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Shadow cabinet Yorkshire mafia now nine

Michael Crick | 16:35 UK time, Friday, 8 October 2010

Further to my observation last night that eight Yorkshire MPs will be sitting in the shadow cabinet, we now learn that Jon Trickett, who was Gordon Brown's PPS, will also be sitting at the shadow cabinet table.

He is likely to play a big role in the Ed Miliband entourage. He sits as MP for yet another Yorkshire seat in the Leeds-Sheffield-Doncaster triangle, Hemsworth.

So the shadow cabinet is now dominated by a band of nine Yorkshire seats, all contiguous with each other, stretching from Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) in the north to Don Valley (Caroline Flint) in the south east.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    we know what the 'Doncaster model' leads to?

  • Comment number 2.

    Five hours after I pointed the mistakes on Page 105 of Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Ceefax News
    they are still suggesting the Labour Anne Mckechin MP "was voted in as
    Secretary of State for Scotland" (sic). Somebody needs to tell whoever
    runs Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Ceefax News that Labour lost the General Election. Secretary
    of State for Scotland is now a Liberal-Democrat called Michael Moore!

    As this is further evidence of London contempt for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (earlier in the day Wales and Scotland were also being
    told that Peter Hain and Sean Woodward were their Secretaries of State!)
    I sincerely hope that heads will now roll starting with the Head of Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú
    Ceefax News. Tell Mark Thompson and Chief Operating Officer my old mate Caroline Thomson that this kind of reporting amateurism is just not on!

  • Comment number 3.

    I haven't watched the programme for some time but was wondering if you ever think it might be worthwhile to point out the 'gilded youth' nature of most of this shadow cabinet. Most of them are Labour aristocracy -Cooper the daughter of leading trades unionist,the Miliband dad thing etc and now I see that Will Straw is some kind of commentator ( daddy being Jack)Does it never occur to your team that who you were born seems to mean position and power in the Labour Party just as much as in the Conservatives-actually maybe more as the Tories are always scrutinised about this?

  • Comment number 4.

    The Prime Minister's speech was, imho, pretty derisory of the devolved SNP Scottish assembly, in particular in his overt criticism of the decision to release the 'No chemo for me unless you let me go home' Megrahi.

    Perhaps the Conservatives have rightly identified Scotland as the permanent obstacle standing in the way of them ever gaining an overall parliamentary majority and might even be trying to goad them into leaving the union. What might also be possible is that Labour, given the huge boost the SNP are already manufacturing for themselves by hypnotising their gullible flock into believing the 'cuts' are unnecessary and are unfair on Scots, are already creating a Labour movement where Yorkshire is the new Scotland!

    As a Scot myself I am shocked by the degree to which Anglophobia is rife, and seemingly socially acceptable across all tiers of society in New Labour devolved Scotland. I hate to say it but there's a part of me that is kind of hoping as Bruin himself hinted that Scotland will become the new Iceland!

  • Comment number 5.

    Trout Mask, I think the comment was not directly aimed at Scotland per say, I think it is generally accepted that such a major move as returning Megrahi could not have been made without a "nod" from Downing Street.
    I think anglophobia is wrong as you say, but I wonder if it is, or was being fostered by new labour as more of a "tory phobia", new labour being mainly Scottish in make up.

  • Comment number 6.

    5.
    I think the attitude of a good many Scots towards the English was around long before New Labour, or even the SNP. I can remember it when I was at school in the sixties. As with the abbreviated form of Pakistani the word English is usually preceded by a swear word, as was indeed the case when my English wife was addressed by a doctor at a party almost exclusively made up of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals!

    However you are right to say that it is being tolerated by the SNP and directed at the present UK government by Labour in the form of the incitement of Toryphobia which, along with the their attempt to exploit class divisions, was such an important part of Labour's base tactics in the last election.

    PS Some woman from one of the public services unions was saying that there was nothing wrong with the NHS pension fund which she said currently holds £2 billion. Of course the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú News 24 interviewer let it pass without pointing out to her and the viewers that as Europe's largest employer the NHS employs over a million people! I don't think a pension pot with less than £2000 per employee is very healthy, do you?

  • Comment number 7.

    'Of course the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú News 24 interviewer let it pass without pointing out to her and the viewers...,

    Might I borrow that as a template for a review of about any 'report' or 'interview' conducted by our national broadcaster market rate teleprompter readers?

    I don't think 'pointing out' logical fallacies to those very special 'guests' we get treated to is part of the whole genetic make up Ms. Boaden does so adore.

    /blogs/theeditors/2010/09/impartiality_is_in_our_genes.html

  • Comment number 8.

    I was driving up to Scotland today to visit with my mother when the Sunday Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Radio 4 lunchtime broadcast came on. Cuts hysteria is rife now among the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Labour and TUC alliance so when the matter of the university fees vs. graduate taxes issues came up, yes a Labour spokesman was allowed to express his concerns freely and at length and then, while we waited for the coalition spokesman or woman to come on to respond, go on, take a wild guess at what happened next. Yes! Of course, they moved on to a new, reassuringly trivial subject. Political neutrality - you must be joking! This happened again and again during the last election campaign.

    The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú/Labour/TUC Alliance, on this same programme, went on to enthusiastially anticipate the first opportunity the TUC's chosen stooge to lead the Labour party would have to bring down the coalition over the matter of university fees vs. a tax on graduates.

    All I would say, because my total disillusionment of Alistair Darling's 'I vetoed the Barclay's take-over of Lehman's', thus costing me personally over one hundred thousand pounds, is that if the electorate want an early coalition busting election that will mean the government, which is borrowing from donor states like China, one pound for every four the government spends, to increase their interest rates on their loans such that five pounds for every pound spent by the government on paying people to be completely non-contributary to anything other than the black economy are wasted, then vote Labour!!



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