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Leading article:

Labour dodged its own laws again        IoS        2.12.2007

http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article3215770.ece

Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Leading article:

Labour dodged its own laws again

Published: 02 December 2007
The Independent on Sunday

All three of this country's most recent prime ministers have had problems with the integrity of their party's finances. Of the three, Gordon Brown would seem to hold to the highest ethical standard. Not that John Major was personally corrupt. It was more that he failed to recognise that the world had moved on, and he allowed the Conservative Party to persist in its outdated conviction that the source of its money was nobody's business but its own. He was also weak when it came to dealing with members of his party, most notably Neil Hamilton, who broke the rules that did exist.

Tony Blair, who benefited from Mr Major's weakness, now regrets he made such play of "Tory sleaze" in the 1997 election. No doubt he also wishes that he had never used the phrase "purer than pure", which was hung round his neck like a burning tyre. But nothing could have saved him from the auto-trashing of his own reputation brought on by the cash-for-honours scandal, first exposed by this newspaper.

It is a curiosity that in raising secret loans from putative peers no law was broken, whereas in the present case of proxy donations it almost certainly was. Yet Mr Blair is more deserving of censure than Mr Brown. Although the Crown Prosecution Service decided that Mr Blair stayed within the letter of the law, his conduct was reprehensible. He passed a law requiring disclosure and then approved a device to get round it: non-declarable loans instead of declarable gifts. Worse, while the fact of the loans was still secret, he nominated four of the lenders for peerages.

The present situation is the opposite. Although the law has been broken, Mr Brown's conduct has been right and proper. As soon as he found out about it, the official responsible, Peter Watt, resigned and Brown insisted that the money be repaid.

That said, the headlines as they have unfolded over the past seven days have been ghastly. It does not look good that Mr Brown said that Mr Watt was the only person in the party that knew about David Abrahams' circuitous generosity. It turned out that Jon Mendelsohn, appointed by Mr Brown to take over Lord Levy's role as Labour's main fundraiser, also knew. Nor does it look good that Mr Mendelsohn's main line of defence is to say – after the story broke – that he was going to put a stop to proxy donations. Nor that he had just written a letter to Mr Abrahams that could have been interpreted as asking for more money. It looks bad that Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour leader, should have accepted a donation rejected by the Brown for Leader campaign. It looks like a tangled web when Peter Hain said he had forgotten to declare a £5,000 contribution from Mr Mendelsohn.

But perception and reality have diverged in the course of the past week. It looks bad for Mr Brown, but the facts ought not to be so damaging to him. Mr Mendelsohn in particular still faces searching questions. If he can answer them, or if he quits, Mr Brown can shake this off.

The use of proxy donors began when Mr Blair was leader. Mr Blair's spokesman says he knew nothing about it, but it is consistent with the culture of dodging Labour's own law. So far, it has not been established that Mr Abrahams stood to gain from his covert generosity – unlike Bernie Ecclestone or the wannabe peers. In the matter of motive, the most plausible would seem to be, as Mr Abrahams says, writing exclusively for The Independent on Sunday today, his desire to avoid "unwanted publicity". (Well, that worked, didn't it?)

Mr Brown also did the right thing yesterday in resuming the search for cross-party agreement on a more robust set of rules on party funding. There is, of course, no necessary connection between last week's fiasco and the Phillips review. Mr Abrahams' donations were in breach of the existing law, which needs to be retained. Sir Hayden Phillips has been looking at ways in which that law should be extended to deal with the weaknesses that have emerged since the 2000 Act came into force. His review was stalled by both main parties playing politics: the Conservatives want to make it harder for Labour to collect the levy from trade unionists; Labour want to make it harder for Lord Ashcroft to pump money into marginal seats.

Last week's crisis ought to persuade David Cameron and Mr Brown that they have a common interest in reaching agreement. All politicians are the losers in stories like this, even if things look worse at the moment for Mr Brown than his opponents.

In all this, Mr Brown has one huge asset, which is that the people know that he is a man of personal integrity. Not for him the slowness to act of Mr Major or the cynical work-round-the-rules of Mr Blair. The other thing we do know about Mr Brown is that he has reserves of resilience of which we lesser mortals can know nothing. The last week has not looked good for him, but perception and reality will converge again and he will recover.

