Frank's Westminster Blog

David Aaronovitch's fury that erupted in The Times on Tuesday was doubly distressing. First, it was just riddled with factual errors some of which I tried to deal with in the letter which The Times published yesterday. But, secondly, it was also unfair as well as being so inaccurate. Balanced Migration is not a front for me as Aaronovitch claims. Our genesis is as follows. I had noticed in our debates in the Commons that Nicholas Soames was the brave lone spirit raising questions about...

Open Primaries will change how voters view general elections. My guess is that open primaries will only operate in safe seats. In the couple of hundred seats that will very rarely change hands voters will want a direct say in selecting the candidate who will carry the colours of the certain winner. The practice I guess will be different in marginal seats. Here closed primaries will operate with only party members choosing the candidate. The electorate then will decide which of the party

Soon after I joined the Child Poverty Action Group in 1969 I began preparing our pre-budget report. When completed it went under the title The Poor Get Poorer Under Labour. The Wilson Government took very little notice of us deriding our claims by asserting that nobody in the country would believe our findings In the run up to the 1970 election Peter Townsend, CPAG's chair and I lobbied Iain McCleod the Shadow Chancellor to respond to our Poor Get Poorer Under Labour McCleod pledged to...

A new group, Open Up, is calling for all MPs to submit themselves to an open primary before the next election. This is the one move, the campaign claims, that would do more than any other to purge the political system of the expenses scandal. All campaigns overplay their hand. Open Up is no exception. A renewal of our political system will take more than open primaries. But the campaign's message is a thoroughly good one and would begin the long process of reform. How can it be...