamation. They sell advertising to fraudsters who are trying to rip New Zealanders off their savings and do so successfully at times. The distrust that is bred of all authority figures, whether it's the police, the medical fraternity, or politicians, or the media. I see the irresponsible social media platforms as being the major problem." David Parker timeline 2002: After a career in business and law, wins the Otago seat for Labour. 2005: Loses Otago to Jacqui Dean by 1995 votes but re-elected as No 37 on Labour list. Joins Cabinet as Attorney-General, Minister of Transport, Minister of Energy, and Minister Responsible for Climate Change Issues but briefly resigns after allegations he had filed an incorrect return to the Companies Office. Cleared and reinstated to Cabinet about three months later. 2008: Defeated by Ms Dean in Waitaki, re-elected as No 17 on Labour list. Leading figure in Phil Goff's shadow Cabinet. 2011: Defeated in Epsom by John Banks, re-elected as No 4 on Labour list. Initially a leadership candidate, stood aside and backed David Shearer. Becomes finance spokesman. 2013: David Cuncliffe becomes Labour leader, David Parker is his deputy and finance spokesman. 2014: Re-elected as No 2 on Labour list. Interim Labour leader after David Cunliffe steps down but finishes third in leadership contest. Declines finance role but takes on foreign affairs. 2017: Finishes third in Epsom but Labour wins power again: re-elected at 10 on Labour list. Made Attorney-General and Minister for Economic Development, Environment, Trade and Export Growth and an associate finance minister. 2020: Re-elected as No 2 on Labour list. Reappointed Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, and associate Minister of Finance, becomes Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, Revenue and, briefly, Transport. In 2022 becomes first MP to test positive for Covid-19. 2023: Re-elected as No 13 on Labour list. Becomes Labour's foreign affairs spokesman. — David Parker delivers his valedictory speech to Parliament on May 7.
The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
I'm a Labour MP – but the government's ‘growth' mission reeks of panic
Chancellor Rachel Reeves's recent 'big growth agenda' speech wasn't just the expression of a vision for the economy. It was also a warning shot to wavering Labour MPs. The message was blunt: get on board with the government's economic strategy or step aside. Growth, we were told, is the non-negotiable mission. This was not a sudden shift but a reaffirmation of her stance at Davos, where she made clear that 'the answer can't always be no'. That answer, now firmly codified, prioritises GDP growth above all else. Heathrow airport expansion is in; net zero, bats and newts are out. The promise? A revitalised economy, busy high streets and more bobbies on the beat – a Labour-friendly vision of progress designed to bolster morale and stuff leaflets with 'good news' ahead of the next election. This strategy is fraught with risk. Some may call it bold; others, a sign of desperation. A growing suspicion looms that our government lacks a coherent governing philosophy or ideological compass beyond the vague pursuit of 'growth'. But if growth at any cost is the mantra, the costs will soon become painfully clear. Why pledge to be clean and green, only to undermine that commitment with a Heathrow expansion promise six months later? Burning the furniture to stay warm doesn't signal confidence – it reeks of panic. Regardless of the motivation, Labour has crossed the Rubicon. Approving Heathrow expansion is an irreversible break with our pre-election pledges. In 2021, Reeves stood in front of the Labour party conference and declared that she would be the 'first-ever green chancellor'. Now, Labour is accused of obstructing the climate and nature bill and abandoning its ambitious decarbonisation plans. The rapid turnaround is striking. There is also an international dimension. Has Donald Trump's resurgence made it easier for Labour to jettison some of its social and environmental commitments? Some may argue that when mass deportations and the dismantling of the state are politically feasible in one of our closest allies, progressives here should be grateful for a Labour government – even one shifting ever rightwards. But the Heathrow expansion and the realignment it signals do not insulate the UK from the political forces that enabled Trump, it accelerates them. Remember our pledge to rebuild trust in politics? Climate U-turns like this do the exact opposite. Indeed, they fuel the very climate scepticism the right peddles. After all, if we genuinely think the climate crisis is an existential threat, why undermine combatting it? As much as it pains me to say, Heathrow is just the most visible indicator of Labour's shift. The changes are stacking up. BlackRock's influence is growing. Austerity and deregulation are back in fashion. Zero tolerance for benefit fraud is in; stricter taxation on non-doms is out. Post-2008 banking regulations are set to be dismantled, while the long-touted climate and nature bill is quietly sidelined. This raises the fundamental question: whose growth are we talking about? We know that the economic benefits of Heathrow expansion, AI development and financial and planning deregulation will not be evenly distributed. The winners will be the same old symbols of financial capitalism's excesses – property developers pushing high-rise luxury flats while social housing crumbles; financial institutions such as BlackRock dictating investment priorities that benefit the wealthiest; and corporations such as Amazon, notorious for union-busting and exploitative labour practices, reaping profits from deregulation. The losers? The very working-class communities that Labour has to champion, who will probably see little of the wealth generated while facing increased job insecurity from AI disruption, unaffordable housing due to continued speculative investment and environmental degradation from unbridled development. The economic orthodoxy the chancellor is embracing has been tried before. Joe Biden's Democrats achieved GDP growth but still struggled against Trump's populism. Why? Because growth, when concentrated in the hands of the few, does not translate into security or prosperity for the many. Starmer understood this implicitly when he stated back in 2022 that trickle-down economics 'is a piss take'. Reeves once championed the foundation economy – lifelong learning, public services, local industries and wealth redistribution. Whatever happened to that vision? Instead of pinning hopes on trickle-down promises from Heathrow and hedge funds, Labour should be levelling up wealth, not just GDP statistics. That means 'growth' that serves people, not just profit. Of course, investing in AI, the life sciences and renewable energy is critical, but so too is sustainable farming, rewilding and well-paid jobs in adult social care – an urgent necessity for an ageing society, yet perpetually sidelined. The choices Labour is making will define not just its electoral prospects but the political landscape of the UK for years to come. This is not just about Heathrow, banking regulations or benefit fraud crackdowns. It is about whether my party can offer a vision of growth that actually works for the people who need it most – or whether it will leave that space open for its populist opponents to fill. Clive Lewis is the Labour MP for Norwich South