    Leading article: Labour dodged its own laws again, IoS, 2.12.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article3215770.ece

Donorgate:

10 Labour bosses knew

December 2, 2007
From The Sunday Times
Jonathan Calvert,
Michael Gillard and Marie Woolf

THE property developer at the centre of Labour’s donor scandal has claimed that there are 10 party officials who were aware of his “illegal” arrangement to fund it secretly.

The details will be passed to the Metropolitan police, who are now investigating how more than £600,000 was paid by the developer to Labour through intermediaries.

The list includes two senior members of Gordon Brown’s party and government: David Triesman, the minister for intellectual property, and Jon Mendelsohn, Labour’s chief fundraiser.

Yesterday David Abrahams, the secret donor, issued a statement detailing precisely his claims that Mendelsohn knew about the arrangement eight months ago. It challenges Mendelsohn’s statement that he did not find out until September.

Abrahams said he was placed next to Mendelsohn at dinner in London on April 25. He said: “I told him that I regularly donated to the party and I described how it was done through intermediaries for the purposes of anonymity, to which he replied, ‘That sounds like a good idea.’ ”

Mendelsohn denied the claim last night, saying: “This latest statement is fictional and completely untrue. I will be co-operating fully with the police in their investigation.”

Sources close to Abrahams also allege that Triesman was one of three former Labour general secretaries who knew about his secret arrangement while they were in the post — a claim categorically denied by Triesman.

The other two are Matt Carter, who came to prominence during the cash for honours scandal, and Peter Watt, who resigned last week after admitting that he had condoned the arrangement.

A friend of Abrahams claimed: “This pattern was established through the reign of three general secretaries. It is wider than Labour is saying.”

As general secretaries, the three men were the “registered treasurers” responsible for correctly filing details of donations to the Electoral Commission, which regulates political funding. Triesman signed off three donations totalling £75,000, Carter five donations totalling £77,000, and Watt 11 donations totalling £511,000.

However, both Triesman and Carter have firmly denied knowing that Abrahams had given the cash through third parties. Triesman told The Sunday Times last night: “The allegation that I knew of or signed off an arrangement is a lie. Had I known about that kind of thing I would have reported it immediately to the Electoral Commission and would probably have phoned the police.”

Abrahams, who has been a Labour member for more than 40 years, attacks elements of the party in an article today: “Party officials knew of my wish to retain my privacy and were only too happy to accept my money via intermediaries.”

Yesterday Brown attempted to regain the initiative after the scandal by announcing that he would speed up reforms of party funding. The prime minister indicated that he is now prepared to agree to Tory plans to cap individual donations to £50,000, a move that would weaken the link between the unions and Labour.

However, the claims by the Abrahams camp that the method of funding was more widely known across the party could increase the damage to Brown and his party. A spokesman for Abrahams confirmed: “Ten people in the Labour party knew of the manner in which Mr Abrahams made the donations.”

Abrahams, who is 63 and built his wealth through a property business in Newcastle, says that he made the donations in good faith but wanted to protect his anonymity because he did not want it to be known that he was a generous benefactor.

A friend of Abrahams said: “He is a genuine philanthropist — albeit with eccentricities in the manner of his giving — who has been indulged by Labour without reference by anyone to the governing legislation.”

The friend said it was Abrahams who originally proposed using intermediaries to hide his identity and Labour figures told him that it was fine to do so: “Right up to last weekend the party didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, and if they didn’t think so, why on earth should he have?”

Abrahams has been reluctant to name names publicly. “I will keep my details for any inquiry,” he said.

Friends say he has been angered by the party’s attempt to make him the scapegoat and that he is particularly upset by Mendelsohn.

Yesterday Abrahams said: “He would be well advised now to stop damaging himself and the party and the party’s credibility. I will not stand by and allow my name to be put in the frame by spin doctors.”

Abrahams has also accused a key member of Brown’s leadership campaign of deliberately underplaying the extent of his contact with him.

Last week, Brown’s camp appeared to have successfully distanced the prime minister from the scandal, saying his campaign team had turned away a donation from one of Abrahams’s intermediaries because he had a policy of refusing to take cash from people he did not know.

