… perhaps we should have called in election back in autumn 2007, says Jack Straw.

Asked whether the party should have taken a gamble in autumn 2007, Mr Straw told the New Statesman: “Yes, entirely, in hindsight”.
He added: “But I was not saying that [then]. Whether to call an election became an issue only at the time of the [Labour] conference.
“By that stage, Gordon had said he was there for the rest of the parliament.
“There was also something practical: if the election had been called then it would have taken place …

Jack Straw’s new proposals for continuing to reform of the House of Lords (just a decade after starting it!) bear an extremely marked similarity to those I have made on this very blog – as far back as 2006!
The difference is that I am far more certain of what we actually need to do. We must rescue British democracy, and the best way to do that is to reform the Lords to make it democratic and effective – rather than neither, as it is now.
 
Elected Lords
We should, as Straw says, …

What’s the point when no action is ever taken? Both Jack Straw and Peter Hain have been “cleared”, despite obviously breaking the rules by declaring donations extremely late.
Jack Straw declared a £3,000 donation four years late, yet the Electoral Commission said that it would not be “appropriate nor proportionate” to take further action, which is plainly ridiculous since Straw has blatantly breached the rules. He should be required to forfeit the money he was given.
Peter Hain was not charged over the late declaration of £103,000 – not an easy amount …

How much does the Labour Party hate us? One hell of a lot if they can even consider making Harriet Harman leader!
She’s the worst possible alternative to Gordon Brown. Despite being English and middle-class, in alternative to Brown’s dour Scottishness, she is more likely than anyone to alienate the inhabitants of Middle England that Labour needs to attract/hold on to in order to stay in government.
The only real, logical, alternative to Brown as Prime Minister is Jack Straw. David Miliband is simply not stupid enough to want it right now. …

One in five of all FOI requests are turned down. 20%! 7,000 FOI requests turned down point blank.
And only 63% were classed as fully “resolvable”. So the other 17% must have been regarded as only partly answerable, for whatever reason. Knowing this government, probably because they just didn’t have a clue what the answer was.
Freedom of information – the concept, ignoring the Act – should mean that anything that is not cost prohibitive to fund out or top secret should be released if requested. And this release should be as …

Jack Straw is right that the current crises do not constitute Labour’s Black Wednesday. It has not reached the position whereby it is as bad in reality or perception as Wednesday 16 September 1992.
Yet.
This is not New Labour’s Black Wednesday nor their Winter of Discontent. It has not yet reached that level. But it certainly is not all that far off it. If this current issue over the posting of sensitive information of CDs carries on and the Northern Rock fiasco continues, it could very easily develop into it.
As much …

Justice Secretary Jack Straw says that
The justice system must not only work on the side of people who do the right thing as good citizens but also be seen to work on their side.
Yes, it should. And he is right to say that
Enforcing the law, securing justice, is not just a matter for ‘them’ — the courts, the prisons, the probation service, the police; but for all of us.
But why then didn’t he do anything about it in the four years [1997-2001] in which he was Home Secretary? After all, …