Yahoo
26-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Labour's seven deadly sins could sink Rachel Reeves
Taking a wild guess, I would imagine that not many of you are subscribers to The New European. It's a media organisation whose editor-at-large is one Alastair Campbell, launched after the Brexit referendum with the tagline 'The New Paper for the 48 per cent'. But if you want to know what your enemies are thinking – always useful – it is an important read. Much of its content is concerned with the usual musings of the Metropolitan Aristocracy sighing aggressively about Donald Trump from their £2m houses near Hampstead Heath. They still believe the European Union will salve many of our economic woes, despite Rachel Reeves returning from the World Economic Forum in Davos last week her ears ringing with distressed globalists admitting that the European grand project is a 'basket case'. The Treasury, always sceptical about the riches supposedly available across the Channel, has taken copious notes. Earlier this month, The New European hit the bullseye with an article that has created such fevered debate it is being shared in Labour-friendly WhatsApp groups from Islington to Camden (a distance in north London of about five miles). And that's not just because of what it says, but also because of who is saying it. The Chancellor should read it. Peter Hyman, the article's author, is a smart guy. David Willetts, the former Conservative universities minister, was known as Two Brains. Hyman has at least one more than that. A former advisor to Tony Blair (before he was even fashionable), Hyman was brought back by Labour to help mastermind Sir Keir Starmer's 2024 victory. In between he started his own Free School called School 21 in east London. School 21 became part of a bigger multi-academy trust which puts academic success, values and behaviour at the heart of its teaching. A state school, but with the type of freedoms the present education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, finds baffling. Many hoped Hyman would stay in government after July. But he didn't – which is a pity for anyone who thought that Labour might be a bit more savvy once in actual power. Instead their polling numbers cratered as they led with gloom plus a side order of tax and spend. Since July, Hyman has put his multiple brains to work. The New European article is the first inkling of what is to come. Dull proponents of state-first, soft left solutions more at home in the 1970s than 2025 (ie, much of the Starmer government), look away now. 'It is our collective failure – we, the progressives, the centrists, the remainers, the political elites,' Hyman wrote to the tear-stained liberals who cannot quite believe the rise of the new Right and what has happened in the United States. 'It's look-in-the-mirror time. Cold water to the face time. Enter the I'm A Celebrity… jungle and eat a kangaroo's penis time. 'We have been asleep at the wheel while the populists have dusted off their megaphones, fine-tuned their algorithms, and got to work exploiting the gaping chinks in our armour. 'Yet somehow, we are undeterred. We are still surfing wave after wave of superiority, each one propelling us forward to the promised land of political oblivion.'He outlines the Seven Deadly Sins of the Left – sins that could all be laid at the door of Starmer. It is patronising (the university-educated left thinks it is cleverer than everyone else), complacent (the left's logic will win), abstract (follow my complicated reasoning), censorious (call the thought police, I have witnessed a right wing opinion), gullible (the left is always in a fit of the vapours about every 'turd a wannabe Trump drops on the sidewalk'), conservative (the left defends old state institutions that have clearly failed) and bland (the left's range of emotions 'starts at earnest and ends at sincere'). Oof, kapow and oof again. A series of punches to Labour's solar-plexus about the whole hearted need for change. All the worse because this Batman was supposed to be on the Left's side. I am told Hyman is now considering writing a book. He had better hurry up. One Cabinet minister told me that the challenge of the new Right is all too clear to the upper echelons of the party. Nigel Farage has momentum by speaking the exact language of disruption and fresh solutions many voters want to hear. His polling numbers are nudging towards neck-and-neck territory with the party of government, a remarkable achievement for an organisation which only won its first MPs last summer. The Chancellor is finally changing her tune, spraying the walls with supply side reforms after figures on economic growth, job losses and business confidence moved from depressed to suicidal. No more newts and bats holding up new infrastructure, warnings to 'blocker MPs' not to stand in the way of housing developments and regulators told to be pro-growth or get out of the way (Marcus Bokkerink, the chairman of the Competition and Markets Authority, was 'obliged' to stand down by ministers last week). Words are one thing, results another. I started campaigning in The Telegraph for a third runway at Heathrow in 2010, arguing that global connections were vital for a country that has relied for centuries on the international trade of people, ideas and goods for its wealth. Fifteen years later and yet again the government is going to say it agrees, just as David Cameron said he agreed in 2015. Not one centimetre of new tarmac has been laid at the UK's premiere airport in that time. The ever expanding state and its bureaucratic fellow travellers are to blame. Risk averse, conservative and negative, officials magic up ever more rococo reasons why nothing should ever happen or if it does, its over-engineered expense must be almost laughable. A recent report by the estimable Institute for Government revealed that civil service numbers are still growing despite 'the explicit intent of ministers' for the opposite to be the case. This is Reeves' real fight. Growth comes from vibrant markets being able to operate as freely as possible, not via Whitehall diktat but via entrepreneurial spirit. Her allies insist she 'gets it' and sees her mission as ultimately cutting taxes and paring back state interference. The test will be whether the rest of the government can ever be dragged to the same understanding. Sadly, the evidence so far points in precisely the opposite direction. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