However, it emerged that Chris Leslie, who led Brown’s leadership campaign, had recommended the intermediary to

the Harriet Harman campaign, which was out of pocket after her election as deputy party leader. She was given £5,000 by Janet Kidd, the intermediary.

Leslie was forced to issue a statement in which he claimed that he had been approached by “a man calling himself David Abrahams” who said his friend Kidd wished to donate. He added: “I did not know who Mr Abrahams or Mrs Kidd was.”

This weekend, friends of Abrahams say the property developer was outraged by Leslie’s claim. “The most senior people at the top in charge of funding know him and he knows them,” one friend said. “David knows Leslie and likes him.”

However, Leslie still denied knowing Abrahams yesterday.

A friend of Leslie said: “Chris is completely baffled by this. He doesn’t know David Abrahams at all, and as far as he knows, they’ve never even met each other.”

Meanwhile, it has emerged that there may have been a fifth intermediary used by Abrahams to disguise his donations. In 2004 a man called George Crawford gave £36,000 to the party.

Yesterday The Sunday Times contacted a solicitor in Newcastle of the same name. He had been a co-director in a company with John McCarthy, a lawyer who was one of Abrahams’s intermediaries. He said he was not aware of his name being used to make a donation but he said that he did know Abrahams.

The police investigation could run into 2009, raising the nightmare scenario for Brown of an Old Bailey trial at the very time when the prime minister wants to hold a general election.

It is unlikely Labour figures will be prosecuted merely for being aware of the arrangement with Abrahams. They would need to have played an active role in hiding the donations.

Watt is likely to be questioned by police after he admitted that he knew about the arrangement but thought it was permissible to hide the identity of the donor under electoral law.

His explanation is remarkable because he was head of the Labour party’s compliance unit when it produced rules for local party treasurers. Its Treasurers’ Handbook, produced in 2005, explicitly outlaws taking donations from people believed to be “fronts” for another donor.

The Electoral Commission has also been asked by Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat MP, to investigate whether Labour filed false accounts in 2005. He will further ask the police to extend their investigations into the source of Abrahams’s funds.

The funding scandal appears to have affected Labour’s opinion poll rating, with the Tories now enjoying an 11-point lead. The ICM opinion poll for the News of the World showed Labour had slumped by five points to 30%, with the Tories up one to 41%.

The Liberal Democrats, who are in the middle of a leadership election campaign, were up one point on 19%, according to ICM polling on Wednesday and Thursday.

Additional reporting: Holly Watt

    Donorgate: 10 Labour bosses knew, STs, 2.12.2007, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2975391.ece

Donor row:

more key ministers accused

· I have letters, warns Abrahams
· Brown pledges new curbs on cash

Nicholas Watt and Jamie Doward
Observer
Sunday December 2, 2007

Gordon Brown's hopes of moving on from the explosive issue of Labour funding were dashed this weekend as more cabinet ministers were drawn into the row and one of the Prime Minister's closest allies fought for her political life.

As Brown launched a desperate fightback after the worst week of his premiership by making a historic pledge to curtail trade union donations, he faced fresh pressure when the donor at the heart of the controversy warned that more senior party figures knew of the system of anonymous donations.

David Abrahams, the millionaire businessman whose anonymous donations of more than £650,000 to Labour were channelled through his staff, made it clear that more senior people know of the controversial system.

His intervention came as Wendy Alexander, leader of the Labour party in the Scottish Parliament, held intensive meetings with allies in Scotland after she broke party funding rules. Alexander, a key Brown supporter, could face a police investigation after it emerged that she had written a thank-you note to a businessman who made an illegal donation.

The Observer can also reveal that:

· Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, used the issue of anonymous donations to try to damage the Tories last year when she was chair of the Labour party;

· Abrahams has told friends he has numerous letters from party members thanking him for his donations.

Brown will struggle to put the funding issue behind him after last week's disclosure that Labour had accepted more than £650,000 in anonymous donations. Police last week launched a criminal investigation after Brown admitted that Labour had broken the law.

Brown tried to regain the political initiative yesterday with a pledge to reform trade union funding. He indicated a cap could be placed on block donations and changes made to 'affiliated fees' - the money handed over by unions from individual members, many of whom are not aware the 'political levy' goes to Labour. But the Tories were scathing about Brown's intervention which came a month after cross-party talks on funding reform collapsed. Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: 'This is a pretty opportunistic attempt to erect a smokescreen around events of the past two days.' The Tories also seized on revelations that Labour was prepared to use the issue of anonymous donations to damage them. Blears made a complaint to the Electoral Commission last year about an industrial group in the Midlands that was making donations to the Tories.

'We urge the Conservative party to make clear that these people will be registering the donations that they make to the Tories in their own names, not anonymously,' she said at the time.

Blears's complaint was rejected because the Midlands Industrial Council was a recognised body. The Observer has seen a copy of the letter sent to Blears by Hilary Mundella, the Electoral Commission's director of operations, which said that donations from individuals must not be anonymous.

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP for Chichester who was a member of the Tory panel on the cross-party talks, told The Observer: 'It stretches credulity that a letter like this was not passed from the Labour chair to the party's registered treasurer [Peter Watt].' A spokesman for Blears insisted she had done nothing wrong. 'Hazel Blears was not involved in the day-to-day running of Labour's fund-raising operation.'

Abrahams makes clear today he will intensify the pressure on Labour. In an article in the Independent on Sunday, he says he was encouraged to make such donations by Jon Mendelsohn in April - five months before he was appointed as Gordon Brown's chief fundraiser.

'I told him that I regularly donated to the party and I described how it was done through intermediaries for anonymity, to which he replied, "That sounds like a good idea".' Abrahams said more people in the party knew of the arrangement. 'Jon Mendelsohn was one of only a very few people who were aware of this method of making donations to the party.' Mendelsohn emphatically denied the claim. 'This latest statement is fictional and completely untrue,' he said.

Labour faces new pressure today as the Mail on Sunday reveals that its second biggest donor is not entitled to vote in general elections. Mahmoud Khayami, a French citizen, made his first donation of £500,000 on 2 May this year, the day after his name appeared on the electoral roll. As a European Union citizen Khayami can register on the roll - making his donations legal - to allow him to vote in European and local elections.

· An ICM poll today in the News of the World puts the Tories up one point on 41 per cent, Labour down five points on 30 per cent, and the Liberal Democrats up one point on 19 per cent.

    Donor row: more key ministers accused, O, 2.12.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,2220549,00.html

Q&A:

The Labour donations row

Friday November 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Haroon Siddique

What brought about the scandal over donations to the Labour party?

Since 2003 David Abrahams, a property developer in the north-east, has donated more than £600,000 to the Labour party through a series of intermediaries. He says he did this because he is "a very private person" and did not realise he was doing anything wrong.

Under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 the details of any donor making gifts through a third party must be declared and registered with the Electoral Commission - but this was not done in the case of Abrahams' donations.

Who did the donations go to?

Some of the cash was in the form of general donations to the Labour party but Abrahams also gave cash to two of the deputy leadership campaigns.

Abrahams' secretary Janet Kidd, acting on behalf of her boss, gave £5,000 to Harriet Harman to help pay her campaign debts.

Harman insists she acted in "good faith" and had no reason to believe that Kidd was not the original source of the cash. The deputy leader said she fulfilled party rules requiring her to check the integrity of her donors by identifying Kidd as a previous Labour donor and that she was on the electoral register.

Hilary Benn has revealed he rejected a gift from Kidd, after one of his campaign team, Baroness Jay, told him the money would come out of Abrahams' pocket. Abrahams subsequently donated £5,000 to Benn in his own name. Jay has not revealed whether she contacted anyone else about Abrahams' attempt to use an intermediary.

Who within the Labour Party knew that Abrahams had used conduits to donate cash?

So far two people have admitted knowing that Abrahams had used proxies to cover up the true source of donations. Peter Watt, the party's general secretary resigned on Monday after admitting he knew about the set-up. He claimed he did not know the practice was unlawful.

Labour's chief fundraiser Jon Mendelsohn, who was appointed in September, admitted on Wednesday that he had known about the secret donations for two months. He said he had raised concerns about the arrangement with Watt but the general secretary told him it was lawful.

Abrahams has released details of a letter he received from Mendelsohn six weeks ago requesting a meeting, which the property developer interpreted as an attempt to solicit more funds. But Mendelsohn claimed he wanted to meet Abrahams to tell him that his method of contribution was unacceptable.

Is Gordon Brown implicated in the scandal surrounding the secret donations?

The prime minister has said he knew nothing of the arrangements relating to Abrahams' donations. On Tuesday he revealed that his leadership campaign team had turned down £5,000 from Kidd because it was not their practice to accept money from people who were not known to them. But yesterday Harman, who has come under pressure for accepting a donation, revealed that former minister Chris Leslie, who was Brown's joint campaign manager at the time, had suggested she seek cash from Kidd - despite having himself rejected her money for the Brown campaign.

What is the prime minister doing to resolve the situation?

Brown announced on Tuesday that all of the "unlawful" donations would be returned. He also announced that Lord Whitty would carry out an investigation into the circumstances of the donations. Lord Harries and Lord McClusky will receive Whitty's findings. But the opposition have criticised the fact that they will then report to Harman, who is "at the heart of the investigation". Number 10 said yesterday it would cooperate fully with the police after they announced they were launching a criminal investigation into the donations.

    Q&A: The Labour donations row, G, 30.11.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,2219810,00.html

1.15pm GMT update

Funding chief knew of proxy donors

Wednesday November 28, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Louise Radnofsky and James Sturcke

Labour's embattled chief fundraiser has admitted that he knew that property developer David Abrahams was donating to the party through other people but said that he had written to Abrahams to set up a meeting to ask him to stop.

Jon Mendelsohn said in a statement that he had noticed the names of Janet Kidd, Raymond Ruddick and John McCarthy when researching gifts to the party, after he took up his job on September 3.

Kidd, Ruddick and McCarthy were three of the conduits who gave more than £600,000 on Abrahams' behalf, to help him avoid publicity.

In the statement, released just ahead of prime minister's questions, Mendelsohn said he was told by the Labour party general secretary, Peter Watt, that the arrangement was "long-standing" and fully compliant with the law.

Still, Mendelsohn said, he was "unhappy" with it and concerned it did not meet the "strict transparency test that I wished to see in place".

The prime minister said yesterday that the donations were "unlawfully declared" and "completely unacceptable".

Gordon Brown also said that the Labour party's former general secretary, Lord Whitty, would start an inquiry into the donations. The inquiry began today.

Mendelsohn said he had told Whitty that he "did not discuss this with the officers of the national executive committee or party leadership but I decided to tell Mr Abrahams that his method of contribution was unacceptable".

"I had no intention of asking Mr Abrahams for donations and wanted to give him the courtesy of explaining this personally."

He said he asked his assistant to write to Abrahams to arrange a personal meeting, giving a "general reason" because the pair had a "personal history of past disagreements".

Abrahams said he had received a letter yesterday from Mendelsohn thanking him for his "help and support over many years" and asking him for a meeting.

The letter was written on Saturday, the day before the Mail on Sunday broke the story but a day after the newspaper had contacted Abrahams about the claims.

Abrahams revealed today that he then alerted Labour about the planned publication.

Mendelsohn made no response in his statement to Conservative demands that he resign.

The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Mendelsohn should quit if he was aware that Labour was receiving donations through other people.

"If Jon Mendelsohn knew and was party to something that was unacceptable he should leave his post before the end of the day."

"After all, he is Gordon Brown's personal fundraiser," Osborne said.

Osborne said that yesterday Labour claimed that only Watt, who has since resigned as general secretary, knew that Abrahams had channelled funds to Labour through people such as Kidd, his secretary, and Ruddick, his builder.

Now it appeared that Lady Jay, Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, and possibly Mendelsohn also knew about the practice.

"It [who knew what] is all unravelling just as Gordon Brown's premiership is unravelling," Osborne said.

Abrahams has said that during Labour's deputy leadership contest earlier this year, he was approached by Jay to make a donation to Benn's campaign.

"I said, 'Is it going to be in the public domain?' She said, 'Yes, they've all got to be recorded.'

"I said I'd rather put it through my secretary's name and she accepted that," he told the BBC programme.

"But then she rang up a few weeks later saying, 'I've looked into the legal situation and that's not altogether possible and we're going to return the cheque.'

"I said that, in that case, I'll forward my own cheque to Hilary, which I subsequently did."

Abrahams complained that he had been "hounded and harassed" since the disclosures at the weekend about his proxy donations.

"I feel like a criminal and a serial murderer, not a serial philanthropist," he said.

Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader and party chairwoman, continued to face criticism for accepting £5,000 of Abrahams' money in a donation from Kidd made two weeks after the campaign closed.

Ms Harman yesterday repaid the money but questions continued to be asked about whether she fulfilled party rules requiring her to check the identity of her donors.

Her position worsened yesterday when Brown revealed that his campaign team had refused money from Kidd on the basis that she was not known to them.

It was Harman's husband, Labour party treasurer Jack Dromey, who triggered the cash-for-honours inquiry when he revealed he had been kept in the dark about loans from wealth individuals.

Today, the Conservatives demanded that Harman explain how the donation came to be made and whether she had actively solicited the money.

"If that is the case, then her position is extremely difficult," Osborne said.

The former cabinet enforcer Lord Cunningham said that all the deputy leadership campaign teams should have taken steps to make sure donations were properly vetted.

"Anyone sensible would have someone quite independent from themselves and their immediate office organising fundraising independently on their behalf," he said.

"They would, in my experience, appoint someone who would have the good sense to be absolutely sure of the sources of the money and its origins."

    Funding chief knew of proxy donors, G, 28.11.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,2218382,00.html

4.15pm GMT update

Brown has nothing new to offer,

says Cameron

Tuesday November 6, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Rosalind Ryan and agencies

David Cameron branded Gordon Brown's first Queen's speech as being full of "short-term tricks" and lacking in vision today, as the prime minister's plans received a mixed reaction from pressure groups and charities.

The Tory leader told the Commons during the debate on the speech in parliament that Mr Brown's agenda for government was "all short-term tricks instead of long-term problem solving" and had "nothing new to offer".

"It does not represent any real change. This prime minister knows how to talk about change, but he cannot deliver change," he said.

"When it comes to real substantive change, this prime minister is not capable of offering anything new.... People are beginning to wonder 'what's the point of this government? Just where is the vision for Britain?' This prime minister has nothing new to offer."

Mr Cameron said he approved of much of the legislation contained in the speech, particularly those bills he introduced in the first place, such as the climate change bill.

The Tory chief also insisted that the bill to extend the right to request flexible working was something his party had launched at their party conference earlier this year.

Mr Brown responded to the accusations of introducing short-term policies by pointing out that the climate change bill would set legally binding targets for climate emissions and it would make "the right long-term changes to prepare our country for the future".

Earlier, the acting Liberal Democrat leader, Vincent Cable, had also criticised the prime minister's agenda, accusing Mr Brown of "recycling" Lib Dem and Tory ideas.

The prime minister promised that his full programme for government would respond to "the rising aspirations" of the British people, but Mr Cable said the speech was unoriginal.

"The anticipation was acute - but the anticlimax is deafening. The legislative programme is firmly rooted in the Blair era. There is very little new. No ideas, no vision. Is this what we have been waiting for?" said Mr Cable prior to the official debate.

"Perhaps, lurking in this Queen's speech, is a genuinely big idea: a Conservative-Labour grand coalition of policies and ideas.

"The one-time editor of the Red Paper has penned a Queen's speech in the bluest ink. Across wide swathes of policy, his approach is indistinguishable from the Tories."

The government was accused by Help the Aged of neglecting older people, whose needs "barely registered a footnote" in the new legislative programme. The charity said it was "regrettable" that a single equality bill was not introduced to combat age discrimination.

The new bill to keep teenagers in school or training programmes until the age of 18 or risk fines up to £200 has run into opposition from children's campaigners and unions.

Clare Tickell, chief executive, NCH the children's charity, said: "There can be a variety of reasons why young people do not access training and education post 16 and any reforms must be tailored to meet young people's individual needs. However, introducing penalties will only risk further ostracising those these measures aim to help."

Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, added that there was no evidence that "using compulsion on young adults will work" and pointed out that the proposal was not included in the 2005 manifesto.

The housing and regeneration bill was welcomed by the National Housing Federation as "very sorely needed" and applauded by the Local Government Association, but the bill was labelled "bureaucracy" by the Countryside Alliance, which warned it could hold up the creation of new housing.

Responding to the climate change bill, environmental campaigners applauded the government's introduction of legally binding targets for emissions cuts, but said they still did not go far enough to protect the planet.

A report from the IPPR thinktank, the RSPB and WWF published yesterday claimed the 60% target by 2050 was inadequate and the country could achieve an 80% cut.

Tony Juniper, the director of Friends of the Earth, said: "The government must strengthen its proposed legislation if it is to be truly effective and deliver the scale of action that scientists are now calling for."

He called for targets to be set every year, instead of the five-year carbon budgets laid out in the bill, and to include emissions from aviation and shipping, which are not covered.

The new bill to streamline the planning system - hailed by the government as a way to provide speedier and more transparent decisions - has also been criticised by green groups.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England expressed concerns that the bill would cut the public out of the process of planning decisions and could help push through new airports, roads and power stations which would damage efforts to fight climate change.

In other moves, employers will be required to contribute to workers' pensions and employees are to have extended rights to request flexible working to look after children.

Age Concern gave the pension reform plans a 4.5 star rating, but said the health and social care bill, which will introduce the new social care regulator, "could do better".

Diana Holland, national officer at the Unite union, welcomed the moves to extend the right to request flexible working. "It is an important recognition that flexible working opportunities can make the difference to successfully combining work and family life, and therefore should be open to all workers," she said.

    Brown has nothing new to offer, says Cameron, G, 6.11.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/queensspeech2007/story/0,,2206205,00.html

Brown:

there will be no autumn election

Saturday October 6, 2007
Press Association
Guardian Unlimited

Prime Minister Gordon Brown set out his reasons for not calling an autumn election tonight - saying he wanted to be judged on "vision" not "competence" at dealing with crises.

The Prime Minister told the BBC: "I will not be calling an election, and let me say why.

"Over the summer months we have had to deal with crises - we have had to deal with foot and mouth, terrorism, floods, financial crises.

"And yes we could have had an election based on competence, and I hope people would have understood that we acted competently.

"But what I want to do is show people the vision that we have for the future of this country in housing and health and education and I want the chance, in the next phase of my premiership, to develop and show people the policies that are going to make a huge difference and show the change in the country itself."

The decision to abandon any thoughts of an autumn poll came after the latest opinion poll gave the Conservatives a big lead in key marginal seats.

It is bound to lead to charges that Mr Brown is running scared after Conservative leader David Cameron's speech to his party conference saw the Tories eat straight back into Labour's poll lead.

Tory leader David Cameron said it was a "humiliating retreat" for Mr Brown.

"The reason the Prime Minister has cancelled this election is because the Conservative Party is making the arguments about the changes this country needs and people are responding very positively to our proposals.

"The Prime Minister has shown great weakness and indecision and it is quite clear he has not been focused on running the country these last few months; he has been trying to spin his way into a general election campaign and now has had to make this humiliating retreat.

"The big disappointment for me - and I think for millions of people in this country - is that we are now going to have to wait possibly two years before we can get the real change we need in our country."

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: "The Prime Minister has belatedly put an end to the charade of last few weeks. He could have prevented needless speculation by making this announcement long before now. Gordon Brown has been acting in the interests of the Labour Party and not in the interests of the country."

The announcement came as a new opinion poll gave the Tories a six-point lead in the key marginal seats where they are battling Labour. The ICM survey of 83 constituencies for tomorrow's News of the World suggested the Tories would defeat 49 Labour MPs - including several ministers, among them Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

It put David Cameron's Conservatives on 44% and Labour on 38% and also found Labour voters were far less likely to turn out. The astonishing turnaround in poll fortunes would have seen Gordon Brown lose his majority altogether and be faced with a hung parliament if he had gone ahead with an autumn poll.

But today's move has surprised many in his party and among trade union officials who believed that a November 1 poll was a near certainty.

The country's biggest unions had been asked to bring forward next year's affiliation fees to help Labour fight an autumn election while a number of union press officers had been put on standby to help Labour's media drive in the run up to a poll.

    Brown: there will be no autumn election, NYT, 6.10.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2185312,00.html

Cameron ally sparks immigration row:

'We must listen to BNP voters'

Remarks by Conservative peer
on eve of party conference are labelled 'grotesque'

Brown calls 'council of war' to weigh up
whether to announce a snap election

Published: 30 September 2007
The Independent on Sunday
By Marie Woolf and Brian Brady

One of David Cameron's most trusted and senior political allies has plunged the party into a race row by claiming that people who vote for the far-right British National Party (BNP) have "some very legitimate views" on immigration and crime.

In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the shadow Minister for Community Cohesion, fuelled the already highly charged debate about immigration by arguing that it has been "out of control".

Lady Warsi, given a peerage by Mr Cameron so that she could join the Tory front bench, said that the "lack of control" over immigration was making people feel "uneasy". She added that the "face" of some communities was changing overnight because of the sudden influx of people from abroad, adding that "the pace of change unsettles communities".

The Muslim peer's comments, made as the Conservative Party kicks off a crucial party conference in Blackpool, will be interpreted as the clearest signal yet that key figures in the party want Mr Cameron to move to the right and return to what they see as core values.

Mr Cameron's problems were deepened today by a new poll that shows him trailing on nearly every indicator. The Observer survey found 70 per cent of voters wanted an election before next spring – and 41 per cent would vote Labour, compared to 34 per cent supporting the Tories.

Lady Warsi's remarks will expose Tory divisions and shatter attempts by Mr Cameron to shake off its "nasty party" image. Lady Warsi risks infuriating the party leadership by saying the BNP is filling a political vacuum left by the main parties. She criticised the BNP's "race agenda", but said the party's supporters had valid concerns about immigration.

"There are a lot of people out there who are voting for the British National Party and it's those people that we mustn't just write off and say 'well, we won't bother because they are voting BNP or we won't engage with them'. They have some very legitimate views – people who say 'we are concerned about crime and justice in our communities, we are concerned about immigration in our communities'," she said.

Her words were condemned by anti-racist groups who accused her of using "BNP language" and pandering to a far-right agenda. Operation Black Vote (OBV), for which she used to work, said giving credence to the views of BNP supporters was wrong.

"Pandering to racist views peddled by the BNP and bought by BNP voters is grotesque," said Simon Woolley of OBV. "This country would collapse if it wasn't for migrant workers."

Her intervention came as the momentum for a snap general election grew and as Gordon Brown today prepared to review private polling evidence to decide whether to go to the country. Leading Brown allies are expected to attend the council of war. Labour insiders last night insisted no decisions would be taken until a similar meeting next weekend, following the Tory conference.

Mr Brown is believed to have cooled on a 25 October election – partly because it would have to be declared on Tuesday, the day before Mr Cameron's keynote speech to conference. Activists now believe a 1 November election would be more likely.

In the face of polls showing the Conservatives trailing Labour by 11 points, Mr Cameron is expected to face fresh pressure this week to return to core Tory values on tax and crime.

Baroness Warsi suggested that the rapid influx of migrants was threatening community cohesion, changing the face of estates "overnight" and unsettling people who live in Britain.

"Immigration has been out of control. We don't have any idea how many people are here who are unaccounted for, and it's that lack of control and not knowing that makes people feel uneasy – not the fact that somebody of a different colour or a different religion or a different origin is coming into our country – the fact that it is actually not controlled," she said. "The control of immigration impacts upon a cohesive Britain. The pace of change unsettles communities."

With general election talk expected to overshadow the Blackpool conference, the Tory leader said this would be the week that the "Conservative Party fights back and sets out a clear vision for our country".

The Conservatives have intensified campaigning in 75 marginal seats that must be won if the party is to remove Labour from office. The seats include more than 40 held by Labour with tiny majorities and, significantly, a series of Tory-held marginals deemed vulnerable if the current "Brown bounce" is maintained at an early general election.

Cameron ally sparks immigration row: 'We must listen to BNP voters' , IoS, 30.9.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3013142.ece